Archives for the month of: March, 2023
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Texas: State Takeover of Houston Public Schools Is Unfair, Racist, and Wasteful

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2023 //
9

In 2025, Texas passed a ridiculous law stating that if a school district had even one school that was deemed to be “failing,” the state could take over the entire school district. Houston has one high school, Wheatley High School, that has persistently low test scores (and also unusually high percentages of students with special needs and other groups of high-needs students).

The State Department of Education has been trying for years to seize control of the Houston public schools. The state superintendent, appointed by callous Governor Gregg Abbott is software engineer Mike Morath, whose sole claim to educational “experience” is having served on the Dallas school board.

These Republicans do not believe in local control of schools. They believe the state should take away local control, the easier to erode democracy and advance privatization.

Ruth Kravetz, a former teacher and administrator in the Houston Independent School District, now leads an organization called Community Voices for Public Schools. She wrote an editorial in The Texas Observer (where I published my first article) denouncing the threatened takeover as “unfair, racist, and wasteful.”

As a 1956 graduate of HISD, I take this personally.

After years of wrangling and legal battles, the state took control of HISD a few days ago.

Kravetz writes:

I am a parent and teacher with Community Voices for Public Education, a Houston-based nonprofit rooted in the belief that our community schools are a public good, not a commodity to be sold off to the highest bidder. That is why we, along with many other Houstonians, have protested the attempted state takeover of Houston ISD for years—a dramatic assault on local control that may take place this week.

At a February protest, HISD student Elizabeth Rodriguez stated, “Instead of punishing us with a takeover, our schools should be better funded to make sure students have all the support we need and the facilities we deserve. We are not just test scores.”

Contrary to what you may hear from some Republican leaders, Houston Independent School District (HISD) is not a failing district. HISD received a B grade in the most recent state school ratings and is AAA bond-rated.

Why, then, is Houston ISD even under threat of a takeover?

In 2015, Texas passed a law that allows the state to take over an entire school district if even one campus is rated F in standardized test performance for five years. The state says the rationale for the takeover is Wheatley High School’s low 2019 accountability rating and problems with the HISD school board. Since 2019, when the takeover bid began, Houston ISD had successfully delayed Texas’ efforts, but the GOP-controlled state Supreme Court cleared the state’s legal path in January.

In the past few years, HISD already proved that local control works: Since 2019, voters elected an almost entirely new school board, and students and teachers worked to bring Wheatley’s state score up to a C in 2022. Since 2015, HISD reduced its number of low-performing schools from 58 to nine, which is fewer than are found in Dallas ISD. Even using the state’s deeply flawed accountability system to rate schools, Houston ISD comes out fine.

Nevertheless, the state’s takeover efforts persist. If successful, a state-appointed board of managers will make all policy decisions with Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath pulling the strings behind the scenes. HISD’s democratically elected board will only have a ceremonial role with no voting authority. And the kicker is that the unelected Morath, who’s appointed by Governor Greg Abbott, has full discretion to expand the takeover. The superintendent could also be replaced, and individual schools could be parceled off to charter school operators—such as YES, KIPP, IDEA, and churches—with the usual consequences as seen around the country.

Charter schools often purposefully underenroll students with disabilities and other at-risk children, inflating their state accountability ratings. Should this occur in Houston following a takeover, the state will likely take the credit in its accountability shell game.

A takeover may also lead to teachers leaving the district, creating more classroom vacancies. The chances for a bond to replace older elementary schools will go out the window. If other takeovers are any indication, we can also expect more of our taxpayer dollars to go to costly consultants than to the needs of children.

If all this doesn’t make you mad, how about this? Over and over again, the governor and the TEA commissioner have moved the goalposts in the middle of the game.

In 2019, Wheatley High initially received a passing grade from the TEA, but the agency later changed its scoring criteria and applied them retroactively. And in January, TEA publicly announced more rule changes that will be implemented immediately and applied retroactively to last year’s seniors, whose data is counted in this year’s accountability rating. At the high school level, schools that were projecting a B rating are now projecting a D. School districts around the state are raising the alarm about the change.

We tell our children they have to be honest and to play by the rules; we should expect the governor and TEA commissioner to do the same.

Unfortunately, the state takeover of Houston ISDhas nothing to do with student needs. It is about power, profits, and a willful disregard for children living in poverty.

As I ponder the district’s future, I am reminded of a student I once taught. When I went to his house to help him think about college, he had no electricity and the only furniture in the house was a bed, an engine block, and a chair. He did his homework by a street lamp outside. The last thing he needed was more pressure to meet arbitrary standardized testing goals or for the state to punish his school for serving low-income students like himself.

From Beaumont to New Orleans to Detroit, takeovers—which disproportionately target districts with high Black and Brown political participation—do not improve student achievement and experiences.

Please open the link to finish this excellent article.

Governor Abbott and Mike Morath don’t have any idea how to improve schools or districts. They do know how to loot them and privatize them for the benefit of their cronies and campaign donors.

Shame on you, Governor Abbott and Mike Morath!

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Failure, Houston, Texas

Carol Burris Speaks About the Whacko Texas Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2023 //
5

Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, was invited by the Texas AFT (American Federation of Teachers) to speak about pending voucher legislation.

This is what she said:

I lived in Texas for ten years–not far from here in a little town called Martindale when my husband was a Southwest Texas State University student. Then we moved to Houston, where two of our three daughters were born.

The Texas that I remember was a conservative state. Taxpayers didn’t like footing the bill for anything they did not need to.

So now I am back in Texas 40 years later, and I am wondering where all the conservatives have gone. Because all of the proposed voucher bills to give taxpayer money for private schools and homeschools are multi-billion dollar entitlementprograms that would make socialists blush.

Now, for my part, I like most entitlement programs like the GI Bill that members of our military earn or food stamps because no one in America should go hungry.

But these voucher bills are giveaways to people to pay for private schools even though there is a perfectly good public school just down the road.

But that good neighborhood public school, where most Texans send their children, will disappear. Because you can have a multi-billion dollar voucher program or well-funded public schools, but you can’t have both.

Let’s look at some of the voucher bills being pushed in Texas right now. These bills were not written by Texans for Texas. I read voucher bills. Your bills are all pretty much the same bills I see being proposed in other states. Earlier today, Corey DeAngelis, who works for Betsy De Vos, was rallying a small crowd at the capitol. Corey, bless his heart, is the Where’s Waldo of the voucher world. If there is a voucher bill, Corey will show up to sing its praises. But he will never tell you what it will cost. So I will.

Texas Senator Middleton proposed a voucher bill. Mr. Middleton’s voucher would give parents $10,000 a year and create a new taxpayer-funded bureaucracy to dole out the money.

Currently, in Texas, there are 309,000 private school students and 750,000 homeschooled students. There are 9.9 million Texas households. I did the math. If all private school and homeschool families take that $10,000, this voucher system will cost ten billion dollars–that is over $1,000 a household a year.

The Lt Governor is pushing a more modest voucher bill that would give $8,000 a year to families. Do you feel much better knowing that every Texas household could fund vouchers at over 800 dollars a year?

If one of these bills passes, Texas will fund a public school system, a charter school system, and a voucher school system. Something has to give. Because unless Governor Abbott says he will pay for billions of dollars of vouchers by raising taxes, that money is coming out of your public schools.

At the Network for Public Education, we have been studying voucher programs for years and know a few things about them.

First, they always grow. Every program that begins with restrictions grows each year.

Arizona began with special education students. Now it has a universal ESA voucher program.

Indiana insisted that students try public schools first. It was limited to low-income students. Now 77% of all Indiana families are eligible and the legislature is now trying to raise the income cap to make the wealthiest Indiana families eligible.

The second thing we know is that vouchers always cost a lot more than politicians say. When New Hampshire’s program was passed, it was estimated to cost about $3 million in year two. The actual cost came in at $22.7 million, a cost increase of 756%. In Arizona, they are still trying to figure out how to pay for this year’s vouchers that came in way over budget at a half billion dollars.

Third, most of the money goes to families that were perfectly willing and able to pay for a private school anyway. That percentage in most states is between 75% and 80%. The vast majority of voucher recipients are families whose children are already enrolled in private schools.

And if one of these bills passes, you will also see all of the waste and sketchy spending we have seen in other states—taxpayer funds used for horseback riding lessons, trampolines, big screen TVs, and items being bought only to be returned for a store gift card. And Texas politicians know it! Senate Bill 8 tells parents they cannot sell the items they buy with vouchers for a year.

When our daughters attended public schools, they had to return their books at the end of the year. With these voucher programs, you get taxpayer money to buy books and other items, sell them, and pocket the cash.

Finally, let’s talk about the more important cost that goes beyond financial concerns.

The Texas I remember was proud of its diversity. It embraced it. Whether you were a Baptist or a Catholic, Chicano, Black or white, a Texas identity glued everyone together. It formed the basis of a civil democracy.

Understanding others and tolerating different points of view cannot be learned by reading books; you learn empathy and tolerancethrough shared life experiences with those who are different fromyou. And that starts in public schools where every child—Christian, Jewish, gay, straight, kids with disabilities all have a place. Read Senate Bill 8. It is an invitation to state-funded discrimination. Do not publicly fund a private school system that gets to sort and select children and shut those it does not want out.

Go with what you know and want to conserve. Texas public schools made Texans great.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Community Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Hoax, Politics, Privatization, Texas

GOP Launches Anti-Trans Bill in House

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2023 //
40

Most of us probably didn’t realize that the controversy over transgender athletes was a matter deserving Congressional action.

Should trans women be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should trans men be allowed to compete in men’s sports? I assumed that the governing bodies of the sports would settle the matter.

But Republicans believe it is necessary to pass a federal law. They know the Senate won’t pass whatever law they write, so this is a symbolic gesture to their base, some of whom are terrified of trans people.

SPORTS BILL ADVANCES FOR FIRST TIME —Congressional Republicans are the closest they’ve ever been to passing legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.

— The bill — H.R. 734 (118), the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 — was introduced by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) several times, but was taken up by the House Education and Workforce Committee for the first time last week in a 16-hour markup. It would amend Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, to define sex as based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

— The measure was recommended by the committee in a vote on party lines and is now primed for a vote on the House floor. While H.R. 5 (118), the Parents Bill of Rights Act, cleared the committee the same day and is slated for a vote in two weeks, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office said they haven’t made any announcements on when they will take up the sports bill for a vote. House Republicans are expected to pass the bill with their slim majority, but it’s not likely that the Democrat-controlled Senate will allow the bill to move.

— The legislation will be a way for the GOP to force Democrats to go on record with their support for transgender students to play sports, a key part of the GOP’s 2022 midterm policy agenda. It is also a direct rebuke of the Biden administration’s proposed Title IX rule, which seeks to codify protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Education Department is expected to unveil its final rule in May, though it said it would make a separate rule for sports.

Categories Gender, Politics, Republicans

South Carolina: A Brave District Superintendent Asks Whether “School Choice” Really Means “Schools Choose”

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2023 //
25

A friend in South Carolina sent me this public statement by a fearless district superintendent. He asked questions that most state legislators cannot answer. He knows that vouchers will subsidize the tuition of students already in private schools, and that private schools retain the right to refuse any student they don’t want.

J.R. Green, Ph.D, superintendent of the Fairfield County district sent out this letter:

Do the Advocates of “School choice” really believe in “School choice?”

Recently the South Carolina Senate passed S.39, a controversial voucher legislation that proposes to provide parents up to $6,000/year of state money to attend a private school. At full implementation by year three, the voucher program will cost approximately $90 million/year. Proponents of the legislation suggest that school vouchers empower parents to select the school that best fits the needs of their children. But does this legislation actually empower parents, or private schools that will ultimately benefit from the infusion of state revenue? The undisputed fact is that S.39 will provide private schools with state revenue, yet allow those same private schools to pick and choose the students they elect to serve. In essence, we are providing private schools with public money, without a commitment to serving the public student.

I respect any parent’s right to choose the educational option they see is best for their child. However, receiving public funding should obligate these institutions to serve all public school students, just as public schools are required to do. Private schools who receive this funding should not be allowed to deny students because they are Exceptional Education students, failed to meet qualifying scores on entrance exams, level of parent participation, etc. All students who request admission should be accepted. Amendments were offered during the debate of S.39 that would ban discrimination based on religion or disability. Those amendments were rejected and as a result would allow a private school receiving state revenue to deny a student because of an intellectual disability or physical handicap. This is the current reality for private schools in South Carolina, and I respect their right to restrict enrollment, as long as the school is being funded with private money. However, the acceptance of state money must require a different standard. During the senate subcommittee hearing debating the voucher legislation last year I shared the published admission criteria for a local private school. The school clearly outlined the following:

• Does not provide a program of study and support for students with learning disability, an IEP, or 504 plan.

• Married students, pregnant students, and or biological parents will not be allowed to attend.

• Reserves the right to reject any application for admission or employment and further reserves the right to terminate any association with students if it determines that such association is incompatible with the aims and purpose of the school

This clearly represents private school “choice” not parental “choice.”

Finally, since the Education Accountability Act of 1998, the general assembly has touted the benefits and necessity to administer yearly assessments to public school students. These assessments have been advertised as the key to improving education outcomes in South Carolina, and essential to ensuring the public can readily measure the return on the education investment. I’m perplexed as to why the private schools that would receive public funding would not participate in the same system of accountability? Why would these schools not be required to administer the same state assessments, and publish their data just as public schools are required to do? If this system of accountability is necessary and appropriate for public schools, it should be necessary and appropriate for private schools accepting public funding.

Although I think the legislation is unconstitutional, and represents little value to improving student outcomes, if the South Carolina General Assembly is committed to making school vouchers a reality, these schools must be accessible to all students, and accountable to the public just as public schools. Let participating schools open up their doors to all students, administer and publish the same assessments as public schools, and let the chips fall as they may.

J.R. Green, Ph.D.

Superintendent

Fairfield County Schools

Bravo, Dr. Green!

Categories Courage, Democracy, Education Industry, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Funding, Hypocrisy, South Carolina, Supporting public schools

Sara Stevenson: Planning the Austin Marxist Academy

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2023 //
4

The following parody was written by Sara Stevenson, a retired middle school teacher and librarian in Austin, Texas. She usually writes about the dangers of vouchers, but here she takes a new tack. She calls it “My Modest Proposal.”

She writes:

Randan Steinhauser of Young Americans for Liberty at the February 16 Texas Tribune Panel on School Choice:

“… things the Texas Association of School Boards or other entities are proposing, such as gender pronouns, or Marxist curriculum, there are things that are happening that are causing parents to react… (Laughter)”

After attending the above panel discussion, I read the following excellent parody from master teacher, Liz Meitl, in Kansas. I wished I’d thought of something so clever, so with full credit to Liz, I’ve written my own parody, Texas style.

As a former Texas educator, I read with interest Mayes Middleton’s (R Galveston) 33-page S.B. 176, which outlines the Texas Parent Empowerment Program, offering an ESA (Educational Savings Accounts) of $10,000 of taxpayer money for parents to pay towards tuition to any private or religious school. At a recent Texas Tribune panel on School Choice, Randan Steinhauser’s words (above) resonated so strongly that I’ve made an important decision about my future.

I am the new founder of Austin Marxist Academy. Surely, in what my dad called “The People’s Republic of Austin,” I can find 15 students willing to join my micro-school academy. At $10,000 per student, I can make $150,000 a year.

As a public school teacher with 25 years of experience and a Masters degree, the most I ever made was $55,000. This will almost triple what I made before. And to think of all the poor suckers at my former middle school who still have to teach six classes a day with up to thirty kids per class for a total 180 vs my 15.

Furthermore, I’m elated at all the things I won’t have to do or worry about. No state curriculum, TEKS, to follow; no benchmarks or STAAR tests; no discipline problems or ARDs because I don’t have to accept those students. And if any Special Ed students decide to enroll, I won’t have to follow any accommodations or services required by federal and state law because, upon accepting an ESA, students waive those rights under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act) passed in 1975.

As a former librarian, I’m so happy to provide my students with any “pornographic” books they might want to read. Governor Abbott proposes School Choice as a way for parents to escape their children’s “indoctrination” in public schools, but I will be completely free, as will all other private and religious schools, including madrasas, to indoctrinate all I want.

At some point I’ll have to seek some kind of accreditation, but there are so many ways to go about it, and on average, the process takes at least three years. Plus, I’m certain after Texas gives tax breaks to the 305,000 children who already attend private schools, the state will have $3 billion fewer dollars to spend on any oversight of all the new schools popping up in strip malls to take the people’s money.

I’m just so excited to finally be free of all the rules, regulations, and scrutiny of working in a public school. No differentiating lessons or accommodating students with learning differences. I won’t even have to give grades if I don’t want to. And the repetitive, poorly-written pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag we’re required to recite every day? No more.

Come to think of it, S.B. 176 makes no mention of required classroom hours, so my school could just meet half days and take Fridays off. And since I won’t be subjected to the scrutiny of daily attendance measures, upon which per student allotment in Texas public schools is based, my students don’t even have to show up.

I’m so thankful to Governor Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and state Senator Mayes Middleton for prioritizing the Texas Parent Empowerment Program. I can’t wait to put into practice the (slightly revised) Texas TEACHER Empowerment Program. I can be free to discriminate at last.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Creativity, Curriculum, Deregulation, Education Industry, Funding, Literature, Teacher Pay, Texas, Vouchers

FOX “News” and the GOP Live in Fear of Trump’s Wrath

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2023 //
23

Now we begin to understand how Trump and other demagogues win power and control people: Fear. Ordinary people do not have this mysterious charisma, this ability to frighten and intimidate others.

Aaron Blake, a columnist for the Washington Post, explains this power:

“What [Donald Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, two days after the 2020 election. “He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

“We can’t make people think we’ve turned against Trump,” another Carlson producer warned Pfeiffer on Nov. 10.

“We don’t want to antagonize Trump further, but [Rudy] Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt,” Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch told Fox News’s CEO in a Nov. 16 email. “Everything at stake here.”

“‘No unforced errors’ in content — example: Abruptly turning away from a Trump campaign press conference,” Fox News executive Ron Mitchell wrote in a Nov. 18 email to the CEO and Fox News’s president.

By the night of Jan. 6, 2021, after the dust had settled on the Capitol riot, Carlson declared Trump to be “a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us.”

The internal Fox communications shared last week in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systemspaint a picture of a cable news outlet that was preoccupied with its business model as it chose to air baseless and false claims about a “stolen” election. And a big part of those preoccupations was not just the pronounced worries about its rival Newsmax’s sudden ratings boom, but Fox’s fear of Trump. Rather than driving conservative thought as the nation’s leading right-wing media organization, Fox adopted a defensive and reactive posture.

And in many ways, these backstage exchanges mirror the dynamics within the broader conservative movement and the Republican Party.

It’s no novel observation to say that Trump has maintained this degree of power over the GOP in large part due to threats — whether stated, implied or assumed. Everyone knows that running afoul of Trump is a recipe for Trump making your life miserable with the base. And so the party sticks with Trump in some measure even though it’s obvious he’s proven more of an electoral liability than an asset.

Nor is Carlson is the first conservative to warn about Trump’s ability to “destroy” allies who displease him; Republicans have repeatedly pointed in this direction.

“He can make [the party] bigger. He can make it stronger. He can make it more diverse,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told Axios in March 2021. “And he also could destroy it.”

When Axios’s Jonathan Swan suggested that Graham was stroking Trump’s ego so Trump didn’t break off and form a third party, Graham didn’t at all disagree with the premise of the question.

Similarly, several Republicans have said their colleagues went along with Trump’s stolen-election claims out of fear — not just for their political careers, but for their personal safety. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has said GOP colleagues privately admitted they acquitted Trump at his first impeachment trial out of fear.

Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr, wrote in a November New York Post op-ed that Trump’s strategy is to control a sizable enough faction of the party, “which allows Trump to use it as leverage to extort and bully the rest of the party into submission.”

Barr added: “The threat is simple: Unless the rest of the party goes along with him, he will burn the whole house down by leading ‘his people’ out of the GOP.”

As political strategies go, it’s unquestionably proven and effective. Virtually all high-profile Trump critics have seen their numbers crater with the GOP base after they spoke out — from Bob Corker to Jeff Flake to John McCain to Liz Cheney to Mitt Romney. Former vice president Mike Pence saw his numbers fall off a cliff after Jan. 6 for the offense of not unilaterally attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

What’s left is the need to thread the needle between saying what you know or actually believe and keeping your seat at the table (and, in Fox’s case, your viewers). In private, Fox employees spoke repeatedly about that dilemma.

Mitchell privately derided Giuliani’s and Sidney Powell’s wild Nov. 19 news conference, but he also lamented that “those clowns put us [in] an awkward place where we’re going to need to thread the needle.”

The second Carlson producer, Justin Wells, noted, “We’re threading a needle that has to be thread because of” Fox News’s decision desk calling Arizona for Trump.

And just before Carlson warned about Trump destroying Fox, one of his producers intoned, “It’s a hard needle to thread, but I really think many on our side are being reckless demagogues right now.”

Carlson responded: “Of course they are. We’re not going to follow them.”

Carlson went on to apply some real skepticism to Powell’s claims, pointing to her lack of evidence — the rare Fox News host to do so. “It’s unbelievably offensive to me,” Carlson texted fellow Fox prime time host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18. “Our viewers are good people and they believe it.”

The following day came Powell’s and Giuliani’s infamous Nov. 19 news conference in which they, among other things, repeatedly and falsely accused Dominion of rigging the election. Fox reporter Kristin Fisher fact-checked the claims, saying, “So much of what he said was simply not true or has already been thrown out in court.” Fox host Dana Perino noted Dominion could sue over the claims.

Both segments drew derision from executives who worried that viewers would feel disrespected, even as both Perino and Fisher were correct — prescient even, in Perino’s case.

Fox News is currently experiencing the legal downside of toeing Trump’s line out of fear. The national Republican Party has been failing to actually thread that needle for years now — and, looking ahead to its future, still has no idea what to do about it.

Categories Accountability, Lies, Republicans, Trump

California: What’s Wrong with Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2023 //
8

In 2010, I traveled to California to talk about my new book “The Death and Life of the Great American School Syatem: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” It was a startling reversal of my views, and I met many people who were thrilled to find an author who supported their deeply held revulsion to the current system. I met parent activists, including Caroline Grannan. We stayed in touch over the years. She went to work for a major newspaper and was careful not to make her views public. The following is an article that she published anonymously in 2018. I recently saw it on Twitter and realized that it was now safe to post her name.

– Guest post created by a longtime Northern California parent volunteer education advocate

  • Charter schools take resources away from the public schools, harming public schools and their students. All charter schools do this – whether they’re opportunistic and for-profit or presenting themselves as public, progressive and enlightened.
  • Charter schools are free to pick and choose and exclude or kick out any student they want. They’re not supposed to, but in real life there’s no enforcement. Many impose demanding application processes, or use mandatory “intake counseling,” or require work hours or financial donations from families – so that only the children of motivated, supportive, compliant families get in. Charter schools publicly deny this, but within many charter schools, the selectivity is well known and viewed as a benefit. Admittedly, families in those schools like that feature – with the more challenging students kept out of the charter – but it’s not fair or honest, and it harms public schools and their students.
  • Charter schools are often forced into school districts against the districts’ will. School boards’ ability to reject a charter application is limited by law; and if a school board rejects a charter application, the applicant can appeal to the county board of education and the California state board of education. Then the school district winds up with a charter forced upon it, taking resources from the existing public schools. Often this means the district must close a public school.
  • Anyone can apply to open and operate a charter school, and get public funding for it. The process is designed to work in their favor. They don’t have to have to be educators or show that they’re competent or honest. They may be well-meaning but unqualified and incompetent, or they may be crooks. Imagine allowing this with police stations, fire stations, public bus systems or parks.
  • Part of a school district’s job is to provide the right number of schools to serve the number of students in the district. When charter schools are forced into the district, that often requires existing public schools to close. Again, that harms the district and its students.
  • California law (Prop. 39) requires school districts to provide space for charter schools, even if the district didn’t want the charter. Charter schools are often forced into existing public schools (this is called co-location), taking space and amenities away from their students and creating conflict. This is a contentious issue in other states too.
  • Charter schools can be opened by almost anyone and get little oversight, so they’re ripe for corruption, looting, nepotism, fraud and self-dealing. Corruption happens in public school districts too, but charter schools offer an extra tempting opportunity for crooks, and the history of charters in California and nationwide shows that wrongdoers often grab that opportunity.
  • Charter schools, backed by billionaire-funded pro-privatization support and PR machinery, have positioned themselves as an enemy to school districts, public schools and teachers, sending their damaging message to politicians and the media. These charter backers pour millions into electing charter-friendly candidates. Tearing down our public school system and our teachers, as the charter sector does endlessly, harms our public schools and their students.
  • The charter sector tends to sort itself into two kinds of schools. Charter schools serving low-income students of color often impose military-style discipline and rigid rules – hands folded on the desk, eyes tracking the speaker, punishment for tiny dress code violations, a focus on public humiliation. By contrast, some charter schools serving children of privilege are designed to isolate the school from a district so that lower-income kids aren’t assigned to the school. Charter schools overall have been found to increase school segregation.
  • Charter schools overall serve far fewer children with disabilities and English-language learners than public schools. Even those designed to serve children with disabilities serve far fewer children with the types of disabilities that are most challenging and expensive to work with, such as children with severe autism or who are severely emotionally disturbed.
  • Despite the many advantages charter schools enjoy, they don’t do any better overall than public schools. The rallying cry for charter schools used to be that the “competition” would improve public schools, but that hasn’t happened. In charter schools’ more than 20 years of existence, they haven’t overall brought better education to impoverished communities.

*Note: This commentary applies to California charter schools and California charter laws. Many of the issues apply to charter schools in most or all other states where they exist.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Deregulation, Education Industry, Funding

What’s Behind the Attack on Teaching Accurate History?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2023 //
40

I had a conversation with Tim Slekar on his program, “Busted Pencils,” about the Rightwing attack on teaching history honestly and accurately.

We had fun, and you might enjoy listening:

#BustEDPencils Pod.
It’s not an attack on history. It’s an attack on #democracy.


Guest: Diane Ravitch.


Listen here: https://civicmedia.us/podcast/teaching-history-in-hostile-times

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, ALEC, Bigotry, Censorship, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Courage, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fake, Fraud, History, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republicans, Vouchers

ProPublica on The Most Anti-Democratic and Powerful Group You Never Heard Of

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2023 //
13

ProPublica wrote recently about a powerful organization of far-right conservatives that carefully avoids public scrutiny. They are wealthy, powerful, and networked, thanks to the Federalist Society and its mastermind Leonard Leo. Leo is the guy who picked judges for Trump and engineered the selection of Brett Kanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Please read this article about Teneo, an organization with long tentacles and a goal of crushing liberal ideas, ideas that are central to our democracy.

A few tidbits:

ProPublica and Documented have obtained more than 50 hours of internal Teneo videos and hundreds of pages of documents that reveal the organization’s ambitious agenda, influential membership and burgeoning clout. We have also interviewed Teneo members and people familiar with the group’s activities. The videos, documents and interviews provide an unfiltered look at the lens through which the group views the power of the left — and how it plans to combat it.

In response to questions for this story, Leo said in a statement: “Teneo’s young membership proves that the conservative movement is poised to be even more talented, driven, and successful in the future. This is a group that knows how to build winning teams.”

The records show Teneo’s members have included a host of prominent names from the conservative vanguard, including such elected officials as U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, a co-founder of the group. Other members have included Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, now the fourth-ranking House Republican, as well as Nebraska’s attorney general and Virginia’s solicitor general. Three senior aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, are members. Another is the federal judge who struck down a Biden administration mask mandate. The heads of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee and Turning Point USA — all key cogs in the world of national conservative politics — have been listed as Teneo members…

Teneo co-founder Evan Baehr, a tech entrepreneur and veteran of conservative activism, said in a 2019 video for new members that Teneo had “many, many, many dozens” of members working in the Trump administration, including in the White House, State Department, Justice Department and Pentagon. “They’re everywhere….”

Soon after Leo took an interest in Teneo, the group’s finances soared. Annual revenue reached$2.3 million in 2020 and nearly $5 million in 2021, according to tax records. In 2021, the bulk of Teneo’s income — more than $3 million — came from one source: DonorsTrust, a clearinghouse for conservative, libertarian and other charitable gifts that masks the original source of the money. In 2020, the Leo-run group that received the Chicago business owner’s $1.6 billion donation gave $41 million to DonorsTrust, which had $1.5 billion in assets as of 2021.

Teneo’s other funders have included marquee conservative donors: hedge fund investor Paul Singer, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the DeVos family, according to Baehr.

As the group’s finances improved, its videos became much more professionally produced, and its website underwent a dramatic upgrade from previous iterations. All of this was part of what Baehr called “Teneo 2.0,” a major leap forward for the group, driven in part by Leo’s guidance and involvement….

Many of the connections happen at Teneo’s annual retreat, which brings together hundreds of members and their spouses, plus allies including politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and DeSantis as well as business leaders and prominent academics. Speakers at past Teneo retreats have included luminaries spanning politics, culture, business and the law: New York Times columnist David Brooks, federal judge Trevor McFadden, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, “Woke, Inc.” author and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Trump cabinet official and 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, ultrawealthy donors and activists Dick and Betsy DeVos, and Chick-fil-A board chair Dan Cathy.

These are the only posts today. Read them. Think about it. What did you learn? What should we do? None of us is a billionaire. How can we save our democracy?

Organize. Be informed. Vote.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Environment, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Funding, Gender, Injustice, Lies, Privatization, Race, Religion, Republicans, Trump

ProPublica: Who Is Jeff Yass?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2023 //
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Jeff Yass is the richest man in Pennsylvania.

Jeff Yass is a billionaire. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index says he has $33 billion.

Jeff Yass created a Wall Street firm with partners called the Susquehanna International Group.

Jeff Yass is a huge supporter of charter schools. He created the annual Yass Prize, which is administered by the anti-public school organization called “The Center for Education Reform.” CER supports every kind of choice (charters, vouchers, online charters, for-profit charters, homeschooling) while vehemently denouncing public schools. CER is opposed to any regulation or accountability of “choice” schools. CER distributes millions in prizes to charter schools, thanks to the Yass family.

ProPublica says there’s something else you don’t know about Jeff Yass.

He funds Republican candidates and election deniers.

He opposes abortion.

He funds candidates who oppose critical race theory.

His top priority is to defund public schools.

According to ProPublica:

The firm he and his friends founded, Susquehanna International Group, is a sprawling global company that makes billions of dollars. Yass and his team used their numerical expertise to make rapid-fire computer-driven trades in options and other securities, eventually becoming a giant middleman in the markets for stocks and other securities. If you have bought stock or options on an app like Robinhood or E-Trade, there’s a good chance you traded with Susquehanna without knowing it. Today, Yass, 63, is one of the richest and most powerful financiers in the country.

But one crucial aspect of his ascent to stratospheric wealth has transpired out of public view. Using the same prowess that he’s applied to race tracks and options markets, Yass has taken aim at another target: his tax bill.

There, too, the winnings have been immense: at least $1 billion in tax savings over six recent years, according to ProPublica’s analysis of a trove of IRS data. During that time, Yass paid an average federal income tax rate of just 19%, far below that of comparable Wall Street traders.

Yass has devised trading strategies that reduce his tax burden but push legal boundaries. He has repeatedly drawn IRS audits, yet has continued to test the limits. Susquehanna has often gone to court to fight the government, with one multiyear audit battle ending in a costly defeat. The firm has maintained in court filings that it complied with the law.

Yass’ low rate is particularly notable because Susquehanna, by its own description, specializes in short-term trading. Money made from such rapid trades is typically taxed at rates around 40%.

In recent years, however, Yass’ annual income has, with uncanny consistency, been made up almost entirely of income taxed at the roughly 20% rate reserved for longer-term investments.

Congress long ago tried to stamp out widely used techniques that seek to transform profits taxed at the high rate into profits taxed at the low rate. But Yass and his colleagues have managed to avoid higher taxes anyway.

The tax savings have contributed to an explosion in wealth for Yass, who has increasingly poured that fortune into candidates and causes on the political right. He has spent more than $100 million on election campaigns in recent years. The money has gone to everything from anti-tax advocacy and charter schools to campaigns against so-called critical race theory and for candidates who falsely say the 2020 election was stolen and seek to ban abortion.

Grassroots groups, led by the Working Families Party, held a protest in front of his offices to protest his funding of groups that undermine democracy.

The LittleSis Project, which tracks the connections among rightwing funders and organizations, has more information about Yass. He is the money man behind Pennsylvania’s rightwing political machine. His top priority is school privatization. He wants to dismantle public schools. Read the article.

Yass’s influence over state politics doesn’t stop after elections are over. His money gets distributed throughout the right-wing network in the state and influences legislation and the conservative agenda year round. The right-wing organizations that spend Yass’s money consistently and successfully lobby to cut corporate taxes, bust unions, block climate solutions, ban abortion, target trans youth, and prevent what the right calls “critical race theory” from being taught in schools.

The Pennsylvania Capital Star worries about what Yass is doing to our democracy.

Yass is a threat to democracy in Pennsylvania. Our organizations were in the trenches during the 2020 election organizing on the frontline against MAGA Republicans, white nationalists, and conspiracy-riddled extremists. Yass was funding them. Despite Yass trying to back away from those associations publicly and in the press, this year he quietly continued to fund those same organizations like the Club for Growth – a right-wing front group that backed nearly 50 election deniers across the country.

What a guy. Does Senator Corey Booker know? Does Senator Michael Bennett know? Does Representative Hakeem Jeffries know? Does the Center for American Progress know?

Jeff Yass’s enthusiastic support of charter schools is another reason why charter schools should not get federal funding. Why should the US Department of Education spend $440 million a year to open new charter schools (half of which never open), when Jeff Yass and his partners could easily foot the bill, along with other billionaires like the Waltons, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Koch, and Betsy DeVos?

For billionaires like Yass, that amount is pocket change. Or, as the saying goes, chump change.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Pennsylvania, Republicans
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