Betsy DeVos recently gave $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, mostly to expand in Texas. Previously, she had already given millions to IDEA, altogether this lucky business has received $225 million in federal funds.
In El Paso alone, IDEA will open 20 new charters. That’s bad news for the El Paso public schools, because IDEA is known for pushing out the kids it doesn’t want and sending them back to the public schools, which will have to slash their budgets to adjust to lost enrollment.
Veteran Texas educator Tim Holt says that this IDEA invasion doesn’t pass the smell test. Parents and taxpayers are being fooled. He wrote this before DeVos gave IDEA its latest plum, $116 million.
“In the next few years, IDEA plans to increase from one school today in El Paso to over 20, making them larger than either the Anthony, Canutillo, San Eli, Fabens, or Clint ISD’s in terms of number of campuses. (“IDEA’s big goal is to serve 100,000 students by 2022” in Tejas according to the IDEA website.
“That would make them larger than Ft. Worth or Austin ISDs, which each have about 88,000 students each.) Of course, local districts are concerned because they get funding based on the number of students attending. Less students means less money. Even if it is for a year or so, as parents find out IDEA is not such a good fit for their kids. Less funding means more crowded classes, elimination of popular programs (say adios to that Mariachi band your young Vicente Fernandez wanna-be is in)…
“Public charter schools like IDEA use a combination of taxpayer funds, grants, and large-scale private donations to operate. Like public schools, they are accountable to meeting standards, but unlike public schools, they are businesses, beholden to those with a financial vested interest in their success or failure.
“Did you get that? They use your taxes to fund their business. You are paying for them whether they last a year or a decade. They can, as a business, pick up and leave at any time, shuttering their doors with no notice as many charter schools have done across the nation. Nothing prevents this.
“And like any business that needs to grow to get money, they have to advertise. Check out the slick work of this ad agency on behalf of IDEA.
“Smelly.
“Public schools in Texas have locally elected officials, that are responsible for watching the checkbooks of the districts. Don’t like the way money is being spent? You can vote them out and replace them. Not so with Public Charter Schools like IDEA. The Board of Directors of IDEA schools are mostly made up of well-to-do east Texas business people.
Think your kid is represented at the table? Check out the IDEA Board. Look like people from El Chuco? Yeah, maybe a meeting of the El Chuco Millionaires Club, but other than that, no, they are not your type. Unless you think that Dallas and Houston millionaires are your type.
Stinky.
“IDEA schools have a model of teaching that looks something like this: Curriculum is canned, pre-scripted and designed in such a way that even non-teachers can conduct classes. It is designed solely to focus on the standardized tests, that all students must pass. It is homework-heavy even though study after study has found that a heavy homework load is probably overall detrimental to students learning. Failure on tests mean dismissal from the school.
“Sorry kid, we don’t take no dummies.
“Since it is a scripted curriculum, IDEA can hire non-teacher teachers, ones that do not have any kind of education experience or degree. Think about that: Anyone that can read a script can teach at IDEA. That is perfect for young, inexperienced Teach-for-America rookies, from where IDEA likes to recruit their teaching ranks. Less experience equals less expensive to pay.
“Less pay means the chances that the teacher can deal with “non traditional” or troubled students is low. Want something for your kid that is innovative? Don’t bother enrolling at IDEA. Success is measured by how many pages the teacher can plow through in a week on the way to the test.
“Smells bad…
”Now consider this: On top of the millions in Federal funds that the State has awarded to IDEA, if they achieve their goal of having 100,000 students, that means, that every year, $915,000,000 will NOT be going to Texas’ traditional public schools, your neighborhood school, but into the hands of for-profit businesses that have little to no local accountability.”
Well, it’s a terrific article. Read it all.
And don’t believe those pundits who say that Betsy DeVos is so hemmed in that she can’t do any harm. Her $225 million gift to IDEA will eventually cause Texas public schools to lose nearly $1 billion a year, every year. Really good for the IDEA bank account. Terrible for the millions of children in Texas public schools.
That really stinks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Right now devos is a wounded warrior and she will be reckless giving away as much money as she can to charters and choice. Devos has been humiliated by the press and the public but she remains and that is a scary thought.
“Progressive” 2020 Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Who Support Charter Schools | Dissident Voice
https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/04/progressive-2020-democratic-presidential-hopefuls-who-support-charter-schools/
The federally funded charter chains are getting huge.
But don’t worry- no one in ed reform considers the ramifications of this- any real analysis is shut down as “supporting the status quo” or “fear of change”.
Did anyone at the US Department of Education consider the effects on public school students? No. Of course not. Who cares about them? If they had any sense they’d transfer to one of the giant federal charter chains anyway.
This routine has been going on for some time…in fact, it IS the routine of privatization generally. One advantage privatizers have is that parents have so many other tasks to focus on that they often don’t have time to pay attention to the ins and outs of these privatization schemes. When parents really understand the routine, they reject it. But they often don’t have or spend the time needed to learn how their tax dollars are being stolen. The military industrial complex is the biggest example of how to privatize public spending. (Check out the pension scam in Kentucky for another good tale of oligarchs stealing public money in plain sight.) This is the method oligarchs use to transfer whatever wealth remains in the middle class to themselves. It makes ordinary grifters mere nibblers at the edges.
Congress is debating public education funding this week. Let’s see if ed reformers do any lobbying on behalf of PUBLIC school students.
They all come out for charter and voucher funding, and it increases every year.
If they’re truly “agnostic” we should be able to see their advocacy for PUBLIC school students. Let’s see if they apply the same passion and effort to the public schools they all claim to support. It’s not fair to public school students that they’re paying thousands of public employees who refuse to lift a finger on their behalf, due to their ideological commitment to privatization.
I think the $225 million dollar grant from the DOE is intended to create a tiered, separatist education for the elite of “El Chuco” at the expense of the public schools. Most the the poor, language minority and classified students will remain in defunded public schools that will wither and crumble. The IDEA schools are intended for the “haves,” those that are mostly affluent and white, and the public schools are for the schools of last resort poor, troubled, limited English or classifed members of the population. I think this is a clear plan to use federal and local dollars to impose segregation. Betsy thinks life is so much better when people are sorted so they go where they belong, and everyone knows God does not smile on brown people. This should be illegal!
Jim Crow is well and alive.
On the one hand, this is business as usual for the United States Department of Education under Ms. DeVos; on the other hand, there is, because this is El Paso and the home of Beto O’Rourke, a stench of politics around it.
Either way–and this is the key point here, I submit–those getting cheated by this nonsense are the taxpayers of El Paso and their children.
Agreed – Doesn’t pass the “smell test”.
Combined, CEO/Superintendent paid $958,621 last year;
Spending $2.4 million on “Promotion and Advertising”
Approved use of “Charter” plane
Employs “FULL-TIME” Student Recruiters
Spent $2,395 less per student on Instruction than school districts in Rio Grande Valley
Spent $1,439 more on Central Administration/Leadership
Only spent $15 per student on Security
Only spent $37 per student on Social & Health Services
1.9 years average teacher experience
Class size – 28.9 students in Grade 3
Of the 342 students initially enrolled in Texas public university in 2017, 37.4% and 55.5% had GPA of less than 2 and 2.5, respectively.
ZERO Career/Tech teachers
In Rio Grande Valley, IDEA serves 45.9% “at risk” students versus 56.4%-79.8% in community-based school districts
ZERO disciplinary students
Experience that totals 679 students graduates in 2017 or 0.002% of all graduates in Texas
What happens if parents look and compare carefully and choose to have their children remain in their public schools? I wouldn’t be surprised to see choice taken away if the charter schools can’t make enough money with the parents they can con. They may try to move to a situation such as New Orleans where charters are the only “choice.”