Archives for the month of: June, 2019
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Colorado: State Turns Over School District to Private Management Corporation

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2019 //
20

 

Colorado turned a school district over to a Florida-based management corporation.

Adams 14 officials have signed an $8.3 million, four-year contract with Florida-based MGT Consulting, officially becoming the first district in the state to hand over management to a company.

The state Board of Education in November ordered the Commerce City-based district of Adams 14 to hire an external manager for at least four-years, to handle much of the district’s operations in an attempt to improve the achievement of its approximately 7,000 students.

Count this as an admission of failure by the Colorado Department of Education, which clearly considers itsel incompetent to help the district.

What next? Outsourcing districts to China, Turkey, Chile?

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Education Reform

West Sacramento’s Charter Schools Have a Segregation Problem

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
6

 

Bill Raden of Capital & Main writes here about racial segregation in West Sacramento’s charter schools. 

Capital & Main has done an outstanding job covering the charter industry in California.

Raden writes:

Representing the newest form of green line in West Sacramento are charter schools — publicly funded but privately operated academies that are free from many of the regulations governing public schools. Although that freedom was once supposed to encourage innovation, the door it has opened has also made charters the latest flavor of school segregation. For a state like California, which enshrines diversity in a statutory balancing test that requires charter schools to “achieve a racial and ethnic balance among its pupils that is reflective of the general population” of their districts, unregulated school choice can be like putting out a fire with gasoline.

West Sacramento is hardly alone when it comes to racially isolating charter schools. A 2017 Associated Press study was the latest to find rampant self-segregation in the national charter sector, reporting that charters are “vastly overrepresented” among so-called apartheid schools — those with at least 99 percent minority enrollments. Even in majority-minority California, which scores higher on charter school integration than other states, black students have been shown to typically move from a traditional public school that is 39 percent black to a charter that is 51 percent black.

“The problem with charters is their fundamental premise that if something’s not public it’s going to be better,” says Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project (CRP) and a research professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. “We learned in the civil rights period that you had to have requirements on [school] choice if you’re going to get a positive outcome. But a lot of these charter schools are set up in a way that explicitly [segregate]. They don’t reach out for other groups of kids and have no integration policies at all, which raises big constitutional issues…”

The tendency of charters to isolate students by race and class is baked in by what education researchers call selection biases — features that attract certain kinds of families at the expense of others. Because California doesn’t fund transportation for charter schools, for example, simply by being a charter in the Golden State is to select out the most disadvantaged, single-parent families that live the furthest away from the campus. Impose a complicated application process, or require pricey uniforms or “voluntary” parent labor, and that effect is magnified.

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

Pennsylvania: Governor Wolf Will Veto Expansion of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
9

The Republican-controlled Legislature in Pennsylvania passed a bill to expand vouchers for religious schools. Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced that he would veto the bill.

This is good news for public schools in the Keystone State!

Here is a roundup of stories from the Keystone State Education Coalition:

HB800: Gov. Wolf to veto $100M private and religious schools bill in Pennsylvania

Post Gazette by ASSOCIATED PRESS JUN 12, 2019 3:38 PM

HARRISBURG — Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf plans to veto legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to substantially expand taxpayer support by $100 million for private and religious schools in Pennsylvania. Wednesday’s statement from Wolf’s office comes a day after the Senate approved the bill on a party-line basis. The bill was sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai and just four Democrats voted for it in the House. Wolf ran for office pledging to boost aid for public schools. He has said that public schools remain underfunded and that the tax-credit bill is at odds with the need for accessible public education. It would nearly double the Educational Improvement Tax Credit to $210 million annually. The program lets corporations direct tens of millions in tax dollars to favored private and religious schools.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2019/06/12/pennsylvania-governor-tom-wolf-veto-private-school-religious-tax-credit/stories/201906120136

 

HB800: Wolf says he will veto bill to expand tax credits for private, religious school scholarships

PA Capital Star By  Sarah Anne Hughes| John L. Micek June 12, 2019

Gov. Tom Wolf will veto a bill to expand a tax credit program that funds private and religious school scholarships, he told the Capital-Star on Wednesday. “I’ve seen enough to know that this is not something I think is good for Pennsylvania,” Wolf said after an event in Philadelphia. The legislation, sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, would increase the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program budget from $110 million to $210 million immediately after passage — the largest single-year increase since the program was created in 2001. Under the bill, the program cap would also increase by 10 percent in years where 90 percent of the credits are claimed. “It distracts from what we ought to be focusing on, which is educating every child through our public school system,” Wolf said Wednesday. The House passed the legislation 111-85 in May, while the Senate voted 28-21 to approve the bill on Tuesday. Currently, there is not enough support in either chamber to override a veto from Wolf.

“As the governor knows, we are preparing to increase our funding for public education in the forthcoming budget, and the increase in EITC funding is an appropriate complement to that investment in our public schools,” Turzai said in a statement after the bill’s passage in the upper chamber.

https://www.penncapital-star.com/education/wolf-says-he-will-veto-bill-to-expand-tax-credits-for-private-religious-school-scholarships/

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

National Education Policy Center: Phony Voucher Report

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
20

 

The National Education Policy Center published a review of an annual report by EdChoice, an advocacy organization for vouchers.

KEY TAKEAWAY:

Questionable methodology and misrepresentation of the research result in a misleading report not useful for decision-making or research purposes.

 

BOULDER, CO (June 11, 2019) – A recent report from EdChoice presents itself as a yearly updated list and synthesis of empirical studies exploring the impacts of school vouchers across a set of outcomes. But a new review of the report finds that it fails to provide a robust summary of the research literature on vouchers and their full range of positive and negative impacts.

T. Jameson Brewer, of the University of North Georgia, reviewed The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice: 2019 Edition.

EdChoice’s report attempts to convince readers that a solid body of research evidence shows voucher benefits such as an increase in test scores, parental satisfaction, increased civic values, improvements in racial segregation, and fiscal benefits through governmental cost savings.

What Dr. Brewer found instead was a limited collection of cherry-picked studies, largely from non-peer-reviewed sources, and primarily authored by voucher advocates. The report’s misrepresentation of the existing research, combined with its use of the questionable methodology of simply counting up results categorized as positive or negative, results in an overall appearance of stacking the deck to create an illusory compilation of studies that profess to bolster EdChoice’s predetermined commitment to cheerleading school vouchers.

Find the review, by T. Jameson Brewer, at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/school-choice

Find The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice: 2019 Edition, written by Andrew Catt, Paul DiPerna, Martin Lueken, Michael McShane, and Michael Shaw, and published by EdChoice, at:

https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/123s-of-School-Choice.pdf

NEPC Reviews (http://thinktankreview.org) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Ohio’s State Senate Sabotages Repeal of Disastrous State Takeover Bill HB 70

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
5

 

Jan Resseger reports here on the uncertain status of legislation intended to repeal Ohio’s state takeover law, which was shoved through without deliberation or debate. 

She writes:

You will remember that on May 1, 2019, the Ohio House passed HB 154 to repeal Ohio state school takeovers, which have been catastrophic failures in Lorain and Youngstown under HB 70—the law that set up the state seizure of so-called failing school districts. HB70 was fast tracked through the Legislature in 2015 without hearings. Youngstown and Lorain have been operating under state appointed CEOs for four years now; East Cleveland has been undergoing state takeover this year.

Not only did the Ohio House pass HB 154 six weeks ago to undo HB 70, but its members did so in spectacular fashion, by a margin of 83/12.  The House was so intent on ridding the state of top-down state takeovers that its members also included the repeal of HB 70 in the House version of the state budget—HB 166.

Yesterday afternoon, the Ohio Senate released an amended, substitute HB166—the Senate’s proposal for the state budget.  In the Senate version, there is a detailed 54 page School Transformation Proposal to replace the House’s simple action to undo HB 70.  (The Senate’s School Transformation Proposal begins on p. 14 in the linked section of the Senate Budget.)

The three districts Ohio has already seized with HB 70—and 10 others slated to be taken over in the next two years—are all school districts that serve Ohio’s very poorest children. Last evening, as I plodded through the statutory language in the Senate Budget Proposal, I found myself wondering if the people envisioning this laborious, top-down, state takeover plan—a plan that pretends not to be a state takeover—have spent time trying to transform a complex institution like a school in the kind of community where many children arrive in Kindergarten far behind their peers in more affluent communities.  And I wondered why the Senate’s plan relies on so many of the failed “turnaround” strategies of No Child Left Behind—the federal law that imposed imposed a rigid plan for raising test scores and that left an increasing number of American schools with “failing” ratings every year until the law was scrapped when it was itself deemed a failure. No Child Left Behind was a test-and-punish law; the Ohio Senate’s School Transformation Proposal is also very much a test-and-punish law—at a time when extensive academic research demonstrates that standardized tests are a flawed yardstick for measuring the quality of a school.

We can only hope the Ohio House will determinedly oppose the Senate’s plan and stop it in the Senate-House Conference Committee.

She goes on to explain how the Senate’s new plan for state takeover is supposed to work.

And she adds:

What is clear from this very brief summary of the Senate’s School Transformation Proposal is that, although the Senate has proposed a state school district takeover plan with more local control over the members of the local School Improvement Commission, and while district and individual school improvement plans would have the input of community stakeholders, this is still a plan that puts all the power in a district School Improvement Director—a czar who can fire the principals and the teachers, charterize the schools, privatize the schools, abrogate collective bargaining agreements, and even shut down schools.  And the district’s School Improvement Director’s power grows in later years if the district fails to show progress.  In the fourth year of no progress, “A new board of education shall be appointed… However, the Director shall retain complete operational, managerial, and instructional control of the district.”

Make no mistake. This is a Republican plan to end local control of public schools in poor districts.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Ohio

Pennsylvania: Governor Wolf Should Veto Expansion of Voucher Program!

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2019 //
8

Lawrence A. Feinberg leads a valuable organization called the Keystone State Education Coalition, which reports on education issues in Pennsylvania.

The big issue today is whether Democratic Governor Tom Wolf will veto a bill to expand the state’s voucher program by $100 million, a bill passed almost entirely by Republicans in the Legislature. He certainly should veto the measure because it will drain resources from the state’s public schools and send students to religious schools whose teachers and curriculum are not as good as those of the public schools.

HB800: Bill that nearly doubles size of tax credit program for private school scholarships heading to Wolf’s desk

PA Capital Star By  Elizabeth Hardison June 11, 2019

Legislation that would nearly double the size of an educational tax credit program that funds private and religious school scholarships was approved Tuesday by Senate Republicans, whose unanimous support for the proposal overpowered the negative consensus among Democrats.

The bill to expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program now goes to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk for final approval. House lawmakers approved the legislation 111-85 in May. Wolf, a Democrat, has not said whether or not he will veto the expansion, which was sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny. He told reporters Tuesday he doesn’t understand how the expansion will be paid for. “I’m trying to fund public education,” Wolf told reporters. “I’m trying to make sure that we have an accountable system in place that I think is underfunded. I have done everything in my power, and I’ve worked across the aisle to get more money for public education. This seems to me  — again, I’ll take a look at it — this seems to me to be at odds with that need of a government and a democracy like ours to support broad-based, accessible public education.”

https://www.penncapital-star.com/education/bill-that-nearly-doubles-size-of-tax-credit-program-for-private-school-scholarships-heading-to-wolfs-desk/

 

Pennsylvania budget season fight opens over $100 million increase in taxpayer support for private schools

Morning Call By MARC LEVY | ASSOCIATED PRESS | JUN 11, 2019 | 6:16 PM

Legislation to substantially expand taxpayer support for private and religious schools in Pennsylvania won passage Tuesday in the Republican-controlled Legislature, although Gov. Tom Wolf is signaling that he will block it. The public dust-up ramps up a fight between supporters of public and private schools in the thick of negotiations between Republican lawmakers and the Democratic governor over a roughly $34 billion budget package. The bill passed the state Senate on a party-line basis Tuesday, a month after it passed the Republican-controlled House on near-party lines. Wolf said he would look at the legislation, but not whether he will veto it. “What I’ve heard doesn’t sound real good,” Wolf told reporters after an unrelated news conference in his Capitol offices. Republicans, Wolf said, haven’t explained how they would finance the $100 million cost of the bill, and he criticized tax credits programs as lacking control or accountability. Wolf, who campaigned for office on raising support for public schools, said he is still working to increase aid for a public education system in Pennsylvania he called underfunded. “It seems to me to be at odds with that need of a government in a democracy like ours to support broad-based, accessible public education,” Wolf said. The bill is sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny.

https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-budget-school-funding-20190611-3leerzwtpncqjjfgktygrradpm-story.html

 

Republicans look to boost private school tax credit. Wolf says he doesn’t get it.

WITF Written by Katie Meyer, Capitol Bureau Chief | Jun 11, 2019 7:35 PM

 (Harrisburg) — Lawmakers have approved a bill that would nearly double a tax break for people and businesses who contribute to private school scholarships and similar public school alternatives. They did so with almost no support from Democrats. And now, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf is saying he doesn’t understand why the expansion is necessary. Republicans argue the Educational Improvement Tax Credit helps low-income students who are stuck in bad public schools. Many Democrats say it unfairly routes money away from those struggling schools. The EITC program has grown incrementally and substantially since it started in 2001–often with bipartisan support. But even the Democrats who generally favor the credit say this particular increase is too high. Along with almost doubling it, the bill–sponsored by GOP House Speaker Mike Turzai–adds an automatic 10 percent escalation every year, as long as the credit stays popular. And it raises the income cap for eligible families from $85,000 to $95,000.

https://www.witf.org/state-house-sound-bites/2019/06/republicans-look-to-boost-private-school-tax-credit-wolf-says-he-doesnt-get-it.php

If you want to stay informed about Pennsylvania education issues, sign up for the regular news blasts.

These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org

Visit us on Facebook at KeystoneStateEducationCoalition

Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

Categories Pennsylvania, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Southold, New York: Making Chess More Enjoyable than Video Games!

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2019 //
11

David Gamberg is superintendent of two adjacent small school districts on Long Island in New York: Southold and Greenport. Gamberg is devoted to a philosophy of whole-child learning, in which play and a healthy body are as important as academics. He is constantly coming up with new ways to engage children’s imagination and creativity. His schools are alive with music, art, gardening, play, and, now, chess.

The Southold elementary school recently conducted a chess tournament with life-size chess pieces and a chess board. 

According to David Gamberg, superintendent of both the Southold and Greenport school districts, the idea for bringing chess to students was born after the “simple, kind gesture offered to the students at Greenport Schools.”

With no strings attached, Wesley Wang, a 9th grade student at Jericho High School affiliated with CHESSanity, an organization devoted to promote the playing of chess among school-aged children, reached out to Gamberg at Greenport Schools, the superintendent said.

After an exchange of emails, a donation of 24 chess sets and some guidebooks were sent to both Greenport and Southold Elementary Schools.

Since then, two chess clubs were formed, one in each school, and over the past few months, second and third graders in both districts have met for an hour each week to learn the game and hone their skills.

“The skills and dispositions learned by playing this game are invaluable as children start to think strategically and carefully,” Gamberg said.

Wang, of CHESSanity, said the goal was to provide the games to students at no cost to introduce chess to young minds, and to maintain the supply regularly. The organization has donated
chess sets to 20 schools in four school districts in Long Island so far.

“I hope that our little help can have some positive impact upon these children, improve their academic performance, and build their self-esteem,” he said.

Wang said since he and his brother, a college freshman, kicked of the non-profit organization CHESSanity, they have raised more than $35,000 by conducting chess classes every Friday night during the school years and organizing monthly competitive tournaments.

The funds raised have allowed them to give away the free chess sets to districts including Wyandanch, Roosevelt, and Hempstead, benefiting thousands of students.

There are many ways to inspire a love of learning and a desire to achieve one’s personal best. Chess is one of them.

I am reminded of I.S. 318, the New York City public school that has a championship chess team. It was featured in a wonderful film called Brooklyn Castle. You can find it and rent it online. Watch it if you can. It is an inspiring movie about the power of chess to change lives.

 

Categories New York, Play

Puerto Rico: Which Hedge Funds Are Profiting from the Island’s Misery?

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2019 //
21

 

The Public Accountability Initiative is the place to go to follow the money. The team that produces these reports is called “Little Sis,” the opposite of Big Brother. Little Sis recently posted an eye-opening analysis of the funders of Teach for America.

This post identifies the Hedge funders who hold large amounts of Puerto Rico’s debt and are demanding a reduction in pensions and public services (especially public schools). It also details how people can fight back.

Time is running out for retirees in Puerto Rico in the struggle to preserve their pensions: the Financial Oversight and Management Board has proposed cuts that would take effect July 1, 2019.1 If those cuts go through, around 167,000 families will be affected immediately in this new attack against Puerto Ricans’ living conditions.2 Vulture funds, on the other hand, stand to rake in millions in profits at the expense of the suffering of thousands.

Rather than helping retirees take care of their families, the pension cuts will instead channel the money to hedge fund billionaires to pay for their extravagant lifestyles.

But retirees can still fight back by mobilizing against the upcoming debt deal, pressing the legislature to vote against the bill allowing the restructuring, voting against the debt adjustment plan, and pressuring judge Laura Taylor Swain to not approve the plan.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Education Reform, Pensions, Puerto Rico, Resistance

DeVos Did Not Divest from Neurocore Holdings: Conflict of Interest

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2019 //
23

 

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) complained that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos did not give up her family holdings in a “brain enhancement” company called Neurocore. 

Neurocore operates brain performance centers that offer treatment for children and adults with anxiety, depression, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The company uses unproven “brain training” techniques to address these conditions without the use of medication.   

At the time she was appointed, Secretary DeVos and her spouse valued their investment in Neurocore as between $5,000,001 and $25,000,000. Since then, the DeVoses have increased their investment in the company by up to $10.5 million, and financial disclosure documents filed this month suggest that her ties to the company are deepening.

Secretary DeVos’ stake in Neurocore presents potential conflicts of interest that stem largely from the possibility that the company could begin to partner with schools, as other similar companies have, and then benefit from programs that she can influence.

In this context, the types of evidence that are sufficient for companies to show effectiveness is an important question, and Neurocore’s claims about its own effectiveness have been disputed. The company has been been called out by the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) for misleading claims about its success in helping its clients address ADHD and autism without medication. Education Week also questioned the scientific evidence behind Neurocore’s claims, citing the American Academy of Pediatrics’ clinical guidelines and consulting three leading experts. If the Department of Education were to accept state accountability plans that relied on interventions for children with conditions such as ADHD and autism that lacked a sufficient scientific basis, it could possibly open the door for Neurocore and companies like it to work with schools in the future.

A number of critics have questioned Neurocore’s claims about curing ADHD and autism with biofeedback.

DeVos increased her stake in the company since becoming Secretary.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform

Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools on the State and City’s Floundering Charters

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2019 //
6

Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

 

June 5, 2019

For immediate release: Statement of APPS Re CREDO study

 

The CREDO study released today presents more evidence that the charter experiment foisted upon the state’s children has been a resounding failure, especially considering the enormous amount of taxpayer dollars that have been spent on charter schools.  

 

For many reasons, comparing charters to district schools is not an apples-to-apples exercise. Charter schools receive outside funding from private donors, including significant amounts every year from the Philadelphia School Partnership.  PSP identifies as a non-profit funder of schools, but they have been strong financial and political advocates for privatization and charter expansion. The bulk of their corporate funding goes to non-district schools. 

 

Charter schools have been cited over the years for unfair practices such as presenting barriers to enrollment, failure to inform students and parents of their due process rights when facing disciplinary action, and expelling students for trivial offenses including being out of uniform and lateness.  Thus, many charters are able to exclude students with special needs, both behavioral and academic.  

Studies done by both Philadelphia City Controller’s Office and the State Attorney General’s Office have documented fraud and questionable spending in some of the city’s largest charter organizations.   Organizations including PCCY and the Education 

Law Center have conducted in-depth studies that show charters do not outperform district schools in most categories. ELC’s recent report shows: 1) the population of economically disadvantaged students is much lower in Philadelphia’s charter schools—70% in the District, 56% in charters; 2) the percentage of English learners is nearly three times higher—11% in District, 4% in charters; 3) few of the special education students in the traditional charters are from the low-incidence disability categories, such as autism and intellectual disability, that are most expensive to serve.

The diversion of public funds to privately managed charters has made it more difficult for public schools to fund essential programs, but public schools still manage to outperform charters in most categories.  Lack of oversight, both on the state and local level, has resulted in a lack of accountability in the charter sector. 

The CREDO study confirms that the claim of charter investors and operators that charter schools are a better choice has never been true.  Harrisburg must reform the PA Charter Law so that the voters in each district can have the means to fully fund and strengthen their public school systems.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Privatization
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