Archives for the month of: October, 2018
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Two NOLA Charter Schools Closed Due to Low Scores, Low Enrollment

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2018 //
8

Two New Orleans charters, both from the Algiers charter chain, are closing. Read the article to see what is happening to the students. They are moved around like pieces on a giant checker board.

A few months ago, the Education Research Alliance of Tulane University published a report about the success of the New Orleans charter model (Formula: get a natural disaster to wipe out high-poverty neighborhoods and many schools, reduce enrollment by 1/3, change the overall demographics, fire all the teachers and bring in TFA, eliminate the union, replace public schools with private charters, open selective charters for the “best” kids, segregate the poorest black kids, put the structure under an uncritical State board elected with help from out-of-State billionaires, and VOILA! A school miracle!).

But not quite.

Bruce Baker pointed out that the ERA’s glowing report about the privatization of NOLA ignored the significant addition of new funding and the reduction of concentrated poverty after Hurricane Katrina, which together might have accounted for any gains.

Mercedes Schneider analyzed the NOLA data and found that New Orleans has the state’s highest performing schools (selective admissions) and the state’s lowest performing schools. Forty percent (40%) of the charters in the New Orleans district are failing schools, rated as D or F by the state. This latter group enrolls high numbers of poor and black students.

Not a model for the nation, if you care about equity.

According to the data in Mercedes Schneider’s report, the two schools that are closing have 670 students. Only two are white. More than 95% of the students in these schools are poor.

From the article about the closure of the two charters:

Two charter schools located in Algiers are set to close next June after failing to meet the standards required for charter renewal. The Algiers Charter Schools Association announced it will close William J. Fischer Accelerated Academy and McDonogh No. 32 Literacy Charter School in 2019.

In addition, McDonogh No. 32 students will relocate to the Fischer campus on Wednesday (Oct. 24) when the Algiers Charter network returns from fall break. School leaders decided to house both schools in the campus at 1801 L.B. Landry Avenue for the remainder of the school year because of low enrollment at both schools.

In an Oct. 5 letter to parents, Algiers Charter Interim CEO Stuart Gay said the changes are part of an effort “to stabilize our classrooms through the 2018-2019 school year and to ensure the best academic year possible for our students.”

Though the two schools will be under the same roof, students will keep their respective uniforms and the schools will operate individually, each with their own principals, according to relocation details provided by the charter network on its website. McDonogh No. 32 Pre-K, kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms will be located on the first floor of the Fischer building. All other McDonogh classrooms will be located on the second floor.

Additionally, all McDonogh No. 32 students who are currently in 8th grade will receive a McDonogh diploma. Students grades K-7 from McDonogh No. 32 and Fischer will receive “closing school priority” in OneApp, the city’s centralized enrollment system, for next school year. That means Fischer and McDonogh No. 32 students will be first in line when schools start filling seats for the 2019-20 school year, even ahead of other priority students like those with siblings already enrolled or who live close to a school. That priority is only given to students exiting closing schools.

The academy was one of four schools in the city that serves students expelled from other schools.

Tammi Griffin-Major, Algiers Charter’s chief of staff, declined to comment Tuesday morning on the changes and planned closures.

Financial audits from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office show Algiers Charter Schools Association had $45.3 million in revenue last year. Its expenses were more than $44.9 million. The network currently operates four schools — Fischer, McDonogh No. 32, Martin Behrman Charter School and L.B Landry-O.P. Walker College and Career Preparatory High School.

Miracle? Not for these children.

Categories Charter Schools, Failure, New Orleans

Tom Ultican: Who Should Be the Next Leader of California Schools? A Banker or a Social Worker?

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2018 //
12

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics in California, here describes the billionaires and bad policies behind Marshall Tuck’s campaign for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

He sees the Tuck campaign as a new front in the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” which he has written about extensively.

Here are some of the Big Money contributors to Tuck’s campaign:

The Waltons control Walmart and have been spending heavily to privatize public schools for more than three decades.

Bill Bloomfield is a rich guy from LA who has also poured $7,000,000 into independent expenditures for Tuck.

The Rogers family is the main local force behind the privatization of Oakland’s school system.

Doris Fisher founded The Gap with her husband Don. They have spent extensively promoting charter schools and were the first significant benefactors for the KIPP franchise.

Eli Broad is the only person to found two fortune 500 companies. He announced plans to charterize half of Los Angeles’s schools and published a guide for closing public schools.

John Scully was the former CEO of Apple and consistently supports school privatization.

David Horowitz is a Republican activist who gained notoriety for his anti-affirmative action campaign.

Arthur Rock is Silicon Valley royalty who spends lavishly to support school privatization.

Peter Chernin was COO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. He is also a movie producer of some note.

Reed Hastings is possibly the most dedicated destroy public education billionaire. He sat on the board of the California Charter Schools Association for many years.

Richard Riordan is the billionaire former Mayor of Los Angeles who spends millions on public school privatization.

John Arnold is the ex-Enron executive who did not go to jail. He and Reed Hastings have each invested $100 million in a new national school privatizing organization called The City Fund.

Jonathan Sackler is the heir to the billionaire inventors of Oxycontin. Besides selling addictive drugs, Jonathan invests in the privatization of America’s schools.

Les Biller is a former CEO of Wells Fargo bank. He and his wife have a foundation in Seattle, Washington where they give heavily to charter schools.

Julian Robertson Jr. is a hedge fund manager in Chicago who thinks California really needs Marshal Tuck.

Stacy Schusterman is an energy industry heir from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has been particularly active in California school board elections.

Michael Bloomberg is the billionaire former New York mayor who spawned Joel Klein, Eva Moskowitz and Michelle Rhee. He spends heavily on California school board elections.

The big money is not in direct contributions like those listed above. It is in the money for independent expenditure committees that do not have contribution limits. For example, the Ed Voice for the Kids Pac has already reported spending over $13,000,000 in support of Tuck (Id 1243091). There are many more of these PACs spending money to elect Tuck such as Education Reform Now Advocacy for Tuck and Charter Public Schools Political Action Committee.

Ultican contrasts the two candidates:

Tony Thurmond was born in Monterey, California. His father was stationed at the Fort Ord Army base. Tony’s father abandoned his family of four children. Thurmond’s Panamanian immigrant mother became a school teacher and moved the family to San Jose.

Tragedy struck six-years-old Tony when his mother died of cancer. Tony and a brother moved to Philadelphia where they were raised by a cousin.

After graduating from high school in Philadelphia, Tony matriculated to Temple University where he was elected student body president and received a BA in psychology. He attended graduate school at Bryn Mawr earning a dual masters in Law and Social Policy and Social work.

The most disgusting statement in the San Diego Union editorial read, “In his interview with us, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, who finished second to Tuck in the June primary, seemed just as affable but not nearly as ambitious as Tuck.” In case that was too subtle; Tony is a black man.

After rising above his traumatic childhood and becoming educated, Tony married and returned to California in 1998. For the 20 years preceding his election to the California State Assembly, Thurmond served in various positions at non-profit social service agencies. Tony says it was his public school education that helped him become at 20-year social worker and serve on a school board, a city council and now the California State Assembly.

Tony has two daughters in public school.

Marshall Tuck received an MBA from Harvard University in 2000 and a BA in Political Science from University of California Los Angeles in 1995. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and has a wife and son.

He spent some time as a consultant at Mitt Romney’s Bain & Co. He was an investment analyst at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. He moved to Los Angeles to work at Salomon Brothers as an investment banker focused on both mergers and acquisitions. After a brief stint in sales for a Software company, in 2002, Tuck was hired by Green Dot Charter Schools as Chief Operating Officer.

In 2007, Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa had been rebuffed in his efforts to take control of Los Angeles Unified School District. He did convince a few donors to underwrite the takeover of a small number of schools in areas which had suffered years of poor standardized test results. They created a non-profit called Partnership for LA and Villaraigosa tapped Marshall Tuck to lead the Partnership.

Tuck had by then become the CEO of Green Dot. The year he left for the Partnership, Green Dot schools posted nine of the fifty lowest SAT scores among Los Angeles schools.

Tuck was extremely unpopular at the Partnership. The Sacramento Bee reported, “Teachers passed a vote of no confidence at nine of the schools at the end of the first year, leading to independent mediation.” An online education news paper in Los Angeles, School Matters, reported, “Many of us hoped that when right-wing business banker Marshall Tuck was ignominiously forced to step down as the ‘CEO’ of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS), that we might have heard the last of Tuck altogether.”

Tuck’s authoritarianism and lack of education background has led to serial failures, however, those forces trying to privatize California’s public schools find his style to their liking.

In 2014, when Tuck lost the most expensive SPI race in California’s history, his allies were there to take care of him. Even though he has no training as an educator, he was made Educator-in-Residence at the New Teacher Center (NTC). Bill Gates has granted NTC $26,305,252 since 2009.

This Contest is Very Important If You Value American Democracy

Marshall Tuck is the representative of the Destroy Public Education billionaires who are spending massive amounts of money to get him elected. It is widely understood that elected school boards are the soil from which American democratic government rejuvenates itself. Dark “DPE” forces are undermining democracy in this country by destroying the people’s 200-years-old public education system. They must be stopped.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

No, President Trump, the N.Y. Stock Exchange Did Not Open the Day After 9/11

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
12

Glenn Kessler, the official Fact-Checker for the Washington Post, wrote this.

ANALYSIS

“I remember when we had the attack in Manhattan, we opened the stock exchange the next day. People were shocked.”

— President Trump, remarks at National FFA Organization Convention, Indianapolis, Saturday

“With what happened early today, that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh, I was saying maybe I should cancel both this and that. And then I said to myself, I remembered Dick Russell, a friend of mine, great guy, he headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11th, and the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day. He said — and what they had to do to open it you wouldn’t believe, we won’t even talk to you about it. But he got that exchange open. We can’t make these sick, demented, evil people important.”

— Trump, remarks at a campaign rally in Murphysboro, Ill., Saturday

“Remember the teams, the Yankees, George Steinbrenner. He said we have got to play, even if nobody comes, nobody shows up, we have got to play.”

— Trump, a few minutes later

Memories are fallible, even for presidents. This is why they are supposed to have staffs who help make sure they stick to the facts and, if they get it wrong, make sure that the misstatements are corrected.

President Trump is not an ordinary president, and apparently he does not have a typical staff. So, in an effort to justify holding a campaign rally after 11 people at a synagogue were gunned down in Pittsburgh, the president twice referenced an event that did not happen.

This will be a very short fact check.

The Facts

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, struck at the heart of New York’s financial district, destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Is it possible that the New York Stock Exchange, located just blocks away, quickly reopened the next day?

No.

The NYSE and even the over-the-counter Nasdaq exchange never opened for trading the morning of the attacks and were closed until Sept. 17 — the longest shutdown since 1933. Other stock markets around the world were closed as well. It’s easy to figure this out using Google. There’s even a whole Wikipedia page.

The market plunged 7 percent that day, but the fact that things went smoothly was hailed as an achievement.

Just two years ago, the Wall Street Journal celebrated the reopening on its 15th anniversary with the headline: “9/17/01: Wall Street’s Proudest Day. A Look Back on the Reopening.”

“The reopening had both financial and psychological significance for the country,” the WSJ said. “In fact, it was Wall Street’s proudest day. The 9/11 attacks in New York were just blocks from the New York Stock Exchange, and getting the markets to reopen was a round-the-clock effort, even as workers grieved for those who died. The market closure itself was the longest in nearly 70 years, and it was certain that there would be heavy trading and a stock drop when trading resumed.”

While Trump remembered “Dick Russell, a friend of mine, great guy,” as reopening the exchange, it was actually Dick Grasso, at the time chief executive of the NYSE. Grasso appeared on Fox News just a few weeks ago, on Sept. 11, to recall the reopening. Dick Russell was a senator from Georgia, known as a fierce defender of segregation.

Trump also implied that baseball did not pause for the attacks but started playing games as soon as possible. But the games were canceled that night — and then for the rest of the week. Professional baseball also did not start up again until six days later, on Sept. 17. The whole baseball season was pushed back a week.

We asked the White House for an explanation but did not get a response.

The Pinocchio Test

There are many reasons the president might have wanted to have continued with a campaign rally. But conjuring up a phony story about the stock exchanges and baseball after the Sept. 11 attacks is not a valid one. We can possibly understand one mistake, but not that it was repeated hours later. Is there no one on his staff who will dare tell him that his memory is faulty?

Four Pinocchios

Glenn Kessler has reported on domestic and foreign policy for more than three decades. Send him statements to fact check by emailing him, tweeting at him, or sending him a message on Facebook.

Democracy Dies in Darkness
© 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Categories Education Reform

The Fascist Underbelly of the United States

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
26

The man who was arrested for the slaughter in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh had a verified social media account on Gab, a favorite platform for followers of the Alt-Right whose views are not allowed on Twitter and Facebook.

Reading about Gab on Wikipedia sent me to an entry called “Fourteen Words.”

Reading that entry made me feel that I had fallen into a rabbit-hole of fascism.

Fourteen Words, 14, or 14/88, is a reference to slogans coined by white supremacist David Lane,[1] a founding member of the terrorist organization The Order.[2] The terms were coined while he was serving a 190-year sentence in federal prison for his role in violating the civil rights of Jewish talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered in June 1984.[3] The slogans were publicized through now-defunct 14 Word Press, founded in 1995 by Lane’s wife to disseminate her husband’s writings.[4][5]

Lane also used the phrasing in other pamphlets including the “14 points” of his White Genocide Manifesto and further in his 88 Precepts essay, stressing his support for racial and ethnic religions, opposition to universal religions (such as Christianity), his opposition to miscegenation, his anti-Americanism,[5] and support for racial separatism.[2][6][7] Many of his concepts, ideology and values, particularly the Fourteen Words slogan, are either inspired by or derived from Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical book Mein Kampf.[8]

The terms were later adopted by white supremacists[2] and neo-Nazis,[2] white nationalists and identitarians, members of the far-right and alt-right, the most widely used variation being:

We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.[9][10][11][12]

Another less commonly used variation is:

Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth.[13]

It is sometimes combined with 88, as in “14/88” or “1488” with the 8s representing the eighth letter of the alphabet (H), with “HH” standing for “Heil Hitler,”[12] or simply as a reference to Lane’s 88 Precepts,[14] which when combined with “14” refer to Lane’s white supremacist neo-Pagan religion, Wotanism.[15]

In 2018, although dismissed by the US government as a coincidence,[16] the Trump administration’s United States Department of Homeland Security were accused of referencing both “88” in a document,[17] and the Fourteen Words by creating a similar fourteen-worded title,[18] starting with the same first three words (“We must secure”), in relation to illegal immigration and border control:

We Must Secure The Border And Build The Wall To Make America Safe Again.[19]

The slogan has been used in acts of white supremacist terrorism and violence.[2] It was central to the symbolism of 2008’s Barack Obama assassination plot,[20] which intended to kill 88 African Americans, including future President Barack Obama (at that time the Democratic Party nominee), 14 of whom were to be beheaded.[21][22] Skinhead Curtis Allgier notably tattooed the words on to his body after his murder of corrections officer Stephen Anderson,[23] and Dylan Roof’s race war-inspired Charleston church shooting was influenced by the slogan.

Categories Fascism

Steven Singer: The Synagogue Massacre Targeted a Diverse Community, Whose Love Will Conquer Hate

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
27

Steven Singer knows the synagogue and community where an anti-Semitic zealot slaughtered innocent worshippers.

It’s a community that welcomes diversity.

He writes:

I know this community.

I am an extended part of it.

And that’s something of which I am proud.

Just walk along Murray Avenue and you’ll see Indian, Italian, Jewish, African, Chinese – every nationality imaginable – offering the fruits of their culture for friendly commerce.

You’ll see Hasidic Jews in dark hats and flowing tzitzit walking next to women in colorful saris next to trans and lesbians, kids with every color skin playing together in harmony.

Whenever I want a good corned beef sandwich or a quality lox and bagel, I go there. Whenever I want a spicy curry or the freshest sushi or an authentic macaroon, that’s the place. If I want to hear a string quartet or a lecture from a visiting dignitary or even if I want to swim in a public pool, membership to the Jewish Community Center is open to all.

It’s like a few blocks of cosmopolitan life tucked away in a city more known for segregation. We have many ethnic neighborhoods but few where one culture flows so easily into another.

Heck. Even the Tree of Life Synagogue, itself, doesn’t serve one congregation. It serves three who all had services going on at different parts of the building this morning.

There’s just something very special about this place.

It’s where you can go to be yourself – in fact, you’re encouraged to be who you are and not conform to any particular norm. Yet in doing so, you’re somehow demonstrating unity.

A hater arrived to kill.

President Trump says we shouldn’t blame lax gun laws. President Trump says the synagogue should have had armed guards.

Is this the new normal?

Singer thinks Squirrel Hill should be our new normal.

I wish America was more like Squirrel Hill and not the other way around.

If this community’s normal was our national ideal, think of the country we would be living in!

Vote. Vote out the NRA puppets who want to arm everyone and turn our nation into an armed camp, filled with haters.

Vote.

Categories Guns, Love

Education Week: Bias or Bad Reporting?

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
34

Education Week posted an article by Madeline Will reporting that the National Education Association had lost 17,000 members since the Janus decision. The NEA has more than 3 million members. It had already reported that it immediately lost 88,000 members who were paying “agency fees,” paying dues reluctantly while collecting benefits negotiated by the union. The NEA has projected a possible loss of up to 300,000 members and planning to cut its budget.

Where does the report come from about the recent loss of 17,000 members? The 74, an anti-union, pro-privatization website funded by billionaires and founded by anti-union Campbell Brown. What was the source of The 74 report? Mike Antonucci, a writer who specializes in spying on unions and sending out any bad news he can find. Antonucci is probably the most virulently anti-union reporter in the nation. He calls his website the “education intelligence agency.” He won an award from the National Right to Work Committee in 2004. He writes for The 74 and also for the rightwing Center for Education Reform. Both organizations are allies of Betsy DeVos.

Wouldn’t you think that a responsible journalist would identify the biases of her sources? Might she at least identify them as “anti-union,” which is an accurate description?

Meanwhile, the Janus decision will allow non-dues-paying members to enjoy the benefits negotiated for them by the union to which they do not pay dues. They are called “free riders.”

Categories Media, Unions

Phyllis Bush: We Made Her Blush

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
4

Phyllis Bush continues her fight to defeat cancer by writing about it with humor and fearlessness. In the end, we all check out of this life but Phyllis demonstrates how to do it in style.

https://qbg1.blogspot.com/2018/10/side-effects-gift-that-keeps-on-giving.html

In her latest post, she updates the state of the battle and shares her reaction to a standing ovation at the NPE conference, where the first Annual Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Activism was snnounced. For one brief moment, surrounded by family and friends who love her, she was speechless.

But not for long!

Categories Education Reform

The Network for Public Education Action Fund Endorses Liz Watson for Congress in Indiana

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
0

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is pleased to endorse Liz Watson for Congress in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District.

The Network for Public Education Action has endorsed Liz Watson in the general election for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District seat in the United States House of Representatives.

One of Liz’s highest priorities and a centerpiece of her platform is fully supporting our public schools. The Indiana Coalition for Public Education—Monroe County was one of the first groups Liz met with when she began her campaign – and she has been a partner since then. Liz believes that teachers should be paid a professional, living wage that keeps up with inflation and is commensurate with their experience and education level.

According to Liz, “When taxpayer dollars are diverted to private schools through vouchers, this weakens our public schools. While vouchers have been billed as a means for students to leave so-called ‘failing schools’ for private ones, only a tiny proportion of voucher users are leaving schools that the state calls failing. More than half of vouchers are going to students who have been in private schools their entire lives. Using public funds to pay the private school tuition of students from higher-income families, while leaving children from low-income families struggling to make do with less, hurts our schools, our kids, and our future.

She continues, “Charter schools are a slippery slope into a two-tiered system of education. That’s why, as a policy matter, I oppose any further expansion of charter schools. Charter schools have been a failed experiment, because they are largely unaccountable and lack transparency. While they were intended to be hubs of innovation that would bring new ideas back to public schools, this has not happened on a consistent basis, and has not been the end result.”

Liz Watson is running against Trey Hollingsworth who is in his first term and is primarily funded through large donations from outside Indiana and who has been unresponsive on education issues. The 9th Congressional district is a gerrymandered district that runs from central Indiana to the Kentucky border.

Please do what you can this November 6 to send this committed, engaged public education advocate to Washington D.C. to fight for all of Indiana’s children.

Categories Indiana, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

NPE Action Endorses Mark Pocan (Wisconsin) for Congress

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
1

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is pleased to endorse Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin for re-election to Congress.

The Network for Public Education Action is proud to announce its endorsement of Mark Pocan for Congress, representing the 2nd Congressional District of Wisconsin.

NPE Action ​Executive Director, Carol Burris, had the following to say, “Mark Pocan is a true friend of public education. He is a staunch opponent of vouchers and critic of the lack of accountability and corruption in the charter sector. During this year’s budget hearings, he pressed Betsy DeVos​ on how she would ensure accountability in the charter sector. In response to her appointment, he began the House Public Education Caucus.”

Mark Pocan understands that public education is the pillar of our democracy. He wants to “modernize our classrooms, reduce class sizes, enhance special education programs, provide students with access to affordable higher education opportunities, and ensure America has the best-trained and most qualified teachers.”

He also seeks to make Pre-K education more accessible for all children. He introduced the Student Loan Refinance Bill to help college graduates pay off their debt.

For all of these reasons and more, we give Mark Pocan our strongest endorsement.

Categories Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

Hatred Breeds Hatred

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
53

Is this America?

Pipe bombs directed at the leaders of a major political party. Today, a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and multiple fatalities. Neo-Nazis and white nationalists marching in public and beating up protesters. Efforts to suppress the votes of blacks and Hispanics in multiple states. Transgender people stripped of their rights. Mobs chanting “Lock her up” at presidential rallies, referring to the candidate who lost the last election. Attacks on freedom of the press. Bombs for the media. On and on the hatred goes, rolling from group to group, growing in intensity.

Guns everywhere. Military-style weapons freely available at gun shows and on the Internet. A powerful lobby controlling the votes of elected officials, who protect the right of gun-sellers to traffic in guns without any limits.

Racism. Misogyny. Homophobia. Xenophobia. Anti-Semitism. These are not new phenomena in American history. Until now, government and the law and the mainstream media actively opposed bigotry and hate crimes, and public schools taught tolerance, anti-racism, understanding.

Hatred knows no bounds. It invites and unleashes more hatred.

Where is the poison coming from?

Who cleared the way for this toxic effluence?

Why now?

Categories Bigotry, Evil
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