A report from Utah documents wasteful spending by charters schools on advertising and marketing.
Whatever happened to those famousbut phony wait lists?
Of course, this is the tip of the iceberg, as charter schoolsacross the nation do the same to recruit students, doing what public schools typically are not allowed to do.
Wendy Lecker, veteran civil rights lawyer, reviews the recent report by Common Cause-Connecticut about the intrusion of Charter money and lobbyists into the state.
Former Governor Dannel Malloy depended on charter money and gave them a state commissioner and seats on the state school board,as well as generous funding.
After repeated losses in other states, like Massachusetts, the charter lobby now is doubling down in Connecticut.
After their spectacular public losses, the charter lobby is getting craftier. A recent report by Common Cause and the Connecticut Citizens Action Group reveal some of their newer tactics, but with many of the same backers.
The report, “Who is Buying Our Education System? Charter School Super PACs in Connecticut” continues the work previously done by blogger Jonathan Pelto tracking the influence of charter money. It details the donations and spending of charter Super PACs in Connecticut’s recent elections.
Super PACs enable individuals and organizations to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections, as long as they do not coordinate this spending with candidates.
The report found that since 2016, six Super PACS spent more than half a million dollars in Connecticut elections. These Super PACS are founded and/or dominated by charter lobbyists and employees of charter organizations, such as the Northeast Charter Schools Network, the now-defunct Families for Excellent Schools, ConnCAN, Achievement First charter chain and DFER. Soon-to-be former Gov. Dan Malloy recently joined DFER’s board.
The majority of the money donated came from outside Connecticut and from a limited number of large donors, the largest being Walmart’s Alice Walton.
Perhaps because of their very public defeats by grassroots organizing in other states, the charter lobby became more stealth-like. The report notes that these Super PACS conceal their aims by adopting innocuous sounding names, such as Build CT, Leaders for a Stronger CT, and Change Course CT. They spent money primarily on advertising and canvassing.
One PAC, Build CT, focused on candidates in safe or unopposed races, including: Stamford’s Pat “Billie” Miller and Caroline Simmons, and Senate Majority leader, Norwalk’s Bob Duff. The authors suggest this strategy is designed to curry favor with those who will definitely be in power. Last session, Duff unsuccessfully pushed a charter-friendly school funding scheme where local districts would have to pay for charter schools over which they have no say.
The charter lobby always uses deceptive, “caring” names to hide its true purposes:
1. Privatize public schools
2. Destroy the teaching profession
3. Eliminate unions.
Connecticut Voters: Beware!
Justin Parmenter, an NBCT teacher in North Carolina, decided to stop test prep and focus on relationships instead. The results were rewarding, to thestudents and to him.
He writes:
When the individual score reports came back, I experienced the usual roller coaster of emotions–elation over students who showed tremendous progress, disappointment with results that were lower than I knew my students had wanted. It wasn’t until I looked at overall numbers that I could see the real impact of the changes I had made. Students passing the state’s End of Grade reading test had increased by nearly 12%, and my value-added growth measure was the highest I’d ever received. From a testing standpoint, it was the best result my students have achieved in the 23 years I’ve been in the classroom.
Online charter schools have a problem. Most get full tuition for each student, but they have few expenses. No campus, large classes, no services other than a computer and online instruction. So much money rolling. Problem: What to do with it?
A few online operators have been convicted of stealing millions, like Nick Trombetta in Pennsylvania. The founder of ECOT in Ohio diet get charged or convicted of anything, but he collected $1 billion over 19 years while having the lowest graduation rate in the nation.
And now comes a case in Michigan where an Online charter operator was charged with stealing over $100,000.
Why so little?
The United Teachers of Los Angeles went out on strike on January 14. The strike will end if the membership approves a new two-year contract. The union won almost everything it sought. The teachers will get a wage increase; the district will limit class sizes and eliminate a waiver that allowed class size limits to be voided for economic reasons; there will be full-time nurses in every school, a librarian, more counselors. And more.
Here is the union’s press release with the tentative agreement included.
Here is the New York Times summary:
Los Angeles public school teachers reached a tentative deal with school officials on Tuesday to end a weeklong strike that had upended learning for more than half a million students in the nation’s second largest public school system.
The teachers won a 6 percent pay raise and caps on class sizes, which had become one of the most contentious issues between the union and district officials. The deal also includes hiring full-time nurses for every school, as well as enough librarians for every middle and high school in the district by the fall of 2020.
The city and county will also expand programs into public schools, providing more support services for the neediest students.
The settlement came after tens of thousands of teachers marched in downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside schools for six school days, and after a round of marathon negotiating sessions over the holiday weekend.
In addition to winning resources that were badly needed, the union won on other fronts, first, by injecting charter schools into their demands; and second, by putting Democratic politicians on the spot.
The victory for the teachers’ union goes far beyond the new two-year contract. In recent years, teachers in Los Angeles and all over the country have often found themselves on the defensive, as politicians and educational leaders have demanded that more be done to weed out ineffective teachers.
The Los Angeles strike was the eighth major teacher walkout over the past year, as a movement that calls itself Red For Ed spread like wildfire from West Virginia to Oklahoma, Arizona, Chicago and beyond. But the strike in Los Angeles was a union-led one against Democratic leaders who are usually on their side. It also was one of the first to highlight one of the most controversial questions in education: whether charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, hurt traditional schools.
The charter issue was explained like this: The board will be asked to endorse a resolution calling for a cap on charter schools, which this billionaire-bought board is unlikely to do. But the union put out there the fact that charter schools harm public schools, and politicians had to choose. As “widely popular” as charter schools are, only 10% of the kids in the state attend them, and only 20% in Los Angeles.
In a summary released by the union, the agreement also includes a pledge that the elected school board for the district will vote on a resolution asking the state to “establish a charter school cap” and create a governor’s committee on charter schools.
That would be a major shift in California, where charter schools have been widely embraced by political leaders and have proved popular among parents.
This agreement is a major victory for UTLA and promises better working conditions in the schools and better services for students.
The leadership of the Los Angeles Unified School District reached an agreement with the teachers’ union, UTLA.
“Beutner said the agreement provides for a 6 percent pay increase for school employees and a “meaningful class size reduction.” Further information about the pact, he said, would be released later Tuesday.
“ Beutner said that he is still has “tremendous” concerns about the school system’s financial health but that those concerns must be balanced with students’ needs.
“Today and tomorrow, when school opens, begins a new chapter in every classroom,” he said, noting that “40 years of underinvestment in public education” can’t be solved in one week.
“Caputo-Pearl said teachers will review and vote on the contract Tuesday. The agreement, he said, will bring crucial services to students and impose caps on class size.”
Not clear yet whether there was any action to limit charter school expansion.
This week is National School Choice Week.
Since 1994, Congress has allocated billions of dollars to expand and launch charter schools.
This year, Congress will award nearly $500 million to charter schools that are already supported by billionaires.
Stop the School Choice Scam! Congress should allocate money to underfunded public schools, instead of wasting money on charters and vouchers chosen by fewer than 10% of students across the nation.
Peter Greene doesn’t object to the fact that Betsy DeVos was born rich, married rich, and has always lived in a bubble.
But he was taken aback by her conclusion that kids today live sheltered lives. They don’t know anything about entrepreneurship and hard knocks (like she does?).
They lack grit and character because they are sheltered. Like she was?
Did I mention that a quarter of the children in the U.S. live in poverty, and half of them qualify for free or reduced lunch, the federal standard for poverty/low-income. In some cities, like Cleveland, every child is poor, by federal standards. They don’t seem to live the sheltered life, do they?
Reformers are desperate for good news. Everything they have tried hasflopped. Their exemplary district, New Orleans, is highly stratified. Forty percent of its charter schools are rated Dor Fby the state, and they are overwhelmingly segregated black. The New Orleans scores on state test are below the state average. This, in a state whose NAEP scores are rock-bottom. On NAEP, the only jurisdiction that Louisiana is better than is Puerto Rico.
But Reformer Propaganda neverrests. Their latest miracle district is Denver. Retired physics/AP Math Teacher Tom Ultican took a look at Denver’s celebrated portfolio model, and concludes that it is a hoax, a failure.
He begins:
Here is a predictable outcome from the portfolio district. On Jan. 18, 2019, a press release from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) says,
“After ten hours of negotiations today, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public Schools were unable to reach an agreement on a fair compensation system for 5,700 teachers and special service providers. DCTA members will vote Saturday and Tuesday on whether or not to strike.”
The portfolio model which promotes disruption as a virtue is anti-union. It is not conducive to stable harmonious relations with either labor or communities and it is anti-democratic. Denver is held up as an exemplar of school reform; however the outcomes look more like a warning. Increasing achievement gaps; a bloating administration; significantly increasing segregation; ending stable community schools; and stripping citizens of their democratic rights are among the many jarring results.
This week is School Choice Week, which ironically was inaugurated in 2011 by President Obama.
School Choice, we now know, has been a bust. It defunds public schools and allows charters and vouchers to cherrypick the students they want.
Not a single Democrat showed up to celebrate National School Choice Week. Thank the striking teachers for that!
Nothing like a strike to concentrate the mind!
This week, Republican lawmakers held a press conference on Capitol Hill to kick off National School Choice Week, an annual event that began in 2011 under President Obama who proclaimed it as a time to “recognize the role public charter schools play in providing America’s daughters and sons with a chance to reach their fullest potential.” This year, Democratic lawmakers took a pass on the celebration. You can thank striking teachers for that.
In the latest teacher strike in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school system, some 30,000 teachers walked off the job saying unchecked growth of charter schools and charters’ lack of transparency and accountability have become an unsustainable drain on the public system’s financials. The teachers have included in their demands a cap on charter school growth, along with other demands, such as increased teacher pay, reduced class sizes, less testing, and more counselors, nurses, librarians, and psychologists.
#RealDemocratsSupportRealPublicSchools!
#RealRepublicansSupportTheirCommunityPublicSchools!
#GoodCitizensSupportMainStreetNotWallStreet!
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