Archives for the month of: March, 2020
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Audrey Watters: Will the Ed-Tech Industry Take Advantage of the Coronavirus Crisis?

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2020 //
31

Audrey Watters reminds us of Rahm Emanuel’s immortal words, “Never allow a good crisis to go to waste.”

And she see the enthusiasts of the ed-tech industry ready to pounce and take advantage of the current crisis. She lives in Seattle, possibly the epicenter of the crisis.

She writes:

Some schools in the Seattle area — both K-12 and colleges — have closed, and there has been intense pressure on administrators to shut everything down and move instruction online. (Governor Inslee has just announced the state is considering “mandatory measures” to combat the spread of the illness, so we shall see what exactly that means.) I’ve heard lots of local tech workers complain angrily that, in a region that’s home to Microsoft and Amazon, there is really no excuse for schools staying open. Digital learning, they argue, is already preferable. And now, they say, it’s necessary.

But that just strikes me as wildly uninformed — although that’s never stopped the tech industry from intervening in education before. It’s an assertion that rests on the assumption that ed-tech is good, that it can replicate at home what happens in the classroom. “This may be our moment,” ed-tech folks exclaim, giddily sharing lists of their favorite digital learning tools (with little concern, it seems for questions of accessibility, privacy, or security) and tips for quickly moving “to the cloud.” Of course, education technology — as a field, an industry, a discipline, a solution, what have you — has had decades and decades and decades to get this right. It still hasn’t. So when you hear “this is our moment,” you should recall perhaps the thesis of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. What we’re poised to see in response to the coronavirus — and not just in education, to be fair — is more disaster capitalism, and “disaster capitalists share this same inability to distinguish between creation and destruction, between hurting and healing.”

People are hurting and people are frightened right now. And thanks to the utter incompetence of the Trump Administration, there’s surely still more to worry about; still more people are going to suffer. This isn’t the time to be triumphant about ed-tech’s possibilities. This isn’t the time to prove anything about ed-tech, quite frankly. This an emergency response to a crisis.

Do all students have access to high-speed broadband at home? K-12 or otherwise? Nope. Do all students have access to laptops at home? Nope. Schools know this, and it’s part of the calculation they make whether or not to move everything online. But closure isn’t just about classes. The function of schools extends well beyond instruction. This is particularly true in K-12 schools, which also serve for many students and families as childcare, community centers, health care providers, disability support services, and places to eat breakfast and lunch. To close the doors to a school shifts the burden of all these services onto individual families.

Spare me the techno-solutionism. Let’s talk about big structural change. (But let’s not act like we’re gonna implement that tomorrow morning, ok?)

Categories Health, Seattle, Technology

Mike Deshotels: Every Reform Imposed in Louisiana Has Failed and Harmed Children

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2020 //
13

Mike Deshotels reviews the past several years of “reform,” funded by the Walton Family and Michael Bloomberg, and declares that every part of it has failed.

Deshotels writes that the suspension of recess so that students could have more time for test prep led to lower test scores!

He writes:

Why isn’t constant drilling on test taking skills at the expense of recess, PE, art, music, vocational education, and other “less important” instruction producing higher test scores? Maybe because the current trend to ignore fundamental child development principle’s is harmful in every way, including killing the joy of schooling for both children and teachers! Teachers in Finland, whose students perform at the top of the rankings on international achievement tests, routinely take young children outdoors where they can play, investigate nature and develop normally as they are programmed by their genes to do. Why do American reformers insist on counteracting nature and instead have transformed our education system to motivation killing test drudgery?

It was equally stupid to remove teachers from the decision-making process and leave it to legislators and the state education department. What a bad idea!

This outrageous trampling on the rights and critical input of the teaching profession in education decisions has actually resulted in the opposite of what our non-educator reformers said they wanted to do. Do you think our government can stop the Corona virus by ignoring the recommendations of the highly trained experts in disease prevention? The same is true of refusing to listen to real teachers about education reform. Do you believe, as the reformers would have you believe, that education reform in Louisiana is really working in preparing students for college and careers? Are you willing to ignore the most recent devastating revelation by our own Board of Regents that after all the reforms imposed on K-12 education in Louisiana, only 18 out of one hundred of our students will attain a college degree of any kind. Not even a two year associate’s degree! These are the worst results I have ever seen! Don’t blame the teachers. Teacher attended the legislative committee proposing these changes by the thousands to protest these untested ideas, only to be scolded for having the nerve to come to Baton Rouge on a school day (but that was the only time the Education committee was meeting!). Now the chickens are coming home to roost and thousands of our most dedicated teachers have left the profession.

Who has been making decisions? The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, exactly the worst people to decide how to educate the state’s children.

The stranglehold over control of public education by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry promises even more failure with the upcoming appointment of John White’s replacement.
Make no mistake about it, LABI has had almost total control over K-12 education for over 4 years since they used Michael Bloomburg’s and Walton family contributions to totally purchase all the BESE elected positions. They have made nothing but bad decisions with all this power. The school privatization they pushed has been almost a total failure with data showing that students who stay in their public schools do significantly better than they do when they move to a voucher or charter school.

Now LABI is preparing to pick the state’s next superintendent to succeed the failed John White, who mastered the art of spinning data to make it look good when it wasn’t. Of course, they are pushing White’s loyal assistant.

Let’s look at some of the real results of LABI supported reforms. On their web site, LABI claims that Louisiana is closing the achievement gap between privileged and underprivileged students. Data demonstrates instead that the exact opposite is true. They are also dead wrong claiming that ACT scores are improving. LABI is now down to apparently basing its education policies on wishful thinking rather than evidence.

The same is true of teacher evaluations based on student test scores using our defective state tests. LABI has insisted that Louisiana evaluate its teachers partially on student test scores. But all the data proves that the VAM system used is unstable and inaccurate. So a couple of years ago I got thrown off of a state committee studying changes to VAM because I had the nerve to state on my blog that LABI was like the dog that caught the truck with this whole VAM fiasco. They don’t have any idea what to do with VAM but they will never admit they were wrong. Meanwhile some very competent and dedicated teachers have had their careers ruined by VAM and thousands of great teachers have left the profession.

Louisiana has been fully in the grips of the Disruption Machine. It has fallen to the bottom of NAEP, which John White hailed as “proof” that the state had enacted higher standards. More failure like that and Louisiana will fall below Alabama and New Mexico, the lowest performing states.

Louisiana has bought into all the favorite remedies of “reform” (aka disruption), and there is nothing to show for it but failure, propaganda, and lies.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Louisiana, Privatization, Vouchers, Wall of Shame, Walton Foundation

John Ogozalek: What Teachers Can Do to Help During Epidemic Crisis

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2020 //
84

John Ogozalek teaches in rural upstate New York.

He writes:

Let’s hope we dodge this bullet as a nation.

But it sounds like the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to go sideways.

What if schools close for weeks -if not months?

What will teachers do during this time off? (Assuming we’re not taking care of family in our own homes.)

And, let’s face it, the idea of teaching online just isn’t going to last long if at all for many K-12 schools. Seriously.

Here’s the thing…

Teachers represent an already organized, very locally based force -across the entire nation.

Instead of waiting for the federal government’s response to get organized (which under Trump’s leadership seems like a disaster in the making as valuable time slips by) perhaps our unions and school districts can get moving on this challenge right now.

Hopefully, we won’t be needed. But why not get ready to help?

I do not want to sit around my house if school is closed.

Could I volunteer with a local doctor? Check on shut ins?

At the minimum, schools can have meetings right now to make sure teachers and staff have accurate contact information including alternate means to communicate in case the internet is stressed. What happens to families who are lacking child care? And, those kids who rely on school lunch?

We can start to organize and at least offer our volunteer assistance to the government. A sort of “Teacher Force” at the ready for those of us who can lend a hand.

By moving forward without fear and working together maybe we can create a model for other groups? And, most importantly, offer some help to the children in our communities.

You have contact with people in charge of things in this country, especially union leaders.

I think this idea might get off the ground pretty quickly if an organization like NYSUT, for example, gets local presidents on it. Of course, we’d include administrators and anyone else in the school who wants to pitch in. We’d need a thoughtful template to respond effectively…a plan informed by public health experts. A package of possible options that local schools can consider and perhaps choose from.

Just an idea, Diane. Maybe the higher ups somewhere are already thinking in this direction?

If not, maybe we should….

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, Health, Principals, Students, Teachers

Backlash Against Ed Tech in the Classroom

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2020 //
44

Debbie Truong writes in the Washington Post about parents who object to teachers’ reliance on iPads in the classroom. Twenty years ago, the burgeoning industry asserted that Ed tech would motivate students and lead to higher test scores, but that promise was never filled.


Meaghan Edwards had just finished reading children’s books to her son’s third-grade class when the teacher announced that students could have free time before lunch. Instead of playing cards, talking with friends or reading more, the students pulled out their iPads.

“They were zoned out like little zombies,” recalled Edwards, whose children attended school in the Eanes Independent School District in Austin.

The school system is one of many coast to coast that have spent millions of dollars on initiatives aimed at putting computers or tablets in the hands of every student, sometimes as early as kindergarten.
Do kids learn more when they trade in composition books for iPads?

The largest school district in Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools, announced last year plans to provide Dell laptops to students starting in third grade. Less wealthy school systems have issued bonds to purchase devices, borrowing millions of dollars for laptops, iPads and Chromebooks.

But some parents in parts of the country where the programs are in place want to scale back, saying the devices are harming the way young children learn.

From Northern Virginia to Shawnee, Kan., to Norman, Okla., parents have demanded schools reduce or eliminate use of digital devices, provide alternative “low-screen” classwork and allow parents to say they do not want their children glued to glowing screens. Some families have even transferred their children to schools that are not so smitten with technology.

Maryland health and education officials released guidelines on using digital devices in school that include reminding students to take eye and stretch breaks and that encourage educators to offer collaborative learning assignments on and off the devices.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-students-are-learning-on-laptops-and-tablets-in-class-some-parents-want-to-hit-the-off-switch/2020/02/01/d53134d0-db1e-11e9-a688-303693fb4b0b_story.html

Categories Education Reform, Technology

Wendy Lecker, Civil Rights Lawyer, Reviews SLAYING GOLIATH

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2020 //
2

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights lawyer for the Education Law Center who writes regularly for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group and the Stamford (CT) Advocate.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-A-fighter-against-bad-education-15111892.php

She writes:

Diane Ravitch is rare in American public policy — a public figure who very publicly admitted that the positions she once championed were wrong. Dr. Ravitch is a historian of education and former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush — and was once a vocal champion of two pillars of education “reform”: school choice and standardized testing. In 2010, she published a book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” in which she meticulously critiqued these policies, and rued her role in pushing them.

Since then, Dr. Ravitch has tirelessly fought ill-conceived and harmful education policies and promotes a vision of public education that she believes is better for children and truer to our democratic ideals. She not only writes and speaks out herself, she also gives voice to many others fighting for public education, known and unknown. In her blog (dianeravitch.net), which has been viewed by tens of millions, she posts articles and commentaries on education policy from journalists, activists, teachers, parents, scholars and students. It is a must-read blog for anyone who wants to keep up with what is happening around the country in public education. (Full disclosure — Dr. Ravitch has posted many of my columns on her blog). In addition, Ravitch started, along with other activists, the Network for Public Education, a research and advocacy organization that connects supporters of public schools nationwide.

For all her critiques of education reform, or more accurately, “education disruption,” as she calls it, Ravitch is an optimist. Her new, well-researched, yet accessible book, “Slaying Goliath,” exemplifies this positive outlook.

The book doesn’t start out terribly optimistically. Early on, Ravitch presents a daunting list of the many billionaires and foundations that have funded this disruption, and the think tanks and policy organizations they fund to convince state and national politicians to impose their schemes.

For example, Ravitch notes that in North Carolina, that Tea Party extremists killed that state’s successful Teaching Fellows program — which worked with public universities to build a pipeline of career teachers- and diverted that program’s funding to Teach for America, whose minimally trained teachers make no more than a two-year commitment. Interestingly, in North Carolina’s long-running school funding case, a court ordered plan approved in January to ensure state compliance with its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to all children, calls for reinvigorating and expanding the Teaching Fellows program.

Ravitch maintains that the influence these Goliath philanthrocapitalists buy, installing their chosen public policies and often trampling community will, is corrosive to democracy.

The book chronicles the failures of the reforms pushed by disrupters. For example, Ravitch details how standardized test-based teacher evaluation was devoid of evidence from the start, yet was pushed by Bill Gates and other influential disrupters, then imposed across the nation. Eventually, this scheme was exposed as fatally flawed, invalidated by experts and courts, and mostly abandoned. Even the Gates foundation ultimately admitted that it was a failed idea, but not before billions of dollars was wasted. Ravitch also surveys the corruption and dark money that pervades many of the disrupters’ privatization schemes, providing a clue as to why, despite their clear failures, these bad ideas seem to persist.

In every Diane Ravitch book, I always find new light shed on a topic I thought I knew. “Slaying Goliath” is no exception. In one fascinating chapter, Ravitch reviews the research on intrinsic motivation and its connection to the flawed reward-and-punishment philosophy that underpins education disruption policies. She describes in detail how renowned experts studying these concepts alerted Congress in 2011 to the faulty logic behind and dangers of test-based accountability, to no avail.

The author profiles some of the Davids battling these disruptive Goliaths: from Providence high school students objecting to standardized testing, to community members such as Jitu Brown, fighting school closures and privatization in Chicago, to the teachers around the country protesting deplorable conditions in their underfunded schools.

While these underdogs have not always succeeded, Ravitch’s book provides hope that sanity can be restored to education policy. Throughout the book she places the opposition to educational disruption in the context of the growing awareness about big money’s toxic influence on American politics and policy in general. She reminds readers that “no genuine social movement is created and sustained by elites.” Ravitch notes that those who have risen have shown others that grassroots organizing can have an impact.

Let us hope that Ravitch is right and these Davids will, for the sake of all our children, ultimately prevail.

Wendy Lecker is a columnist for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is senior attorney at the Education Law Center.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers

Bill Phillis: Ohio Has Diverted $14.7 Billion to Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2020 //
6

Bill Phillis is a retired state official in Ohio. As founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, he follows the money. And he finds that nearly $15 billion has been diverted from public schools to charters and vouchers.

Educational opportunities lost in public school districts due to the state’s confiscation of $14,673,524,789 for the charter and voucher whims

Traditional public school students have been denied massive educational opportunities by the state’s confiscation of $14.7 billion from school districts. Much of the $14.7 billion has been wasted; hence, all students are being shortchanged.

The state’s constitutional responsibility is to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools. Instead of fixing the system as directed by the Ohio Supreme Court, the state has frittered away $14.7 billion of school district funds.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Funding, Ohio, Vouchers

Fred Klonsky: Erik Prince’s Long History Spying on Americans

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2020 //
13

Fred Klonsky, retired teacher in Illinois, recounts Erik Prince’s long history of engaging in espionage against his fellow citizens.

Erik Prince recruits CIA and British spies to spy on us for Donald Trump.

He writes:

The story in the Times details how Prince recruited ex-U.S. and British spies to infiltrate organizations including, but not even closely limited to, teacher unions.

Erik Prince is Betsy DeVos’ brother. DeVos is Trump’s Secretary of Education. Devos also has close ties to many Michigan-based right-wing, anti-union organizations. Among them is the Mackinaw Center for Public Policy.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Of course, this is nothing new.

For example, in 2011 all my work emails and personnel files were the subject of a FOIA filed by Ben Velderman of the Michigan-based Education Action group which had ties to the Mackinaw Center and Betsy DeVos.

This was just after having served as president of my NEA union local for ten years.

(The operations reported in the Times were) run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

This is a step up from the days when these groups were using hacks like Ben Velderman to do their dirty work.

Now they are using professional spies.

Is this legal? Can’t Erik Prince be sued for violating the civil rights of others?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Education Reform, Evil

Erik Prince, Brother of Betsy DeVos, Master of Domestic Espionage

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2020 //
29

Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos, imagines himself a hero. He owned a mercenary army, which hired killers for foreign conflicts, now he has a network of spies who infiltrate peaceful domestic organizations, like teachers’ unions. If your phone is tapped, Erik or one of his spies might be listening in. Is this even legal? Does he care?

The New York Times reported on Prince’s latest vile caper:

Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.
Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump’s aides and family. Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Evil

Julian Vasquez Heilig: How Does KIPP Really Treat Parents?

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2020 //
7

Julian Vasquez Heilig writes one of the most interesting blogs around, called “Cloaking Inequity.” He is a scrupulous researcher and specializes in exposing frauds. He recently was appointed dean of the school of education at the University of Kentucky. Before he came to Kentucky, he was a faculty member at Sacramento State and chair of the California branch of the NAACP. He is also a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.

In this post, Heilig examines the relationship between KIPP and one of its parents.

How does KIPP charter really treat parents?

A KIPP parent sent me a disturbing story today! I am more and more convinced that we need a national website like Yelp for charter schools, I was thinking we could call it Chelp.com. It would be a website where parents can do to get help when they run into the charter school buzz saws that I have blogged about often here on Cloaking Inequity. This is not my first tangle with or blog about KIPP Houston (See more posts here). I actually started Cloaking Inequity because of KIPP’s deceptive response to a peer reviewed research study about charter attrition that we published in the Berkeley Review of Education.

Here is her story:

Mary Courtney has been trying to get basic Special Education services for her son at KIPP for three years. When her son did not receive the Special Education services he should have received by law, she advocated for her son. When KIPP would not provide the support her son needed, she found therapeutic support for her son on her own outside of school. And she continued to advocate for her son and other students with disabilities, filing complaints whenever KIPP regularly broke state and federal laws.

Originally a strong charter school advocate, even speaking at the State Capital seeking more charter funding, she became increasingly discouraged by the KIPP charter school chain. In 2017, When she found out that parents like her were charged hundreds of dollars per parent in school fees, she complained to the state of Texas which later required KIPP to stop charging these unallowable fees.

OKIPP retaliated against her son, filing over thirty discipline referrals against him, hoping that the family would remove him from KIPP and their problem family would disappear. But her son liked the school and given his disabilities- cognitive delays, autism, ADHD and epilepsy- his mother was committed to providing as much stability as possible. So she kept her son at KIPP.

Two weeks ago on February 27, 2020, KIPP expelled her son from school for trumped up charges, in the process violating a long list of federal Special Education laws. This expulsion came after KIPP had filed two lawsuits against the family. Only one month before the expulsion, KIPP’s attorneys offered Mrs. Courtney $10,000 to leave the school.

Using unprincipled techniques ranging from lawsuits to bribery to expulsion, KIPP was more committed to getting rid of a Special Needs kid than serving his needs.

Mary Courtney and her family moved to Houston from Louisiana in 2013. While her family is low income, she has always been determined that her son will receive the education they need to be successful in life.

When Mary brought her son to KIPP in 2015, she had high hopes. At the time, she did not know that KIPP disproportionately suspended African American students. Even though its schools were only 33% African American, the out-of-school suspension rate was 60%, nearly twice that. In 2015, she also did not know that KIPP and charters like KIPP tended to “counsel” parents of children with special needs to return to their home school.

Her son was identified as a Special Education student in February 2017. The school started with the usual speech. The Special Education Director of KIPP Texas, Andrea Sampy, stated, “I’ve seen this before. Based on my experience, I’m looking at a child that is emotionally disturbed.” KIPP gave her son an “emotionally disturbed” label with no formal evaluation whatsoever.

Mrs. Courtney disagreed emphatically and asked for a formal outside evaluation of her son. Her son was identified with autism and expressive and receptive language delay. The child’s doctor also diagnosed him as having ADHD and epilepsy.

KIPP did not like this diagnosis that contradicted their informal assessment and they refused to pay. Mrs. Courtney won a due process lawsuit against the school because they delayed her son’s evaluation. Thus, KIPP was required to pay for the original evaluation.

However, the agreement reached in early 2018 allowed the school to re-evaluate her son. The school determined that her son qualified for services under the emotionally disturbed (ED) label, other health impairment (ADHD and epilepsy) and learning disability in written expression and math calculation. The autism, ADHD and epilepsy labels were determined by a medical doctor and Mrs. Courtney supported the diagnosis. She continued to disagree with the school’s emotionally disturbed label because it was not based on any formal diagnosis of outside evaluators, just the opinions of three staff members.

The only disability services her son consistently received the three years at KIPP was bus transportation to school. Her son has not consistently received many of the other services stipulated in his individual educational plan (IEP). During a 2019 investigation, “TEA found that social skills development have not been provided in accordance with the IEP (for her son).” This academic year, her son has not received counseling services 30 minutes per week nor has he received psychological services once per month as stipulated by his IEP. And he has not had consistent paraprofessional support for specialized instruction in mathematics and reading since the previous school year. A charter school like KIPP receives public funds and, as such, is required by law to provide Special Education services.

But it gets worse. Mrs. Courtney stated, “The more I advocated about his lack of services and how the ED label was incorrect; the more they began to give office referrals for discipline. Then they started suing me and trying to get me to leave the school.”

In April and Fall 2019, KIPP filed due process lawsuits against Mrs. Courtney to defend the appropriateness of their evaluation, specifically the emotionally disturbed label that Mrs. Courtney disputed. KIPP eventually withdrew both lawsuits, likely because they did not have a reasonable claim. Instead of providing services for her son, KIPP used discipline referrals and unnecessary protracted litigation over issues that should have been, as a matter of public policy, solved through mediation. Pure and simple, they filed lawsuits against the Courtney family to bully them into leaving KIPP.

Her son, is a helpful son, very soft-spoken and caring. While he got in some fights in elementary and middle school, it was a result of his autism and communication deficits rather than his disposition. Since KIPP did not provide any services at all for her son, Mrs. Courtney found an organization that provided free applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy two years ago. Since then, her son has learned strategies to manage his autism and has not gotten in any more fights. He is truly a gentle giant but, unfortunately, because he is tall and large for his age and Black, some of his teachers judge him as intimidating.

On Valentine’s Day this past month, her son, an autistic student, and his new girlfriend got off the bus and went into the cafeteria. His previous ‘girlfriend’ with whom he had never kissed or even held hands was unhappyp and insulted him. He moved to another part of the cafeteria using a strategy his ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapist had told him to manage his autism and responses. Later, after breakfast, his former ‘girlfriend’ yelled at him and he yelled back. Both cursed at each other. Then he started walking to class. The two students were sent to the main office, she tried to hit him and a teacher stopped her. She then punched a wall and the students waited in the office for the administrator.

The former “girlfriend’s” mother arrived and the school leader asked her son to come to the office and sit down. Her son said he was not comfortable going in the office without his mom. Mrs. Courtney arrived at the school and took her son home having been told by phone that her son was suspended for three days. When he returned to school, he was placed in in-school suspension and then he was expelled on February 27, 2020.

Federal law requires that the school must take into account a student’s disabilities when making a discipline referral. Students with autism have social and communication deficits, so his outburst is highly likely to be a manifestation of his disability. The school is required to hold a hearing called an manifestation determination and review (MDR) before a student can be expelled or have more than 10 days of suspension in a school year.

Her son is a child with autism, cognitive disabilities, ADHD and epilepsy. He never received services as required by law. His expulsion is a violation of the law and is retaliatory.

Charter schools like KIPP think they can violate parent’s due process rights like they did to Mary Courtney with impunity. It is time to hold charter schools accountable. They get public funds and should be publicly accountable for how they are used. They must be held accountable for what they are doing to her son.

Sincerely, Mary Courtney March 1, 2020

Please pass this story along and Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s posts on charters click here.

https://cloakinginequity.com/category/charter-schools/

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Categories Education Reform

Rhode Island Will Close One of Its Oldest Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2020 //
5

Charter advocates like to caricature public schools negatively while presenting charter schools as invariably successful.

We know neither portrait is accurate.

Rhode Island’s new state commissioner has decided to close one of the state’s oldest charter schools, which has been failing for years.

The Academy for Career Exploration, which was one of Rhode Island’s first charter schools when it opened in 1997 as the Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, informed the state Department of Education last month that it would close rather than craft a reform plan that might have kept it open.

The high school serves more than 200 students, but Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green had reservations about extending its charter because of low performance, including a zero percent proficiency rate in math. Nearly 38 percent of students were considered chronically absent last school year.

Anyone who claims that private management of schools is a panacea, especially for poor children, is either misguided or misleading.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Providence, Rhode Island
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