Archives for the month of: May, 2019
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NYC: The Rise of a Renewed Labor Movement?

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
20

 

On May 20, there will be an informed discussion of the recent wave of strikes and what it portends for the future of the labor movement.

The event is at Housing Works Cafe at 126 Crosby Street in NYC.

The event is free and features organizers and journalists in the contemporary labor movement who will discuss recent union rebellions across the country—including teachers, graduate students, museum staff, and media workers—the causes for this wave of strikes and organizing, and what lessons can be taken for workers, staffers, and activists.

With Bianca Cunningham (organizer & writer, Labor Notes, former CWA), Eric Blanc, (author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave And Working-Class Politics (Verso Books)), Kim Kelly (Teen Vogue’s “No Class” & WGA East council, former VICE Union) & LeNair Xavier (worker & organizer, Pleasure Chest)

Full info is here: https://strikewave.splashthat.com

Eric Blanc traveled the country to cover each of the teacher strikes.

 

Categories Education Reform

Sue M. Legg: The Failure of Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan in Florida

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
66

Sue M. Legg is a scholar at the University of Florida, a leader in Florida’s League of Women Voters, and a new board member of the Network for Public Education. She has written an incisive and devastating critique of Jeb Bush’s education program in Florida, which began twenty years ago. Bush called it his A+ Plan, but by her careful analysis, it rates an F. Advocates of school choice tout Florida’s fourth-grade scores on NAEP, which are artificially inflated by holding back third graders who dontpass the state test. By eighth grade, Florida’s students rank no better than the national average. Note to “Reformers”: a state that ranks “average” is NOT a national model.

Twenty Years Later, Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan Fails Florida’s Students. 

Sue Legg explodes the myth of the Florida miracle in her well documented report:  Twenty Years Later: Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan Fails Florida’s Students. She has compiled the research over twenty years showing the negative impact of privatization in Florida.  The highly touted achievement gains of retained third graders are lost by eighth grade.  Top ranked fourth grade NAEP scores fall to the national average by eighth grade. One half of twelfth graders read below grade level.  The graduation rate is above only 14 states.

The A+ Plan was a great slogan, but its defects resulted in a twenty-year cycle of trial and error to fix the problems.   School grades are unreliable.  A school receiving a ‘B’ grade one year has about a thirty percent chance of retaining the grade the following year. Invalid grades occur so frequently that State Impact reports that Florida made sixteen changes to the school grade formula since 2010.  It was thrown out but the new version is no more stable.  What it means to be a failing school, moreover, is consistently redefined to make more opportunity for charter school takeovers.  

Florida touts improving academic achievement in the private sector that is not supported by research.  The CREDO Study reams Florida’s for-profit charter industry.  According to a Brookings Institution study, low quality private schools are on the rise, and the LeRoy Collins Institute’s 2017 study, Tough Choices, explains that there are twice as many severely segregated Florida schools (90% non-white students) than there were in 1994-5.  The legislature ignores the problem in part because key legislators have personal interest in charter and private schools.  “Florida suits him” said Roger Stone, recently indicted in the Mueller investigation.  The New York Times article: Stone Cold Loser: quoted Stone’s admiration for Florida when he said “…it was a sunny place for shady people”.  A Miami Herald series “Cashing in on Kids” reported a list of questionable land deals and conflicts of interest by for-profit charter school management. The federal government began an investigation in 2014.  Last year a  charter management firm faced criminal charges, and Florida charters have the nation’s highest closure rate.

WalletHub reports that Florida is 47th of 50 states in working conditions for teachers.  As a result, the Florida Education Association projects 10,000 vacancies next fall. Teacher shortages are not only related to money, they are due to a deliberate attack on the profession in order to break teacher unions and impose a political ideology.  As Steve Denning in a Forbes magazine article explains: “The system” grinds forward, at ever increasing cost and declining efficiency, dispiriting students, teachers and schools alike”. The thinking, he says, is embedded in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top policies.   The A+ Plan is an extension of these policies that includes increased testing and rewards and punishments related to results.

Florida’s teachers are not allowed to strike.  Parents may have to.  The legislature recently approved small raises for teachers but expanded the unconstitutional voucher program.  The governor is not concerned; he appointed three new judges to the Florida Supreme Court.  In the May 3rd 2019 Senate session, Senator Tom Lee chastised his fellow Republicans.  He has supported charter schools for years, but said ‘the industry has not been honest with us...first they wanted PECO facility funds, then local millage; now they want a portion of local discretionary referendum funds’.  He called the current supporters ‘ideologues who have drunk the kool-aid‘.

The full report is published on the NPE-Action website.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Ravitch and Burris to West Virginia: Don’t Be Fooled, Say “NO” to Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
3

When West Virginia teachers went out on strike in 2018, setting off a national wave of teachers’ strikes, one of their core demands was “no charter schools.” Governor Jim Justice promised that he would veto any charter school legislation. The teachers know that charter schools divert money from public schools, which are already underfunded in West Virginia. When charter and voucher legislation was introduced this year, the teachers walked out again. They may yet be double crossed by the legislature. Our allies in West Virginia called on the Network for Public Education to speak up on behalf of public schools.

Carol Burris and I wrote this article, which was published in the state’s leading newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

it starts like this:

Stop, West Virginia, before allowing charter schools in your state. We have learned enough about charter waste, fraud and instability over the past 25 years to say, if you love your public schools, don’t be fooled by the empty promises of charter schools.

Every dollar that goes to a charter school or an education savings account voucher will be deducted from your local public schools. The charter movement is promoted by billionaires like the Waltons (Walmart), Betsy DeVos, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings (Netflix), and Bill Gates. The big money behind charters doesn’t know your children or your community.

Categories Education Reform

Peter Greene: DFER Tries to Salvage the Tattered Reputation of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
9

 

Peter Greene reviews a push-poll commissioned by DFER (Democrats for Education Reform), the hedge fund managers organization, created to promote charter schools.

Greene wisely notes that DFER is trying to encourage Democrats not to walk away from charter schools, which have become radioactive as the stories of charter scandals proliferate.

Step back and what you see is a context in which the Teachers strikes have brought attention to the damage charters inflict on public schools.

More and more, the public is beginning to ask why it makes sense to run two systems that get public money, one of which is free to kick out students it doesn’t want.

Betsy DeVos loves charters. Charters are more segregated than public schools. Billionaires and Wall Street love charters. The public is beginning to see through the facade, the hoax.

Why starve the public schools that enroll 85% of students so that 6% of kids can choose charters (the other 9% are in private and religious schools)? Why ruin public schools to make DeVos, the Waltons, and DFER happy?

 

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Categories Education Reform

Gary Rubinstein: The All-New, Rebranded Achievement School District

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
18

 

Gary Rubinstein has been following the progress—or lack thereof—of Tennessee’s Achievement School District. Funded with $100 million from Race to the Top money, led by a top-drawer charter school operator from YES Prep, it was supposed to take the lowest-performing schools in the state and catapult them into the top performing, in only five years. The secret ingredient for their promised success wasturning them over to charters operators.

Sadly, it didn’t work.

Gary Rubinstein writes here about the latest gambit. Rebrand the failed ASD!

Legerdemain!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Race to the Top, Tennessee

Nebraska: Stop Vouchers Now! Save Your Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2019 //
4

 

As rhe evidence for the failure of vouchers accumulates, its friends push harder to enact them before the word gets out that they actually harm children.

Nebraska is the target now. Voucher advocates are pushing a tax credit there that would divert millions from public schools. The vast majority of students would suffer loss of funding so a tiny number could enroll in schools nowhere as good as the public schools.

If you live in Nebraska, call your state legislator today and urge him or her to vote NO on LB 670.

Categories Accountability, Privatization, Vouchers

Los Angeles: Vote for Jackie Goldberg Tomorrow to Protect Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2019 //
3

 

Tomorrow is the runoff for the empty seat on the Los Angeles school board, pitting veteran teacher-activist Jackie Goldberg against novice pol Heather Repinning.

In the first round, Jackie won 48% of the vote to Heather’s 13%.

The election should be a walk, but the Corporate Reformers fear Jackie, who has a wealth of experience as a former school board member and state legislator. So the billionaires are all in for Heather.

One sign of the Times is that the editorial board of the LA Times wrote an editorial praising Jackie’s experience and knowledge but endorsing the unqualified Heather.

If Jackie prevails tomorrow, as she should, the public schools will have an articulate champion, and the charter schools will no longer have a free ride.

That’s the bottom line is this race.

If you live in District 5, vote for Jackie.

Categories Education Reform

Have You Heard: What Do Parents Think About “No Excuses” Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2019 //
40

 

Jennifer Berkshire and historian Jack Schneider conduct a very interesting discussion with scholars who have written about no-excuses charter schools and public Montessori schools. 

They interview Mira Debs of Yale and Joanne Golann of Vanderbilt about their research.

They wonder, what do parents want? The answers might surprise you.

Incidentally, I communicated to Berkshire and Schneider that the origin of the term “no excuses” for strict schools was not the book by Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom with that name, which was published in 2004, but a small book by a writer named Samuel Casey, which was called “No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Poverty, High-Performing Schools.” 

The publication date on the paperback copy is 2000, but I remember going to a dinner at the Heritage Foundation where Mr. Casey presented his findings, and it must have been in the late 1990s. Conservatives were thrilled to learn that the answer to the education of poor black children was not more money, but strict discipline. It fit their preconceptions.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Industry, Education Reform, Parents

California: A Time for Action!!!!

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2019 //
6

 

There are three important California assembly bills AB 1505, AB 1506, and AB 1507 designed to help clean up the charter school mess.  1507 will be going up for a vote by the full assembly TODAY, Monday, May 13.  This bill would forbid charters from being placed in school districts that do not want them by other districts as a moneymaking scheme.

NPE has reported on the fiscal malfeasance, online schools and storefront schools that have resulted. Please read here.

Call your assembly member and ask them to vote yes on AB 1507 today, Monday 13.

Call your Assembly member. You can find the phone number here. If you are unsure who represents you, go here to find out.

Here is a script you can use:

” I am asking that (name) vote yes today AB 1507. We need Charter accountability. Charter schools should only allowed to open in the district that authorized them, not anywhere else. One district should not solve their budget shortfalls by allowing charter schools to set up in another district. We need local control and oversight of charters to end corruption and fraud. Will the Asm vote yes?”There are also a number of Democrats in the assembly who have been identified as “on the fence” for today’s vote on AB 1507. We must put maximum pressure on these Assembly Members, so if you or anyone you know lives in these districts please help us push them to vote yes.

— Aguiar Curry AD4 Lake, Napa, Yolo (not W Sacto), parts of Sonoma, Solano

916-319-2004, 530-757-1034 Fax 916-319-2104

— Carrillo AD51 East LA, Eagle Rock

916-319-2051, 213-483-5151 Fax 926-319-2151

— Cervantes AD60 Corona, El Cerrito

916-319-2060, 951-371-6860 Fax 916-319-2160

— Cooper AD9 Elk Grove, Lodi

916-319-2009, 916-670-7888 Fax 916-319-2109

— Daly AD69 Anaheim, Santa Ana

916-319-2069, 714-939-8569 Fax 916-319-2169

— Gloria AD78 San Diego

916-319-2078, 619-645-3090 Fax 916-319-2178

— Gray AD21 Modesto, Merced

916-319-2021, 209-726-5465 Fax 916-319-2121

— Grayson AD14 Vallejo, Pleasant Hill

916-319-2014, 925-521-1511 Fax 916-319-2114

— Kamlager Dove AD54 Crenshaw, Culver City, Westwood, Inglewood

916-319-2054, 310-641-5410 Fax 916-319-2154, 310-641-5415

— Limon AD37 Santa Barbara, Ventura

916-319-2037, 805-564-1649 Fax 916-319-2137, 805-564-1651

— Low AD28 Silicon Valley Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos

916-319-2028, 408-446-2810

Fax 916-319-2128, 408-446-2815

— Rubio AD48 Azusa, El Monte, Covina/W Covina

916-319-2048, 626-960-4457 Fax 916-319-2048, 626-960-1310

If you have a resistant Asm, add the following:

“Charter accountability and ending abuse of public funds is how we get to racial and socioeconomic equity and fully funded public schools. Rare natural disasters that might force charter relocations are a red herring. School boards from other districts should not be allowed to grant charters that will open in our communities”

Thanks for all that you do.

Donations to NPE Action (a 501(c)(4)) are not tax deductible, but they are needed to lobby and educate the public about the issues and candidates we support.
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Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools

Mercedes Schneider: What to Do If You Are “Dropped” and Can’t Receive This Blog

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2019 //
9

I started this blog in 2012. Readership began building and reached amazing heights. But in 2016, something strange began to happen. Readers began disappearing. Many contacted me offline to ask if I had blocked them. Of course, I had not.

I contacted WordPress, where I always get a very fast response from people they call “Happiness Engineers.” They told me that Facebook had changed its algorithm, which caused a drop in my readership. But readers continued to reach out to me to say that they had been dropped without their permission and asking how to resume receiving the blog. I always sent their requests to the Happiness Engineers, who told them that they had pressed a button to block receipt of the blog and advised them how to unblock it.  This happened to members of my family and close friends, some of whom never figured out how to resume getting the blog.

Recently, Mercedes Schneider was dropped, like so many other readers before her.

She figured out exactly how to restore her receipt of the blog.

In the future, when a reader writes to ask why they no longer receive my blog and how they can resume it, I will send them Mercedes’ careful explanation.

Meanwhile, I wish someone at WordPress would figure out what’s wrong with their software and why they unsubscribe people who don’t wish to be unsubscribed.

Categories Education Reform
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