Archives for the month of: March, 2019
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Trump Will Cut Off Federal Funding to Universities That Limit “Free Speech”

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
33

 

 

Trump told the Conservative Political Action Committee that he would issue an e ecutive order barring federal funding for research at universities that restrict “free speech.”

Apparently he was thinking of campuses where student protestors have barred hate speech from far-right provocateurs. Speakers who advocate racial hatred and bigotry have not found a hearty welcome on such campuses. Trump promises to intervene.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/02/trump-says-new-executive-order-could-strip-colleges-funding-if-they-dont-support-free-speech/

“A new executive order from the White House will aim to make federal research funding for colleges and universities contingent on their support for “free speech,” President Trump said Saturday.

The announcement, during Trump’s address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, appeared to target complaints by some university critics that institutions of higher education stifle right-wing viewpoints.

“If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many great young people, and old people, to speak,” Trump said, bringing onstage a young conservative, Hayden Williams, who was physically attacked last month while tabling for a conservative organization at the University of California at Berkeley…

”The executive order, Trump said, would “require colleges to support free speech if they want federal research” money. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump told the CPAC crowd, meeting at National Harbor, Md., that he planned to sign the order “very soon” but did not provide specifics or say whether a draft has already been prepared.

The federal government distributes more than $26 billion a year to colleges and universities for research purposes, according to the National Science Foundation. The vast majority of that money is assigned to projects for the Pentagon, NASA, and the departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Health and Human Services…

”Somebody would have to decide which universities were not supporting free speech on campus,” said Catherine Ross, a professor in constitutional law at George Washington University. “Some group of Washington civil servants — or maybe even worse, political appointees — would be looking at charges of speech discrimination at various colleges and universities, and labeling them as either acceptable in terms of free speech or not acceptable. And that … is a government interference in speech.”

“What’s more, she added, Trump’s policy could inadvertently disqualify many religious academic institutions from receiving federal research funding, to the extent that their religious beliefs prohibit certain views or speakers on campus.”

 

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Freedom of Speech

Libertarians: Cory Booker is the Champion of Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
21

 

In this article, a writer for the libertarian Reason magazine–which supports free-market solutions to all government problems–praises Cory Booker for his advocacy on behalf of charters and vouchers, and even dares to mention that he worked closely with Betsy DeVos, his ideological ally on education issues.

Booker is proud of his record as an advocate of privatization and a supporter of non-union schools.

Real Democrats don’t support charters and vouchers. These are Republican issues.

Public schools belong to the public, not to entrepreneurs or privatizers or profiteers or corporate chains or foreign entities.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Chicago: The Election Was “a Complete Repudiation” of Rahm Emanuel

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
8

 

 

Thanks to Fred Klonsky for alerting me to this analysis of the mayoral election in Chicago, in which two African American women are in a run-off, the establishment candidate William Daley came in third, and privatizer Paul Vallas got about 5% of the vote. Voters voted no to Rahm’s school closings and charter favoritism.

Curtis Black writes:

“The election that advanced two black women to the runoff for Chicago mayor is certainly historic. And voters who backed Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle were certainly demanding change.

“But the election was also a complete repudiation of Rahm Emanuel’s record as mayor of Chicago. All the candidates ran against Emanuel’s program. All of them rejected complete mayoral control over the school board, which has enabled wholesale school closings and charter expansion. All of them called for more investment in neighborhoods. The candidate closest to Emanuel ideologically, Bill Daley, even ran against the mayor with a slogan of “no more excuses.””

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm

Oakland, CA: Billionaires Will Convene to Discuss New Plans for Privatizing Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
20

 

What exquisite timing! The teachers in Oakland went out on strike to demand a decent living wage and to protest the destruction of their schools by privatizers, and guess who is planning to come to town?

On May 8-9, the NewSchools Venture Fund will hold its annual summit in Oakland, California, to review its plans for additional privatization of public schools.

The summit is sponsored by the usual suspects: The Walton Family Foundation (anti-union, anti-public schools, pro-privatization), The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (ditto), The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (selling computers and depersonalized learning), and The Carnegie Foundation of New York (once a friend to public schools, but no longer).

Make plans to be in Oakland to send your greetings to the Robber Barons of our day.

Who knows? Maybe Betsy DeVos will be their keynote speaker.

They are planning to disrupt your public schools, destroy your unions, and continue marauding where they are uninvited and unwelcome.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing, Walton Foundation

Leonie Haimson: Why DeBlasio’s Latest Plan is Old Wine in New Bottles

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
7

 

Leonie Haimson was not surprised by the collapse of New York City’s Renewal Schools Plan.

His new plan sounds just like his old plan. More coaches for principals and teachers.

”The original Renewal program featured a plethora of coaching of teachers and principals; the new plan will provide “intensive coaching and professional development” for school staff. The old plan offered extra learning time and a longer school day for students; the new plan will do the same. The old plan provided wrap-around services, as will the new plan. The old plan required schools to be trained in restorative justice; so will the new plan. The old plan required schools to use new data tools; the new plan offers data tools — only they’re supposedly better.”

Haimson observes:

“No matter what sort of coaching teachers receive, no matter what data analysis is done, results will not improve unless class sizes are substantially reduced. 

“What’s astounding to me is that despite all the apparent obsession with data analysis, no analysis is ever done of these schools’ class sizes, which is the most obvious data to collect and the most important.  For all Chancellor Carranza’s repeated statements that he understands that class size matters, he ignores this critical factor as much as the five Chancellors, all class size deniers, who preceded him.”

Time for fresh thinking?

 

 

 

Categories Class size, New York City

Mercedes Schneider: The College Board and the Big Salaries It Pays

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
13

Please remember that the College Board is a nonprofit.

But Mercedes Schneider reminds us that the people who work at this nonprofit make a lot of money.

If you scan the list of executive salaries, you might begin to understand why the SAT is so expensive to consumers.

And you might cheer on the FairTest list of more than 1,000 colleges and universities that have become “test-optional,” because they recognize that a student’s score on the SAT or the ACT is less valuable as a predictor of college success than the same student’s four-year grade point average.

Schneider reviewed the College Board’s most recent tax filings.

She calls it a “lucrative racket.”

Total revenue in 2016 was $916M, just shy of one billion dollars, $3.3M of which derived from government grants. The greatest revenue generator was “AP and instruction,” at $446M, followed by “assessments,” at $338M.

piggy bank cash

As for 2016 lobbying expenses: The College Board spent $2.3M (a drop in the billion-dollar bucket of its total revenue), with the following explanation:

The College Board contacts legislators and their staff to provide data and statistics on K-12 education and college admissions and to encourage them to support appropriations for education.

If your nonprofit breaks a billion in revenue, then $2M spent on lobbying becomes relatively nothing. In addition, “providing data and statistics” is probably far enough removed to be considered as not actively lobbying.

But let’s move on to the few who profit the most from nonprofit College Board.

The highest paid independent contractor by far was another testing entity, Educational Testing Services (ETS), at $359M.

Former Common Core “architect” and College Board president, David Coleman, drew $1.7M in total compensation in 2016, $512K of which is “bonus and incentive compensation.” Note that as of 2019, Coleman is no longer president and is “just CEO.” The person replacing Coleman in 2019 as president, Jeremy Singer, made $871K in total compensation in 2016 as chief operating officer.

fanning-cash-2

Former Gates Foundation policy director, Stefanie Sanford, who left Gates in December 2012 for chief of policy at College Board, pulled $597K in total compensation in 2016.

Then she has a fairly long list of other well-paid executives who do the significant work of the College Board.

See, if you teach students, you don’t earn much, but if you test them, you can drive a Porsche.

 

Categories Accountability, Coleman, David, Education Industry, Testing

Texas: Calling All Parents Whose Children Have Been Subjected to Rigged Tests

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
16

Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA) [aka Moms Against Drunk Testing] needs your help to fight abusive testing. We learned recently that the state tests (STAAR) is set two grade levels above where children are. Third-graders are tested on fifth-grade material and vocabulary, fifth-graders on seventh-grade material and vocabulary, etc. The tests are rigged to fail the kids. This is madness with no purpose other than to make kids and schools look bad so that the state has a rationale for closing public schools and opening charter schools.

 

URGENT: TAMSA needs your voice!

The Texas Monthly article got the attention of the House Public Education Committee. The committee is meeting Tuesday, March 5, 2019 on issues related to STAAR. Several assessment bills are on the agenda.

If you have a child that has been adversely affected by the STAAR test and are willing to testify in Austin, please email boardmember@tamsatx.org.

Categories Parents, Students, Testing, Texas

New York State: Success Academy Charters and NYC Department of Ed. Violate Civil Rights of Kids with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
10

An investigation by the New York State Education Department faulted Success Academy Charter Chain and the New York City Department of Education for violating the civil rights of students with disabilities. 

Success Academy charter schools and the New York City education department have violated the civil rights of students with special needs, an investigation by state officials found.

The charter network failed to provide required services to students, changed the special education placement of children without giving parents the opportunity for input, and refused to follow orders issued at special education administrative hearings, according to the state.

Investigators also fault the city education department for failing to provide parents with legally required notices regarding changes to their child’s Special Education Program, or IEP, and for not ensuring that the charter network complied with hearing orders.

Both the city and Success Academy will be required to implement a list of reforms that will be monitored by the state, according to a decision reached earlier this month by New York’s Office of Special Education.

Success Academy spokeswoman Ann Powell pushed back against the report, saying the network doesn’t agree with all the conclusions and has been in “active discussions” with state leaders about their concerns. Powell attributed most of the findings to a need for better documentation, “not about any failure in providing services to children.”

The state investigation was prompted by a complaint filed in November by the advocacy group Advocates for Children and a private law firm.

“This decision makes clear that students do not give up their civil rights when they enter a charter school, and parents do not give up their voice in their children’s education,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, said in an emailed statement.

The findings heap fresh scrutiny on the city’s largest charter network, which has previously been accused of denying services to students with disabilities — and on the city education department, which came under fire this week for shortcomings in how children with special needs are supported.

At the four schools covered in the investigation, the state’s Office of Special Education found that Success Academy did not provide required special education classes, small group instruction, or testing accommodations. The network also failed to follow the proper procedure for changing the services provided to children with disabilities by not holding required meetings with families, among other issues, and did not follow “pendency orders,” which require schools to maintain accommodations in cases where parents have appealed changes to their children’s education plans.

Categories Civil Rights, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Special Education

DeVos Proposes $5 Billion for Federal School Choice Program

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
21

 

In a large waste of paper, time, and energy, Betsy DeVos proposed a new $5 billion federal program of tax credits for charter schools, vouchers, cybercharters, and home schooling.

https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-02-28/devos-makes-5-billion-school-choice-pitch

This is a big decrease in her ambitions. Two years ago, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, DeVos wanted to shift $20 billion from Title 1 and other programs to fund school choice.

Her fellow Republicans didn’t pass it.

With Democrats now in charge of the House, her proposal is Dead Before Arrival.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, School Choice

California: Legislature Passes Historic Charter Accountability Bill

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
9

 

During Governor Jerry Brown’s tenure in office, he vetoed all efforts to hold charter schools accountable, to consider their fiscal impact, or to limit their numbers. Those days are over under Governor Gavin Newsom. 

Edsource reports:

“The chairman of the Assembly Education Committee and several Democratic colleagues introduced a package of bills Monday that would impose severe restrictions on the growth of charter schools.

“Three of the bills would eliminate the ability of charter schools to appeal rejected applications to the county and state, place an unspecified cap on charter school growth and enable school districts to consider the financial impact of charter schools when deciding whether to approve them. A fourth bill would abolish the right of a charter school that can’t find a facility in its authorizing district to locate a school in an adjoining district.

“Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the Education Committee, said the bills collectively would enable school districts “to make responsible and informed decisions” that are “critical for student success and taxpayer accountability.” Eric Premack, a veteran charter school adviser and advocate, called the legislation a “full-frontal” assault and “scorched earth” approach to charter schools.”

”Scorched earth”=accountability, ethics, transparency.

At the heart of the strikes in Los Angeles and Oakland was the fiscal drain caused by runaway charter schools, which have operated and proliferated in the state without accountability for years.

The power of the charters was guaranteed by their lobby, the California Charter School Association, which spends $20 million a year to defeat accountability measures.

It’s a new day in California!

Elections have consequences. The charter lobby backed Antonio Villaraigosa for governor and Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent.Both lost.

Both houses of the legislature swiftly approved a bill to impose accountability and transparency on charter schools and Governor Gavin Newsom has promised to sign it. 

In the future, charters will be subject to the same open meetings laws and conflicts of interest laws as public schools.

More stringent regulation may be on the way, for example, one bill would no longer allow charter operators who were rejected by their district to appeal to the county, and if rejected by the county, appeal to the state board.

At present, charters may open without consideration of their fiscal impact on the public schools.

Also, a charter may be authorized by a district to operate in another district hundreds of miles away.

John Fensterwald writes in Edsource:

“Capitalizing on the momentum, this week O’Donnell and three other legislators announced four more bills that would restrict charter schools. They would eliminate the right of appeals to the county and the state, cap the number of schools to what’s operating now, let school districts reject charter schools based on their financial impact and prevent charter schools approved in one district from setting up in another.

“This week, the West Contra Costa Unified School District board followed the lead of boards in Los Angeles and Oakland to endorse some form of a moratorium on charter schools. Newsom has not indicated his position on the latest bills or on a moratorium, now that the bill on transparency has passed.”

Are the “days of wine and roses” coming to an end for the richly funded charter lobby?

This NPE report explains why charters in California need regulation and accountability.

Click to access NPE-Report-Charters-and-Consequences.pdf

Imagine a charter school in a shopping mall where students see a teacher once every 21 days. Imagine charter schools with graduation rates of 10% or less.

Imagine rampant fraud that goes unchecked for years.

Could these excesses finally be subject to oversight?

 

 

 

 

 

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