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Steven Singer: Charter Schools Are Gobbling Up My School District

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2019 //
2

Do you want to understand why Pennsylvania’s charter school law needs to be reformed?

Let Steven Singer explain.

Singer teaches in Pennsylvania. In this post, he describes the dangers that privatization poses to his school district.

I work in a little suburban school district just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that is slowly being destroyed by privatization.

Steel Valley Schools have a proud history.

We’re located (in part) in Homestead – the home of the historic steel strike of 1892.

But today it isn’t private security agents and industrial business magnates against whom we’re struggling.

It’s charter schools, voucher schools and the pro-corporate policies that enable them to pocket tax dollars meant to educate kids and then blame us for the shortfall.

Our middle school-high school complex is located at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill in our most impoverished neighborhood sits one of the Propel network of charter schools.

Our district is so poor we can’t even afford to bus our kids to school. So Propel tempts kids who don’t feel like making the long walk to our door.

Institutions like Propel are publicly funded but privately operated. That means they take our tax dollars but don’t have to be as accountable, transparent or sensible in how they spend them.

And like McDonalds, KFC or Walmart, they take in a lot of money.

Just three years ago, the Propel franchise siphoned away $3.5 million from our district annually. This year, they took $5 million, and next year they’re projected to get away with $6 million. That’s about 16% of our entire $37 million yearly budget.

Do we have a mass exodus of children from Steel Valley to the neighboring charter schools?

No.

Enrollment at Propel has stayed constant at about 260-270 students a year since 2015-16. It’s only the amount of money that we have to pay them that has increased.


The state funding formula is a mess. It gives charter schools almost the same amount per regular education student that my district spends but doesn’t require that all of that money actually be used to educate these children.

If you’re a charter school operator and you want to increase your salary, you can do that. Just make sure to cut student services an equal amount.

Want to buy a piece of property and pay yourself to lease it? Fine. Just take another slice of student funding.

Want to grab a handful of cash and put it in your briefcase, stuff it down your pants, hide it in your shoes? Go right ahead! It’s not like anyone’s actually looking over your shoulder. It’s not like your documents are routinely audited or you have to explain yourself at monthly school board meetings – all of which authentic public schools like mine have to do or else.

Read the rest of the post.

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Pennsylvania: The Political Contributions of the Owner of the State’s Largest Charter School

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2019 //
5

 

Pennsylvania’s largest charter school is the Chester Community Charter School. It is owned by Philadelphia lawyer Vehan Gureghian, who is a major donor to the Republican Party in the State. He was the biggest contributor to former Republican Governor Tom Corbett. What is surprising about his political donations is how little it takes to win the affection of the party in power. The Chester Community Charter School enrolls most of the elementary students in its district and even draws students from Philadelphia, despite the fact that it is a low-performing school on state tests. As you will see in one of the articles below, CCCS received a charter renewal through 2026, an extension not given to any other charter in the state.

The Keystone State Education Coalition posted this list of his political contributions. 

Blogger commentary: In an effort to gain a better understanding of the dynamics in Harrisburg, from time to time over the years we have published “Follow the Money” charts using data from the PA Department of State’s Campaign Finance Reporting website:

https://www.campaignfinanceonline.pa.gov/Pages/CFReportSearch.aspx

 

We’ll leave it up to our readers to draw their own conclusions regarding how such contributions may or may not influence policymakers as they go about the people’s business in Harrisburg.

 

The chart below lists over $470,000 in campaign contributions made by Mr. and Mrs. Gureghian for PA state offices from 2013 through 2019.

 

Highlights include $205,000 to the House Republican Campaign Committee, $37,000 to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, $30,000 to House Speaker Mike Turzai, $82,000 to Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman’s Build PA PAC, $85,000 to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and$16,000 to House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler.

 

While school district budgets, check registers and salaries are public information, charter school management companies like Gureghian’s CSMI are not required to provide any details on how they spend taxpayers dollars. CSMI runs Chester Community Charter School, the state’s largest brick and mortar charter. CSMI’s founder and CEO is Vahan H. Gureghian of Gladwyne, a lawyer, entrepreneur and major Republican donor –the largest individual contributor to former Gov. Tom Corbett. And though CSMI’s books are not public – the for-profit firm has never disclosed its profits and won’t discuss its management fee – running the school appears to be a lucrative business. State records show that Gureghian’s company collected nearly $17 million in taxpayer funds just in 2014-15, when only 2,900 students were enrolled.”

 

Over the years, Gureghian has spent well over $1 million on political contributions in Pennsylvania.

https://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/06/follow-money-contributions-by-vahan.html

 

“As previously reported by the (Palm Beach) Daily News, the buyers in this week’s sale are Philadelphia attorney and businessman Vahan Gureghian and his attorney wife, Danielle. Two weeks ago, they sold their never-lived-in oceanfront mansion on 2 acres at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. for more than $40 million. That 35,992-square-foot mansion had been on the market for about four years. ….Vahan Gureghian is involved in a number of businesses, he said, including management and consulting in the charter-school industry through a company he founded, CSMI Education Management. His wife provides legal counsel for his business ventures, he said.”

Exclusive: Palm Beach mansion lost by developer in bankruptcy sells for $30.275M

Palm Beach Daily news By Darrell Hofheinz  July 12 Posted at 5:46 PM Updated at 6:32 PM

Mortgage-holder sells former home of Robert V. Matthews to couple who just sold a Palm Beach mansion for more than $40 million. As developer Robert V. Matthews awaits sentencing on felony conspiracy and money-laundering charges in Connecticut, the Palm Beach seaside mansion he completed in 2006 has changed hands for a recorded $30.275 million. The deed recorded today shows the house at 101 Casa Bendita was sold by Singer Island Tower Suite LLC, which took title in April via a bankruptcy judge’s order in Matthews’ Chapter 11 case. The seller is identified in court documents as an “assignee” of a Deutsche Bank affiliate owed $31 million from a mortgage it held on the property. Matthews moved out of the mansion with his wife, Mia, shortly after the bankruptcy court’s March 31 order. Matthews developed the long-troubled, never-finished — and since-sold — Palm House hotel-condominium at 160 Royal Palm Way, which is a focus of his federal criminal case in Connecticut. The six-bedroom, two-story residence on Casa Bendita has 15,849 square feet of living space, inside and out, on nearly an acre. With about 188 feet of beachfront, the property lies about a three-quarters of a mile north of Royal Palm way.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20190712/exclusive-palm-beach-mansion-lost-by-developer-in-bankruptcy-sells-for-30275m

 

Following data is from the Pennsylvania Department of State Campaign Finance website: http://www.campaignfinance.state.pa.us/ContributionSearch.aspx

Selected State Level Campaign Contributions by Vahan Gureghian 2013 – 2019

 

Recipient Date Amount
TURZAI, MIKE FRIENDS OF 9/5/2013 $10,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 3/18/2014 $75,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 9/16/2014 $27,500.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 10/31/2014 $25,000.00
TURZAI, MIKE LEADERSHIP FUND 10/4/2014 $10,000.00
SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM 4/14/2015 $25,000.00
SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM 3/10/2015 $12,727.91
SCARNATI, JOSEPH FRIENDS OF 10/31/2016 $25,000.00
SCARNATI, JOSEPH FRIENDS OF 10/31/2016 $25,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 6/15/2016 $10,000.00
CORMAN, JAKE FRIENDS OF 10/26/2016 $10,000.00
SCARNATI, JOSEPH FRIENDS OF 11/9/2017 $10,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 6/22/2017 $10,000.00
CORMAN, JAKE FRIENDS OF 10/16/2017 $2,500.00
FUND FOR A BETTER PENNSYLVANIA 6/8/2017 $5,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 8/29/2017 $2,750.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 11/2/2017 $3,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 11/2/2017 $2,000.00
CUTLER, BRYAN FRIENDS OF 6/15/2018 $5,000.00
SCARNATI, JOSEPH FRIENDS OF 10/31/2018 $25,000.00
TURZAI, MIKE FRIENDS OF 9/12/2018 $10,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 6/4/2018 $25,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 7/25/2018 $25,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 10/17/2018 $10,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 4/24/2018 $5,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 5/1/2018 $20,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 7/20/2018 $10,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 9/18/2018 $10,000.00
HOUSE REP CAMPAIGN COM 2004, INC 10/26/2018 $25,000.00
SAYLOR, STAN CITIZENS FOR 5/29/2018 $5,000.00
BUILD PA PAC 3/29/2019 $2,000.00
CUTLER, BRYAN FRIENDS OF 4/3/2019 $1,000.00
CUTLER, BRYAN FRIENDS OF 5/28/2019 $10,000.00
$478,477.91

 

 

Mansion of embattled Palm Beach developer sells for $30M (Photos)

By Brian Bandell  – Senior Reporter, South Florida Business Journal Jul 15, 2019, 12:31pm EDT Updated Jul 15, 2019, 12:44pm EDT

Philadelphia businessman Vahan H. Gureghian paid $30.275 million for the Palm Beach mansion that belonged to embattled Palm Beach developer Robert V. Matthews. Singer Island Tower Suite LLC, part of DB Private Wealth Mortgage, sold the nearly 16,000-square-foot home at 101 Casa Bendita to Gureghian. The lender seized the home in April under orders of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Matthew’s personal Chapter 11 filing. DB Private Wealth Mortgage, part of Deutsche Bank, had a $27.4 million loan on the property. The bank provided a $25.67 million mortgage to Gureghian to help him buy the property. Matthews built the oceanfront home on the 0.88-acre site in 2006. The mansion has six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, two half bathrooms and a pool. Gureghian, the founder and CEO of CSMI, which invests in the charter school industry, can immediately occupy the home.

https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2019/07/15/gureghian-buys-palm-beach-mansion-for-30m.html

 

“The decision means staff and parents at the state’s largest bricks-and-mortar charter – already slated to receive more than $55 million in taxpayer funds this school year – won’t have to worry about its fate for nearly a decade, even if its test scores continue to fall far short of state benchmarks. It also guarantees that CSMI LLC, a for-profit education management company that operates the K-8 school with 4,200 students, will receive millions of dollars in revenue for nine more years. Chester Community’s extension comes as school districts across the commonwealth and nation are wrestling with the growth of charter schools, more privatization in education and the impact on traditional public schools. It also renews lingering questions about the intersection of politics, government and schools.

Reprise Dec. 2017: How Chester Community Charter School got a 9-year deal

Inquirer by Martha Woodall, Posted: December 22, 2017

For years, charter school proponents have been trying to change Pennsylvania law so that operating agreement renewals could be extended from five years to 10. They haven’t succeeded in Harrisburg. But that didn’t deter Chester Community Charter School. One year into Chester Community’s latest five-year agreement, Peter R. Barsz, the court-appointed receiver who oversees the financially distressed Chester Upland School District and wields nearly all the powers of a school board, took the unprecedented step of extending the Delaware County school’s term for five more years to 2026. Barsz contends that the move was designed to protect Chester High School: In return, Chester Community, which already enrolls about 70 percent of the primary grade students in the struggling district, agreed not to open a high school.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/education/chester-community-charter-school-renewal-extension-under-scrutiny-20171222.html

 

“The Pennsylvania Department of Education is questioning the Chester Upland School District’s decision to renew its operating agreement with the state’s largest brick-and-mortar charter school through 2026 while the school was just one year into its current five-year term.”

Reprise April 2018: Judge, state question quick renewal for Chester charter school

Inquirer by Maddie Hanna, Posted: April 20, 2018

The Pennsylvania Department of Education is questioning the Chester Upland School District’s decision to renew its operating agreement with the state’s largest brick-and-mortar charter school through 2026 while the school was just one year into its current five-year term. “If charters are going to be renewed right out of the chute, … they’ve already been approved before they’ve even performed,” said James Flandreau, a lawyer for the department, at hearings this week ordered by a Delaware County Court judge. “Certainly, one year is way too early to evaluate any charter’s performance.” Kevin Kent, a lawyer for Chester Community Charter School, said the court-appointed receiver and school district could reevaluate the charter school at any point. “Nothing’s been compromised,” he said. Peter Barsz, the receiver for the financially distressed district, testified on Thursday that he had reviewed audits and school performance records and had support from the district’s school board before approving the renewal request last year that allowed the charter school to operate through 2026.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/education/judge-state-question-quick-renewal-for-chester-charter-school-20180420.html

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Republicans

Pennsylvania: Governor Wolf Proposes Charter Law Reform, Charter Lobby Cries Foul

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2019 //
3

Three years ago, the Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale declared that the state’s charter law was the worst in the nation. The scandals and frauds were frequent, and many public school districts teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. But Republican Governor Tom Corbett and the Republican Legislature had no interest in reforming the charter law. A major charter owner was the single biggest contributor to Corbett’s re-election campaign and leader of his education transition team.

Democrat Josh Shapiro is now the state’s Attorney General, and the current Democratic Governor Tom Wolf announced that he intends to issue executive orders and propose legislation to reform the charter law to require accountability and transparency.

Unfortunately, the Legislature is still controlled by charter-friendly Republicans, who betray the families who elected them, whose children go to public schools.

Gov. Wolf announced a plan on Tuesday to improve financial accountability and academics among Pennsylvania’s charter schools, focusing on cyber charters and charter management companies, through executive actions and new legislation.

“Charter schools, like traditional public schools, should be high quality and they should be held accountable,” Wolf said. “But the laws currently don’t allow us to hold charter schools and their operators to the same standards as traditional public schools.”

Wolf called the state’s charter law “irresponsible” and “flawed.” He described the original intent of the law as “creating new and innovative educational opportunities” and said that some charter schools are doing this and doing it well.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case for all charter schools, especially among cyber charter schools,” he said.

On average, Pennsylvania charter schools have not improved student test scores in reading compared to public schools and have done worse in math, according to a study from Stanford University cited by Wolf. It also found that the academic situation was worse among the state’s cyber charters, which dramatically underperform compared to public schools.

The charter lobby was outraged! How dare the governor demand accountability! They think they should be unregulated and unaccountable. Their spokesperson said the governor’s efforts were nothing less than a “ blatant attack” on the charter industry. Never mind that the founder of the state’s biggest cyber charter is serving jail time for tax evasion on $8 million that were spent on personal luxuries. Never mind that the state’s cyber charters have never met academic standards.

Why reform failure and fraud?

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Betsy DeVos Funds IDEA and Kipp to Saturate San Antonio with Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2019 //
29

 

Texas Public Radio describes Betsy Devos’s audacious plan to overwhelm San Antonio with charters created by two corporate chains: IDEA and KIPP.

Some of the new charters will open in middle-class areas with good public schools.

Apparently, DeVos just wants to torpedo public schools in a major Texas city.

Camille Phillips of TPR reports:

San Antonio’s largest charter school network is gearing up for a fast-paced expansion over the next three years. IDEA Public Schools plans to add 15 schools in Bexar County by 2022, doubling its local enrollment to nearly 24,000 students.

It is part of an ambitious larger plan by the Rio Grande Valley-based charter network plan to add 120 schools in Texas, Louisiana and Florida by 2024. IDEA has gotten a big boost to help make that plan happen: four federal grants in five years worth more than $211 million combined.

This year, the U.S. Department of Education awarded IDEA its largest grant yet: $117 million to expand classrooms and launch new charter schools.

“We cast a vision for our growth plan, and then it has to be paid for somehow. So this just gives us confidence that what we envision in terms of growth will actually become a reality,” IDEA regional director Rolando Posada said.

When Posada came to San Antonio seven years ago, he said he made it his goal to have an IDEA school less than 10 minutes away from every family.

“We realized that this was one of the biggest cities in the country with one of the biggest needs. And so my vision was to put a school everywhere on the map of the city of San Antonio,” he said….

Several of IDEA’s new schools will likely be located in the Northside school district, one of the region’s wealthier and higher performing districts.

Northside Superintendent Brian Woods said he finds it interesting that charter schools are no longer limiting themselves to areas where the traditional public schools are struggling.

“If you have an area that’s being served extremely well, why would you need to introduce a duplicative service?” Woods asked.

DeVos gave KIPP $88 million, and it too plans to expand its presence in Texas.

Mark Larson, chief external officer for KIPP Texas, said KIPP is creating a growth plan to determine where to expand next in the state, but “a sizeable chunk” of the $88 million awarded to the national KIPP Foundation is reserved for Texas.

“We have full intention to continue to grow and continue to grow in the San Antonio market,” Larson said.

DeVos gave $15 million to another charter network to open new schools in Texas.

One of our readers, who identifies herself as Chiara, recently explained why charters rely on federal funding to expand.

She says they know they would never be funded by popular vote as public schools are. The purpose of the federal funding is not only to help charter schools (like KIPP, funded by billionaires like the Waltons), but to bypass democracy.

She wrote:

“The second of 20 San Antonio IDEA Public School campuses is headed to the South Side and and is scheduled to open in fall 2019.

”The new campus — which has yet to be named — will be built on an eight-acre plot of land on the corner of South Flores Street and West Harding Boulevard.”

If IDEA had to go to the public and ask for facilities financing to build and operate each of 20 new public schools, the public would reject all or some of the new schools, because they would (rightfully) ask why they’re replicating a system they already have. There would be a long public debate on public investment. They would have to scale back plans or scrap them completely.

Charters know this, so they use federal and private financing. If they used local facilities funding they would have to get the consent of the public.

When ed reformers say they want local facilities funding remember that if they had local facilities funding the approval process would have to go thru the public, and the public would object to funding 20 new school buildings that replicate schools they already have. That would make it impossible to plunk down 20 new charter schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization, San Antonio

Racism: The Horror That Trump Is Playing With

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2019 //
168

 

Last night I watched Anthony Scaramucci on CNN, who said to Erin Burnett that Trump is “not a racist,” but is “transactional,” meaning that he will say or do anything to get elected, no matter how vile.

I don’t agree. Only racists openly appeal to other racists for their support. Only racists stir up hatred toward others based on their race, ethnicity, or skin color. Anyone who appeals to racists by tapping into racist views is by definition a racist.

I receive posts from Andrew Tobias, who is an author who writes about politics and personal finance. He sent this last night, written by Michael Gerson, who was George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter and now writes for the Washington Post:

Bush 43’s Chief Speechwriter On Trump

Devastating:

The Return Of America’s Cruelest Passion
By Michael Gerson

I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.

But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s ‘The Cross and the Lynching Tree‘ off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner.

Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was ‘stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.’

God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.

When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020.

It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.

Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.

What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better.He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.

Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us.

Tobias writes:

Consequential times.

Help.

 

Categories Education Reform

New Orleans: Test Scores Stall Below State Average, Teacher Retention At Crisis Level

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2019 //
7

The New Orleans myth continues to crumble, despite efforts by privatizers to call it a miracle.

The latest state scores (LEAP) were released, and the scores in New Orleans stalled or dipped. While the state average held steady from 2018 to 2019, the proportion of students who reached “mastery” on state tests dropped from 32% to 30%.

New Orleans scores continue to rank significantly below state averages. Louisiana is one of the lowest-performing states in the nation on NAEP.

The few high-performing private charters have selective admissions. Most of the city’s private charter schools are far below the state average. Most of the city’s charters perform far below the city’s average.

Last year, an extraordinary 30% of NOLA teachers quit. The charter promoter New Schools for New Orleans says teachers should have more professional development and higher pay.

Although the privatization lobby likes to claim that test scores and graduation rates have miraculously improved since the district’s schools were privatized, there is no valid comparison because the enrollment before and after Hurricane Katrina is very different. Enrollment was about 62,000 before the storm, and 48,000 now. It is not only much smaller, but less impoverished, with less concentrated poverty. Many of the poorest families left NOLA and never returned.

Categories Education Reform, Fraud, Louisiana, NAEP, New Orleans, Teacher Shortage

New Orleans: How a Student Graduated Although She Could Not Count or Read

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2019 //
59

 

The parents of a student in New Orleans were dismayed when they realized that their daughter would graduate from high school even though she could neither count nor read. She was surely entitled under federal law to extra help but she never got it. Now she is a statistic: a graduate. A victory for the all-charter system that failed her.

Dennis Lewis remembers the moment clearly. It was the beginning of the school year, and he was trying to convince his wife that their 18-year-old wasn’t getting the services she needed from her public high school in New Orleans. 

He pulled out a handful of coins from his pocket, and asked his daughter how much money he was holding. 

“Sure enough, she couldn’t count it,” he recalled.

 

The look on his wife’s face — who would die from an aneurysm just three days later — was devastating.

Denesha Gray had just started the 12th grade. A few months later, still unable to perform basic addition, she beamed as she walked across the stage and received her diploma from McDonogh 35 Senior High School.

Gray, who struggles with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, had been allowed to progress to this point despite several red flags. She couldn’t count money, and she read only as well as a second grader. The system also failed to provide her with the type of tailored education program that her diagnoses mandated until the very end of her high school career.

Gray’s story recalls a sad episode that was once held up as Exhibit A in the failure of New Orleans’ public schools — the story of Bridget Green, who, despite being her school’s valedictorian in 2003, could not pass the state’s graduate exit exam of basic skills.

But Gray graduated in 2018, after being educated almost exclusively in a school system that was held up after Hurricane Katrina as a laboratory for education reform.

Louisiana teacher and activist Lee Barrios posted this online comment in response to the article:

bit.ly/2KCE2k0

Just a sampling of not only how disastrous education reform has been for our public schools in general, but of the damage that continues to be done to the SPED children through pure neglect and, unfortunately, purposeful denial of every child’s right to a public education that meets their needs!  

Although this story thoroughly covers WHAT happened, as good journalistic reporting should, the public must now ask and demand the answer to WHY it is happening.  

Many of us (properly trained and experienced education experts) have been monitoring the progression of the educational experiment dubbed “reform.”  Our  children have been used as the guinea pigs for the experiment. There is no doubt as to WHY the experiment failed.  

As is true of all failed experiments, the hypothesis was flawed (an understatement).  It’s like an experiment based on the idea that if supplementing a cow’s feed with apple cider vinegar will result in increased milk production (true) that adding vinegar when watering our flowering plants will increase bloom. An adept scientist will know or learn enough about the components of the experiment FIRST to tell him from the start that the hypothesis is incorrect – worse than incorrect – it will kill the plant.  

Those who devised the various hypotheses of the educational experiment called reform include Presidents on down through the past few U.S. Secretaries of Education (Duncan, King, DeVos) to our State Superintendent John White.  And finally, placed in many of our classrooms are unqualified instructors (like Teach for America recruits) who are NOT qualified, properly trained or experienced educators.  It’s a fact.  Add to that lack of expertise along with the power and money of the backers of these experiments like  Bill Gates, the Waltons, and Jeb Bush bent on pushing their false theories.  Then quickly followed a long list of investors, politicians and charlatans and you have what we see today – our children, our public schools and our teachers “dying” – and many of us would say death by design. 

Many educators (and now parents) locally, nationally and even internationally have sounded the death knell for years. Our protests were particularly loud after Hurricane Katrina when the orchestrated takeover of New Orleans schools took place.

The volume increased in 2010 with the Race to the Top scheme pushed by Bobby Jindal.  We have been flailing our hands treading water ever since as John White was appointed State Superintendent via a waiver of qualifications by a corrupt or at least blind majority of BESE members whose campaigns were funded by millionaires and billionaires who succeeded in fooling the voting public that Might is Right!  

The single most important weapon used to facilitate the destruction of our public school system has been the use of our HIGH STAKES standardized test.  Imagine that.  One single test that combined with the disastrous Common Core Standards to which the test is aligned and the bogus unresearched  and unproven curriculum (that which is being taught in the classroom) has captured total control over our local school districts.  

And to make sure that the use of these three components of the experiment produce the desired results (privatization through school failure) an invalid accountability system was devised that has fooled the public into “believing” the results of John White’s manipulated and complicated formula of School Performance Scores. 

ALL FACTS folks.  We have the evidence. We have the proof which many of us allege to be fraud, malfeasance, and coercion.  But no one with the authority to conduct a full investigation has listened or taken action.  NO ONE!  It has been like standing at the bottom of the mountain warning that an avalanche is imminent but nobody in the restaurants and expensive homes below want to believe that the status quo is about to be disastrously broken!  Questioning if it could be possible that their lives are in danger of being changed forever.  

It too bad that the greatest victims have been our innocent children.  Let’s Stop!  This experiment is a failure!  

Lee P. Barrios, M.Ed., NBCT

Candidate – BESE District 1
La. Board of Elementary & Secondary Education

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Fake, Graduation rates, New Orleans, Special Education

Kentucky: The State’s Attacks on Its Teachers Are Outrageous!

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2019 //
10

 

Clifford Wallace and Leigh Wallace, a father-daughter team of professional educators, lambaste state officials for their relentless attacks on the state’s public school teachers. 

They begin:

Leadership matters. It has the potential to influence student outcomes. Clearly, there is a lack of leadership in Frankfort. Kentucky State Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis is taking pages from the flawed and unsuccessful playbooks of his neoliberal, pro-privatization counterparts in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. From no longer requiring master’s degrees for teachers to maintain certification to promoting privatized for profit “charter schools” as the panacea to save the “failing public schools” – our “commissioner” is helping dismantle our public schools – and the teaching profession – in Kentucky.

Lewis continues to disparage professionally prepared – and experienced – educators through diminishing the significance of the complex work they do on a daily basis, insulting their commitment and expertise, threatening their pensions, and cutting programs and budgets. Recently, in addition to painting a negative narrative around our public schools and the professionals that work in them, he proposed a “pay for performance” incentive for Kentucky Public School teachers as a means to motivate them to “work harder” and ensure every student has access to a “quality public school.” While this may sound promising on the surface – especially if you have not read the numerous studies conducted by scholars on this practice over the past 30+ years – it is a failed solution.

Lewis’s proposal for merit pay or performance bonuses is absurd. It has been tried repeatedly and failed everywhere. It was tried in Nashville, with a bonus of $15,000 for middle school math teachers who raised test scores. It failed. It has been tried again and again over the past 100 years and has NEVER worked.
Lewis is no “Reformer.” He is being paid to demoralize professional educators and find excuses to privatize public schools. This is not “leadership.” This is Disruption.
The teachers and students of Kentucky deserve better leaders who are dedicated to improving conditionsof teaching and learning.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Reform, Kentucky, Merit pay, Nashville, Pensions, Teachers

Arkansas: Walmart Loses First Round In Bid to Reduce Property Taxes

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2019 //
55

 

A judge in Arkansas rejected the effort by Walmart (owned by the richest family in the nation, the Waltons) reduce their property taxes.

Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times writes:

County Judge Barry Hyde, sitting as the county court in considering appeals of appraisals of property for tax purposes, held that Walmart had failed to meet the burden of proof to reduce the assessor’s valuation of the property, and thus its tax bill in the county by about $4.5 million. The reduction would mostly be felt by public school districts, but city and county governments, libraries and Arkansas Children’s Hospital as well.

Walmart is attempting this theory all across the country. Its “dark store” theory is that its stores, even though currently immensely profitable, would have far less value for any other purpose if vacant and have also been negatively affected by Internet competition.

This is an interesting theory. If my house were vacant, it would havelessvalue so I should have my property taxes reduced even if my house is not vacant.

Why does the Walton Family want to reduce their taxes? They increase their wealth by $4 million an hour!

Why do they think it just to cut public school funding and other public services solely to enrich them?

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Clearly the mega billionaire Walton Family believes that civilization is not necessary so long as they can find people to work for them at low wages and can hire an army to protect them.

 

Categories Accountability, Funding, Walton Foundation

Bob Shepherd Channels The Donald, #45

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2019 //
52

 

Bob Shepherd, all-around educator, assessment expert, curriculum expert, teacher, author, wrote a brilliant parody of a Trump rally. Read it here.

Incoherent stream of consciousness. Fourth grade vocabulary. Boasting. Narcissism. Replaying moments of triumph over his enemies. Crowd size. The biggest. Bullying.

Bob Shepherd also commented here about how Trump would act if he were a student in high school.

Trump is just like the high-school kid who throws spitballs or knocks someone’s books off a desk or otherwise disrupts class every time the teacher’s back is turned. He screws up his ugly, orange face and continually makes racist, anti-immigrant statements; stokes anti-immigrant feeling among white supremacists; and puts forward racist, anti-immigrant policies, but he usually stops short of the most bald racist language, preferring, instead, racist policy accompanied by dog-whistles. Then, after making some racist attack–telling congresswomen of color to go back to their countries, for example–he will, just like that high-school kid, deny, deny, deny. Trump: I am the least racist person. High-school kid: What? I didn’t do nothing.

Immaturity and disingenuousness. Not the qualities of a statesman, but those of a demagogue. “Hate has no place in America,” the Hater-in-Chief said this morning. That’s true. That’s why he should resign. And then be placed in detention.

 

Categories Education Reform, Lies
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