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Peter Greene on the Flawed CREDO Charter Report

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2023 //
13

Peter Greene, retired teacher, contributes regularly to Forbes, where he reaches an audience of non-educators. In this post, he writes about the Network for Public Education’s new report on the fundamentally flawed CREDO report on charters, which claimed to show that charters outperform public schools.

He writes:

Over the past two months, headlines have declared that charter schools are outperforming traditional public schools, based on a new study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), but a critique from the Network for Public Education suggests that the results are being overblown.

CREDO is housed at Stanford University but appears to be associated primarily with the conservative Hoover Institute (also housed at Stanford), with large chunks of funding coming from the pro-charter Walton Family Foundation and City Fund.

CREDO’s report highlights differences between charters and traditional public schools in days of learning. But “days of learning” doesn’t actually mean days of learning. Instead, it’s a metric that CREDO invented back in a 2012 paper as a way of rendering standard deviations of test scores more accessible to the average reader. By dividing one standard deviation in tests scores by the 720 days between 4th grade and 8th grade tests.

So 0.01 standard deviation translates to 5.78 days of learning.

CREDO finds charters come out ahead by 16 days of learning for reading, and 6 days of learning for math. That translates 0.011 and 0.028 standard deviations over traditional public schools.

But is that a remarkable difference?

To answer that question, NPE turned to another CREDO report.

In reading, charter students, on average, realize a growth in learning that is .01 standard deviations less than their TPS counterparts. This small difference — less than 1 percent of a standard deviation — is significant statistically but is meaningless from a practical standpoint. Differences of the magnitude described here could arise simply from the measurement error in the state achievement tests that make up the growth score, so considerable caution is needed in the use of these results.

In math, the analysis shows that students in charter schools gain significantly less than their virtual twin. Charter students on average have learning gains that are .03 standard deviations smaller than their TPS peers. Unlike reading, the observed difference in average math gains is both significant and large enough to be meaningful. In both cases, however, the absolute size of the effect is small.

In other words, when a study found charter schools behind traditional public schools by that amount, CREDO found the effects “meaningless” and “small.”

NPE also faults the study’s Volume II for being selective in its choice of charter management organizations to include in the study. In particular, NPE notes, CREDO did not include Charter Schools USA, which operates nearly 100 schools, the Michigan-based Leona Group, which operates 58 schools, and Pearson’s Connection Academy, the second-largest national chain of on-line charter schools. Just these three chains of the several left out of the study would potentially have large effects on the results.

The report points out that CREDO methodology has been criticized by scholars in the past, and that CREDO research is generally not peer-reviewed. “CREDO’s report engaged in misleading reporting of its own findings but continues to use a flawed methodology, as scholars have repeatedly shown when reviewing prior CREDO reports,” argues NPE.

I reached out to CREDO for their response to the NPE report. If they reply, that will be added to this post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Deregulation, Education Industry, Ethics, Fake News

Frank Breslin: How to Combat Cancel Culture at Universities

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2023 //
65

We are familiar with stories of controversial speakers who were shouted down on campuses. Not long ago, students at Stanford Law School disrupted the appearance of Kyle Duncan, a federal appeals court judge appointed by Trump who was invited to address the conservative Federalist Society. The university apologized to Judge Duncan.

Retired teacher Frank Breslin offered some valuable advice about how students should act when a controversial speaker comes to campus.

Critically Responding to Guest Speakers

If these student protestors are convinced that they’re right and can make their case, why don’t they do so and teach these speakers why they are wrong? Why protest when they could simply let these speakers have their say, then refute them publicly?

Then during the Q & A period have these students come to the microphone to ask their questions and have those speakers respond? Wouldn’t this be better than protesting and giving their college a black eye in the media?

Unfortunately, however, they fail to do this, but pressure their colleges and universities to disinvite these speakers, or protest against them if they do come, and demand that even their own professors whose courses challenge their beliefs be fired because this is the only way they can cope with ideas that frighten them.

College & the World Not One’s Personal Nanny

Somehow these 18- to 21-year-olds have never learned that their college is not their Personal Nanny, who should dry their tears when something upsets them. What they need is a crash course in Real Life 101 that would teach them to accept the world as it is while at the same time trying to change it by learning to deal with ideas critically in a calm and dispassionate manner rather than running away to hide in “safe places.”

Raising Objections

They must learn to raise objections that challenge these speakers by questioning their assumptions, exposing fallacies if present, and determining whether their claims are certain, probable, or only possible. Many claims may sound impressive, but cannot be proven, and the ability to point this out publicly will weaken a speaker’s case.

Many explanations may not be true, but only arguable, and if a claim is based upon arguable assumptions or debatable value judgments, that claim can also be weakened. Or a claim that is offered as a fact may not be a fact at all, but only a hope, a fear, a wish, or bigotry.

How many arguments have you heard in your lifetime that were nothing more than appeals to the man, fear, authority, or antiquity?

The ability to stand back from a line of argumentation and see at once whether any of two dozen different kinds of fallacies are present, or whether the various statements that make up that argument are not facts, but arguable value judgments, explanatory or metaphysical theories would also weaken a case.

It goes without saying that the self-confidence that comes with this ability to refute an argument can be a life-altering experience for students and the mark of trained young scholars well-read in the humanities and afraid of nothing but running away. Tragically, however, the ability to do this in these colleges rarely occurs.

Instead, the spirit of dogmatism has these students tight in its grip, There is no compromise, no attentive listening to what a speaker is saying, no opening oneself to another’s truth. There is only digging in and defending one’s turf as each surveys the other from within one’s own fortress mentality.

What an anti-climax to spending years in educating themselves! Instead of becoming more aware, open-minded, and tolerant, these young protestors make a virtue of closed-minded belligerence.

There may be other protestors motivated by a love of political theater, headlines, and the local celebrity these protests confer, while for others it may be the need for a permanent grievance to give their lives meaning or themselves an identity, both of which they may see as more urgent than resolving their grievance.

These reasons are especially likely if those leading these protests are zealots with private agendas, whereas some of their followers may simply be bored, in need of excitement, or victims of Groupthink.

Danger of Groupthink

If you’re one of those few high-school graduates trained in critical thinking, you should be able to cope with this anti-intellectualism — up to a point. I say this because there is one conditioning factor you yourself may have to overcome upon entering college or becoming a member of any group or organization later in life.

I am referring, of course, to the power of Groupthink that may pressure you into becoming part of this irrationalism should you find yourself on one of these campuses.

As usually happens in “closed universes” like prisons, hospitals, monasteries, or the military, for instance, a form of Groupthink inevitably occurs. In colleges and universities, it will be only a segment of the school population that over-identifies with the particular viewpoint of this group.

As a new freshman on campus, one will naturally want to be welcomed and accepted by those in this new social environment where one will be spending the next four years of one’s life.

Once on campus, however, one may not want to protest but feel that one must or lose acceptance by failing to do so, and so will “go along to get along.” Some of this may explain the more reluctant protestors who don’t want to disappoint or alienate the “pack” or its leader….

Being Taught “the Right Answers” is Indoctrination

Strive for the kind of knowledge that will make you aware of all the competing answers to the questions you study, for all of them contain some measure of truth, and some of them may even be misrepresented by the accepted theories. Beware of the delusion that you’re being taught “the right answers,” but if you’re told that you are, give yourself a quiet chuckle.

If you leave a course with more questions than when you entered because the answers you received didn’t satisfy you, consider yourself lucky because you’ve gotten your money’s worth just by realizing this. A good course will teach you how to look at things differently and to judge them within a broader context that will enhance the quality of your critical judgment.

People often don’t need more arguments, but more air to breathe, a longer view and broader perspective by stepping back to see the bigger picture. They need to discover that what they once thought was important is really not that important at all in the overall scheme of things.

Wherever you go, college or university, with or without protests, what you’ve learned about critical thinking in high school and college will become supremely yours as you struggle against human inertia.

Learning the theory of critical thinking isn’t enough, even overlearning it will never suffice. You have to embody the theory but, most of all, have the courage to use it.

Please open the link and read the section I omitted for reasons of space.

Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher in the New Jersey public school system.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Democracy, Disruption, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education

Houston: Teachers Strong-Armed to Comply with State Takover

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2023 //
9

The following article from The Texas Observer was posted by the Texas Observer. Journalist Josephine Lee reports that teachers are under pressure to pledge their support for the sweeping plans of Broad-trained Superintendent Mike Miles. Miles was appointed city superintendent by the State Commissioner Mike Morath. Neither is an educator.

Houston is the site of yet another doomed takeover of a local school district by an anti-public ed activist with little real education expertise.

Mike Miles has a vision of a district that is narrow and meager, a system where teachers read from scripts developed by a charter chain that Mile happens to own. New schedules. New job assignments. 

Miles insists that Houston teachers are excited, that Houston parents are pumped. But reporter Josephine Lee went out and actually talked to them, and–surprise–it appears that Miles is blowing smoke.

“Our hours will change. Our schedules will change. Our curriculum will change. But we have no input in it,” said Michelle Collins, a teacher at DeZavala Elementary School. “Neither do parents.”

Texas requires a shared decision making committee that includes all stakeholders. Miles appears to be ignoring that.

While Miles has publicly asked principals to obtain school input, SDMC committee members from five schools in the program confirmed with the Observer that they never met to discuss the issue. SDMC members and teachers from other schools reported that even when they did meet, they did not have a vote in the decision. One teacher said their staff voted not to opt in, but then later saw their school’s name included in the list of 57 schools in the news.

In an audio recording of Wainwright Elementary School’s SDMC meeting held July 10 and shared with the Observer, Principal Michelle Lewis told committee members, “If you’re not willing to dive in and do this with us, then this is not the campus for you.” No teacher representatives attended the meeting.

Revere Middle School Principal Gerardo Medina did not consult with the school’s SDMC committee or with teachers. In lieu of discussion, he sent out an email on June 29 to campus employees informing them of his decision to join Miles’ NES-aligned program.

“If you decide this is not something you want to commit to, you will be allowed to transfer,” Medina wrote.

This gave teachers only a few days before this Friday to decide if they want to continue to work within the district. To avoid losing their state teaching certification, they have up to 45 days before the first day of school to withdraw from their contract.

Meanwhile, Houston doesn’t have enough teachers to fill the openings it has.

State takeovers virtually never work. This deep dive lets us see the Houston takeover start to unravel from the beginning. Read the full article here. 

You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/josephine-lee-teachers-strong-armed-to-get-on-board-with-houston-schools-takeover/

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Democracy, Education Industry, Houston, Teachers, Texas

The Stanford Freshman Who Brought Down the President of Stanford

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2023 //
24

The president of Stanford University announced he was stepping down after acknowledging serious issues with his research. The Los Angeles Times reports that the exposé of the president’s work was conducted by a freshman.

Rumors of altered images in some of the research papers published by Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne had circulated since 2015. But the allegations involving the neuroscientist got little attention beyond the niche scientific forum where they first appeared — until Stanford freshman Theo Baker decided to take a closer look.

Baker, a journalist for the Stanford Daily, published his first story on problems surrounding Tessier-Lavigne’s research in November. His dogged reporting kicked off a chain of events that culminated this week with the president’s announcement that he would step down from his post at the end of August.

Tessier-Lavigne acted Wednesday after an expert scientific panel convened by the university determined that he failed on multiple occasions to correct errors in his published research on Alzheimer’s disease and related topics, and that he managed labs that at times produced sloppy or even manipulated data.

Of course, Baker covered that too.

In February, the 18-year-old from the Washington, D.C., area became the youngest-ever recipient of journalism’s prestigious George Polk Award for his work on the investigation. Journalism runs in the family: Baker is the son of the New York Times’ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, and New Yorker columnist Susan B. Glasser.

The story includes an interview with Baker in which he explained how he contacted experts, then resisted university pressures to back down. Any threat was grounds for another story. He carefully sourced everything he wrote about.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Higher Education

Texas: How a Wealthy Conservative Bought His Own Government

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2023 //
4

Eric Dexheimer of The Houston Chronicle wrote an incredible—almost unbelievable—story about how political power works in Texas. You may recall that Disney has its own self-governing district in Florida. Florida has almost 2,000 “special districts.” Texas has more than 4,000. Read this story to see how the very rich and politically connected can frustrate public projects and expand their holdings.

Dexheimer wrote:

In 2019, the city of Dripping Springs was finalizing plans for a new pipeline to move wastewater from its busy north end to a regional treatment plant on the south. Half a decade in the making, planners said the line was essential to control development in the rapidly growing Austin suburb.

One of the dozen or so properties they identified for the pipeline to cross belonged to Bruce Bolbock, an anesthesiologist. Valued at more than $9 million, the bucolic Hill Country ranch rolls across 225 acres in Hays County, and he didn’t want a buried raw wastewater pipeline on even the narrow strip it required. In addition to having a delicate natural spring on the property, he raised bison and exotic toucans that “require a very consistent environment that’s free of noise [and] disturbance.”

With the looming threat of the city taking his land through eminent domain, Bolbock placed a phone call to a Dallas hotel magnate and generous supporter of conservative political causes named Monty Bennett. Bennett didn’t have a magic wand. But he did have a sort of superpower: his own government.

In 2011, then-state Sen. Lance Gooden — now a U.S. Congressman — whose candidacies Bennett supported financially and with whom he reportedly co-owned land, sponsored a new law forming the Lazy W District No. 1municipal utility district. Such special-purpose governments typically are created so developers can sell bonds to pay for water and sewer lines in new subdivisions. New residents then pay the MUD assessments to retire the loans.

But court records show the Lazy W was created at Bennett’s request and primarily for him; it is almost exclusively made up of his sprawling private family ranch in Henderson County, an hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Dallas. Although he has said he wanted to form the district to conserve its natural beauty, Bennett also was clear he wanted his own government to wage a personal battle against the Tarrant Regional Water District, which had proposed routing a pipeline across the ranch.

Broadly, Lazy W argued that one government can’t sue another for eminent domain. So once Bennett’s ranch became District No. 1, TRWD could not legally take its property. The water district ended up routing its line around Bennett’s ranch. Now the Bolbocks wondered if Bennett might be able to use his government — even though it was located 200 miles from their property — to protect their land, too.

They hit on a solution: Despite the distance, Bennett’s special district “purchased” a thin strip of land encircling the Bolbock’s spread. By surrounding the private ranch with a protective government moat, Lazy W, a special district based in an entirely different region of the state, has been able to prevent Dripping Springs from moving ahead on its preferred pipeline plan.

Bennett has used the district granted to him by the Legislature in other unusual ways. The Lazy W recently flexed its government muscle by seeking to condemn 55 acres of a neighbor’s private property against his will and absorbing it into the district. The neighbor argued Bennett simply wanted to add some land to his ranch.

“This taking is a sham whose sole purpose is to confer private benefits to private parties,” the neighbor, Arlis Jones, wrote in a legal filing.

While Jones tries to recover his property, however, Lazy W has already erected a fence around it.

‘The invisible government of Texas’

The Lazy W isn’t the only Texas special district to use its government powers in non-conventional ways unforeseen by the lawmakers who created them. Like tiny viruses unleashed on the state, some quietly mutate beyond their original purpose to upend local communities.

A 2014 legislative report on special districtscounted about 3,350 across Texas, including hospital, emergency services, utility, school and water districts, among others. There are hundreds in Harris County alone. In a recent hearing, Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) said the number of them has since surpassed 4,000. Lawmakers this year have filed bills that would create dozens more.

Because there are so many and they are so hyperlocal, the districts can operate far under the radar of public scrutiny, even though they are vested with powers that can affect the daily lives of citizens. “There are appropriate purposes for these,” said Rod Bordelon, distinguished senior fellow for public affairs at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who has studied the districts. “There’s just not a lot of oversight and review.”

While government leaders are elected by the people they represent, for example, special district officials generally are appointed, and often are the same developers — or their hand-picked representatives — who formed the district. “In general, most citizens know comparatively little about the jurisdiction, structure, functions, and governance of special purpose districts,” the 2014 report concluded, “thus making them the invisible government of Texas.”

Operating so far out of sight can lead to misuse, said Bettencourt. “They’re set up opaquely where things can happen that are at best poor policy, and at times borderline corrupt. It can become weaponized,” he said.

Last year, Hearst Newspapers detailed how a small group of Travis County developers were using their special district consisting of bare farmland to collect millions of dollars off taxpayers who in some cases lived far away.

The SH130 Municipal Management District No. 1 was established by the Legislature in 2019 to help develop a community near the Austin airport. But its directors discovered they could leverage the district’s status as a government entity to obtain generous property tax breaks for other developers even if the projects were nowhere near the district. In exchange, the developers paid SH130 millions of dollars in fees.

Local taxpayers must make up the difference in foregone property tax revenue. That meant citizens where the tax-break properties were located effectively have had to pay more to backfill the revenue lost to projects that neither they, nor their elected leaders had any say in, said Williamson County Treasurer Scott Heselmeyer. SH130 “is trying to fund its own development off the backs of taxpayers in other parts of the state,” he said.

When they learn of such unintended uses, lawmakers must scramble to fix them by amending the laws that created the districts. This year lawmakers proposed no fewer than three bills to rein in the SH130 Municipal Management District. Earlier this month, the Texas Senate voted to dissolve the district it helped create just three years ago.

Yet with so many special districts across the state, lawmakers concede it can feel like a game of legislative Whac-A-Mole. “It’s very rare that a taxing unit gets dissolved around here,” Bettencourt said.

Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Mineral Wells), meanwhile, introduced a bill to protect cities such as Dripping Springs from, say, having to wage battle against a far-away a conservation district over their local development plans. It sought to remove the governmental immunity from eminent domain lawsuits of “certain water districts.”

“I was troubled by the abuse of special district powers I saw in this case,” Rogers said in a statement. The House Committee on Land & Resource Management “is determined to ensure that special districts serve their intended public purposes, and aren’t used improperly as personal fiefdoms to accomplish private purposes.”

Public park not so well-known

Bennett made his fortune acquiring and operating hotels and is a Texas political heavyweight, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to support primarily conservative causes and candidates. But he’s also known as a dogged and creative legal opponent willing to wage long and expensive court battles to protect against what he sees as threats to his interests.

In addition to turning his ranch into a governmental entity, he buried the cremated remains of two family acquaintances on the Lazy W in the path of the proposed pipeline route, using the cemetery to help create another legal obstacle to the Tarrant water district’s plans. He supported candidates to replace the district’s incumbent board, as well.

Dissatisfied with media coverage of his business operations and politics, he resurrected the name of an old African-American newspaper, the Dallas Express. With Bennett as its publisher, it has produced friendlier coverage. When the Dallas Weekly labeled it a “right-wing propaganda site” he sued the paper for libel. After a Texas appeals court dismissed the lawsuit last summer, Bennett took it to the Texas Supreme Court, where it is currently pending.

The designated contact for the Lazy W, Traci Merritt, an employee of Bennett’s Remington Hotels, did not respond to emails or phone messages seeking to interview Bennett.

According to Henderson County court documents, Lazy W said it moved to absorb its neighbor’s 55.8 acres of private property because the land was needed to fulfill the special district’s mission of protecting nature. (The Lazy W changed itself from a MUD into a conservation district in 2013, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Qualify, which registers the districts.) “The board of directors has determined that the current land is necessary for the provision of additional habitat for wildlife,” according to the September 2019 condemnation filing.

The neighbor responded that Bennett simply wanted his land for his own and so was using the government he controlled to take it.

“The sole purpose of this attempted condemnation is to add Mr. Jones’ 55 acres to the Lazy W Conservation District (and, by extension, to Bennett’s Lazy W Ranch),” Jones’s legal team wrote in a filing. “The public has no access to the 55 acres, legal or otherwise … Further, no plans or documents exist showing any access to or uses for the property by the public.”

Jones and his attorney, Andrew Cox, declined comment. Lazy W attorney Stephen Christy noted there was long-simmering tension between the property owners.

“Mr. Jones has a long history of aggravating his neighbors,” he wrote in an emailed response to questions. He added that “The purpose for the district to condemn land is for a public park, which is how it’s currently being utilized.”

It’s not a well-known public park.

“I know there’s a Lazy W Ranch, but it’s definitely not public land that’s available” for public access, said Mark Anderson, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden assigned to the area. “It’s not publicized, for sure. I’ve never heard of it.”

Internet and newspaper postings show a Frisbee golf tournament was held on the Lazy W last October. Christy said the course is available by reservation. Dwight Robson, who manages the 18-hole course, said it was built last fall, and while it is considered public, the only access is via Bennett’s private land so arrangements to play there must be made through him.

In March 2022, a jury found in Jones’s favor, concluding Lazy W’s taking of Jones’s property served no public purpose. Yet in what legal experts say is a near unheard-of event, the verdict was tossed when Lazy W appealed and the court reporter could not produce a full transcript of the trial.

With no official record of the trial, the 12thCourt of Appeals in January ordered the entire case to be re-heard back in Henderson County. The new trial is scheduled for the end of the year.

Project stopped in its tracks

A 3.5-hour drive away, Dripping Springs, too, has found that battles with the Lazy W can be protracted.

With its population soaring in recent years, the city has worked hard to keep up with infrastructure demand, said public works Director Aaron Reed. The state’s regional water plans prefer more pipelines running to fewer treatment plants, and planning for the new wastewater pipeline running along the eastern side of the city began in 2014.

Although attention was given to mapping a direct route, Reed said the 3-mile pipeline’s pathway was determined mostly by topography. Planners wanted a gravity-fed line, which doesn’t move liquids under pressure so produces fewer leaks and tends to last longer. The east side was selected because it was less developed and so would need to cross fewer individual properties, Reed said.

By 2019, Dripping Springs had a state permit and began contacting about a dozen landowners seeking their permission for a 30-foot-wide easement to lay the pipe through their properties. Mayor Bill Foulds said negotiations were proceeding well with the Bolbocks, until “Suddenly Lazy W is involved.”

Bruce Bolbock, who purchased his property in 1989, said he isn’t anti-development, but he was frantic to shield his land and its wildlife from a pipeline project that could harm them. “If it leaks, then what?” he said. “As just an individual landowner, you have zero protection.”

Bennett, who he learned of by reading articles about him, “was very sympathetic. He said, ‘I think I can help.’” With their shared commitment to conservation, “He offered to allow us to join the Lazy W.”

Foulds described the outline of property Bennett’s conservation district acquired surrounding the Bolbock’s ranch as a 30-foot-wide “picture frame.” Records show the land was conveyed to the Henderson County conservation district in February 2020. The Bolbocks maintain it, use it and have the right to buy it back for $10 if the city succeeds in condemning it, legal filings show.

Dripping Springs filed a condemnation notice in 2021. But last May, Hays County Court-at-Law Judge Chris Johnson concluded the Lazy W Conservation District had governmental immunity and Dripping Springs could not take any of its land, grinding the project to a halt.

The city has appealed, arguing Bennett’s North Texas special district is not being used to benefit Texas citizens, but only to preserve one family’s Hill Country estate. “The Lazy W Strip is being used to protect private property interests, not any public interest,” it wrote in a filing last summer. If this were allowed, Foulds warned, there was nothing to prevent any special district in any part of the state from inserting itself into a local government’s affairs.

Christopher Johns, the Bolbock’s attorney, said he understood the concern. But “The Legislature set up the rules,” he said. “And we played by the rules.”

eric.dexheimer@houstonchronicle.com

Categories Accountability, Ethics, Politics, Texas

Curt Cardine: Arizona Takes Steps to Eliminate Local Control of Schools

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2023 //
9

Curt Cardine, a veteran school administrator and researcher, has written frequently about Arizona Republicans’ efforts to privatize education.

Pathway Making Community Connections (MC2) Asset Management and Educational Consulting

Curtis J. Cardine MS Organizational Management, Leadership and Change

3873 E Cavalry Ct.

Gilbert, AZ 85297

603-209-0009 cjcardine@yahoo.com

 

Legislative Alert:

Recently the legislature requested the data on in-district “choices” and open enrollment data from districts other than the one that the child resides in.

The current way these placements from outside of your districts are “paid for” is that the child’s state dollars follow the child to their new district. This, of course, is not what it cost the receiving district to take on the out of district placement. This new “look” at how many parents take advantage of district choices is the prelude to an attempt to change how “choices” are funded.

I have been involved with the concept of school choice since my undergraduate days at University of Massachusetts at Salem. At that time I had the privilege of attending presentations by Dr. Ray Budd, the originator of the term, “Charter School” (UMass Amherst in 1973). Dr. Budd’s vision was locally controlled charters started by certified teachers with financial oversight by local school boards.

My district in NH was one of the ten school districts chosen to receive federal funding for five years for Public School Choice. At that time the federal government put up $180 M to fund “choice” of which $20 M went to school districts. The Department of Education managed this program for 5 years. The bias built into the first level of funding in 1999 was toward “Public privately owned, charter schools”.

Modifications of Dr. Budd’s vision by the charter industry and state legislatures have included:

• Private firms finances monitored by the school district, (California is an example)

• State Boards for Charter Schools or University oversight of finances and academic performance (Arizona Model)

In order to accommodate the ‘choice” of parents the first step in establishing “choice” was to create Open Enrollment. Arizona did this prior to initiating choice. The other first step was to declare the state to be a “Right to Work” state (first enacted in 1946 during the height of the effort by the federal government to fund other types of schools with federal funding).

As you know these steps preceded the establishment of privately owned charter schools in 1994. The antithesis of Dr. Budd’s model.

Through the efforts of “the Conservative Caucus” (state and national level) and ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and locally by the AZ Chamber of Commerce, The Goldwater Institute, and the Charter School Association charters, (followed by various scholarships, and now universal vouchers) have grown exponentially in this state.

Critical Analysis of this latest move by the “Conservative Caucus” and AZ Legislature

Why gather this data now?

This latest request for data on district choice is the next step in attempting to declare that district borders are not relevant. The data, which was recently shared in an AZ Administrator’s Association online presentation by Dr. Anabel, will show how many parents are choosing different schools than the one within their local schools’ boundaries and out of their district.

The “backpacks full of cash” theory of financing the myth of “choice” has always thought of local taxes as a method of funding ‘choice’. There has always been pushback to allowing this funding to “follow the child” whether it was to a charter or a private school.

It is the considered opinion of this researcher and experienced administrator that the next funding that the “choice” advocates will go after is through a state property tax replacing local and county taxes for education. This will be another blow for local control of education.

This new form of taxation for “all choices” needs to be fought from day one, i.e. before the legislature attempts to change things.

The lesson from the latest round of “universal vouchers” is indicative of the high cost to the state for this ‘choice” for people who were in private school already and paying, as they should, for their child’s education. The addition of home schooling to the voucher program and de-facto always in place at charter schools with online programs is creating an economic issue that this change in taxes will claim it is compensating for.

The state’s self-induced economic issue will be used to advocate for this change in taxation for “all choices”.

If you are receiving this notice it is because you have dealt with Pathway MC2 currently or in the recent past. Please feel free to share this with your colleagues.

Thank you for your time.

Curtis J. Cardine

Please feel free to contact me using the address and phone data in the header.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Data, Education Industry, School Choice

North Carolina: Legislators Want to Declare That Charters Are Private Schools

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2023 //
19

A North Carolina charter school has a rule requiring girls to wear skirts, as they did in the good old days. The courts said that if they are a public school, they can’t impose such a discriminatory rule. The school insisted it was “not a state actor” and not public. As matters stand, the school can’t force girls to wear skirts.

This is a dilemma. The national charter lobby has made a point of claiming that charters are public schools and are entitled to full public funding. They call themselves “public charter schools” to make the point. I have maintained for years that charter schools are not public schools because they don’t have an elected board, they are not accountable to anyone, they make up their own rules about admissions and discipline, etc.

But North Carolina legislators want to pass a law saying that charter schools are not public schools because the owner of the charter in question is a member of the rightwing elite. If he wants girls to wear skirts, they should wear skirts.

The Fayetteville (NC) Observer reported:

The courts told a charter school near Wilmington it is a public school, and it is unconstitutional for its dress code to make girls wear skirts instead of pants.

In short: If boys can wear pants, so can girls.

In response, North Carolina legislators are trying to pass a law that says taxpayer-funded charter schools are not “state actors” — and not subject to obeying the Constitution.

Following a court ruling that said it is unconstitutional for North Carolina’s taxpayer-funded charter schools to make girls wear skirts in school instead of pants, some North Carolina lawmakers want to exempt charter schools from respecting the Constitutional rights of their students.

They seek to pass a law that says, “Actions of a charter school shall be considered as actions of private nonprofit and not of a state actor.” This is despite laws and policies that since the 1990s have said charter schools are public schools.

The legislators’ effort follows court decisions in 2022 and 2023 in Peltier v. Charter Day School, Inc., a case from the Wilmington area that made international headlines. Judges said Charter Day School’s skirts-for-girls, pants-for-boys dress code violated the female students’ Constitutional right under the 14th Amendment to be treated the same as the male students.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Deregulation, Education Industry, Funding, Gender, North Carolina

Texas Law Allows Big Profits for Charter Operators

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2023 //
9

https://www.expressnews.com/politics/article/laws-Texas-charter-school-profits-DRAW-Horizon-17723803.php

Just over two years ago, Universal Academy, a Texas charter school with two campuses in the Dallas area, made a surprising move.

In November 2020, a nonprofit foundation formed to support the school bought a luxury horse ranch and equestrian center from former ExxonMobil Chairman Rex Tillerson. The 12-building complex features a show barn “designed with Normandy-style cathedral ceilings,” a 120,000 square foot climate-controlled riding arena and a viewing pavilion with kitchen and bathrooms.

DRAW Academy, center, photographed Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, in Houston.

RELATED: IDEA Public Schools signed $15M lease for luxury jet despite being under state investigation

Last summer the Texas Education Agency granted Universal Academy permission to create a new elementary campus on the horse property’s manicured grounds. It will offer students riding lessons, according to a brochure, for $9,500.

Sales prices aren’t public in Texas, but the 100-acre property had been listed for $12 million when Tillerson, who also served as secretary of state under former President Donald Trump, bought it in 2009. Because of the foundation’s nonprofit status and its plans to offer equine therapy, the parcel has been removed from the tax rolls.

School board President Janice Blackmon said Universal hopes to use the facility to start a 4H chapter and Western-style horsemanship training, among other programs that take advantage of its rural location. “We’re trying to broaden the students and connect them to their Texas roots,” she said.

Splashy purchases like the horse arena are receiving increasing public scrutiny as charter schools continue to expand aggressively across Texas. Under state law, charter schools are public schools — just owned and managed privately, unlike traditional school districts. 

An analysis by Hearst Newspapers found cases in which charter schools collected valuable real estate at great cost to taxpayers but with a tenuous connection to student learning. In others, administrators own the school facilities and have collected millions from charging rent to the same schools they run.

In Houston, the superintendent and founder of Diversity, Roots and Wings Academy,  or DRAW, owns or controls four facilities used by the school, allowing him to bill millions to schools he oversees. DRAW’s most recent financial report shows signed lease agreements to pay Fernando Donatti, the superintendent, and his companies more than $6.5 million through 2031.

In an email, superintendent Donetti at DRAW said the property transactions were ethical, in the best interest of DRAW’s students and properly reported to state regulators. He said his school was “lucky” he was able to purchase the property because of challenges charters can face finding proper facilities. DRAW Academy, center, photographed Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, in Houston.Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Also in the Houston area, at ComQuest Academy Charter High School, the superintendent and her husband also own the company to which the school pays rent.

And Accelerated Learning Academy, a charter school based in Houston, is still trying to get a tax exemption on one of the two condominiums it bought just over a decade ago in upscale neighborhoods in Houston and Dallas. The school claims it has used the condos for storage, despite a nearby 9,600 square foot facility.

The battles between school districts and charter networks have become increasingly pitched, as they are locked in a zero-sum battle for public dollars. 

Last year in Houston, about 45,000 students transferred from the ISD to charter schools, resulting in a loss to the district of a minimum of $276 million. That figure includes only the basic allotment received by the districts, excluding special education funding or other allotments.

In San Antonio, the two largest school districts are Northside ISD and North East ISD. More than 12,000 Northside students transferred to charter schools in the 2021-2022 school year, as did just under 8,000 from North East ISD. That means Northside lost at least $75 million, while North East lost $50 million, using the same basic allotment figures.

Each side cries foul about the other’s perceived advantages: charters are able to operate with less government and public scrutiny, while school districts benefit from zoning boards and can lean on a local tax base for financing. 

Georgina Perez, who served on the State Board of Education from 2017 until this year, noted arrangements such as these would never be permitted at traditional school districts.

“If it can’t be done in (school districts), they probably had a good reason to disallow it,” she said. “So why can it be done with privately managed charter franchises?” 

Lawmaker: ‘Sunshine’ is best cure

The largest charter network in Texas was a catalyst for the increased public scrutiny of charter school spending.

IDEA Public Schools faces state investigation for its spending habits, including purchases of luxury boxes at San Antonio Spurs games, lavish travel expenditures for executives, the acquisition of a boutique hotel in Cameron County for more than $1 million, plans to buy a $15 million private jet and other allegations of irresponsible or improper use of funds. The allegations date back to 2015 and led to the departure of top executives — including CEO and founder Tom Torkelson, who received a $900,000 severance payment.

Over the years lawmakers have steadily tightened rules for charter governance. A 2013 bill included provisions to strengthen nepotism rules; a 2021 law outlawed large severance payments. That bill was sponsored by Rep. Terry Canales, a South Texas Democrat whose district has some of the highest rates of charter school enrollment in the state. 

“There’s a lot of work to be done for the people of Texas when it comes to charter schools,” Canales said. “Sunshine is the best cure for corruption. And the reality is it seems to be sanctioned corruption in charter schools.”

Considering the increased scrutiny, “It’s a myth that charter schools today are unregulated,” said Joe Hoffer, a San Antonio attorney who works on behalf of many charter schools. “Every session, more and more laws get passed.” If anything, he said, charter schools often have to jump through more regulatory hoops than local schools.

Yet acquiring property remains a gray area.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Deregulation, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Scandals, School Choice, Texas

NPE Releases Bombshell Report on Latest CREDO Study!

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2023 //
117

The Network for Public Educatuon just released a careful analysis of the latest CREDO study, which claimed that charter schools get better results than public schools.

Not so fast, writes Carol Burris, executive director of NPE. Burris reviewed the data and methodology and found multiple problems with both. The statistical differences between the two sectors, she saw, were the same in 2023 as in CREDO’s first charter study in 2013, which were then described as insignificant.

Even more troubling, CREDO’s work is funded by pro-charter billionaires. How is this different from a study of nicotine safety funded by the tobacco industry? And yet mainstream media accepted the CREDO report without questioning its data, its methodology, or its funders.

Billionaires behind the bias: Unmasking CREDO’s agenda

The Network for Public Education released a response to CREDO’s third national report, revealing the true agenda of a research arm of the conservative Hoover Institution. In its report, CREDO uses cherry-picked charter management chains and flawed methodology that embellishes results and discredits public schools and “mom and pop” charter schools.

NEW YORK, NY — Today, the Network for Public Education released ‘In Fact or Fallacy? An In-Depth Critique of the CREDO 2023 National Report a well-researched response that traces the funders and the bias in CREDO’s data, reporting methods, and conclusions.

CREDO’s report is meant to compare test score growth in math and reading for students in charter versus public schools. But once the curtain is pulled back, the conclusions are dangerously misleading to the public as well as policymakers who depend on accurate research to make informed education-related decisions and policies.

Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author, says: “CREDO is not a neutral academic institution. They are an education research arm of the pro-charter Hoover Institution, and it’s time they are treated as such. We call on policymakers, the general public, and parents to disregard the results of CREDO studies that take tiny results and blow them up using CREDO-invented “Days of Learning.” Their studies are becoming nothing more than propaganda for the charter industry.”

CREDO’s latest report identifies two nonprofits as underwriters of the latest study – The City Fund and The Walton Family – which gave CREDO nearly $3 million during the years of the study. The City Fund is bankrolled by pro-charter billionaires, including John Arnold, Reed Hastings, and Bill Gates. They have a well-established history of supporting the expansion of charter schools and funding agendas to break up school districts and turn them into a patchwork of “portfolio districts.” The goal of the City Fund is to transform 30-50% of city public schools into charter schools.

CREDO also masks its connections to the conservative think tank the Hoover Institution, but the CREDO report authors’ current biographies and resumes link the organizations. CREDO’s Director and the report’s first author is the Education Program Director for Hoover.

NPE says it is time for state agencies to end their research relationship with CREDO and offer detailed student data to credible and independent research organizations instead.

The NPE report takes an honest look at CREDO’s report with the following key sections:

  • A history of CREDO and its connection to the Hoover Institution.
  • Scholarly critiques of CREDO methodology.
  • Trivial differences exaggerated by the CREDO-created construct, ‘Days of Learning’
  • Bias in the “Virtual Twin” methodology.
  • Serious errors in the identification of schools run by Charter Management Organizations.

According to Diane Ravitch, the President of the Network for Public Education, “CREDO and the billionaires who fund them are trying to discredit public schools to persuade the public that public schools are inferior to privately-managed schools. How is this different from the tobacco industry funding research on cigarette safety?”

“It is clear the CREDO reports are now part of a long-game strategy to undermine, weaken, and defund public education. Why does CREDO consider differences that favor public schools in their first report as “meaningless” and “small” but characterize nearly identical differences favoring charters in its third report to be “remarkable”? Same outcomes. Different characterizations,” Ravitch said.

In light of our findings, The Network for Public Education asks CREDO the following question:

Does CREDO represent the interest of its funders and the pro-school choice Hoover Institution or the interests of the public, who deserve an unbiased look at real outcomes for our nation’s charter and public school students?

“Unless CREDO is held accountable, its reports will continue to move from “in fact” to misleading fallacies. And that does a disservice to the charter and public school sectors alike,” concludes the NPE report. 

The Network for Public Education is a national advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students.

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Categories Accountability, Bias, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Dark Money, Data, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Research, Walton Foundation

Texas: The Best and Worst Legislators of 2023

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2023 //
3

The Texas Monthly published its rankings of the best and worst legislators of 2023, based in part on how they voted on Governor Greg Abbott’s must-pass voucher legislation. The Governor spent months touring religious schools to sell his plan to subsidize their tuition. Two dozen Republican legislators in the House voted to prohibit public funding of private schools. Governor Abbott has promised to call special session after special session until he gets an “educational freedom” bill to pay private and religious school tuition. Those Republican legislators, known as “the Dirty Two Dozen” are standing in his way.

There are 150 members of the Texas House of Representatives. Eighty-six are Republicans; 64 are Democrats.

Here’s one big difference between the legislatures of Texas and Florida: Florida Republicans do whatever Governor Ron DeSantis tells them to do. Texas Republicans tell their governor to get lost when his plans are bad for their district.

That’s why Florida is going to spend billions on vouchers for whoever wants them, rich or poor, but vouchers were defeated in the Texas legislature by the votes of mostly rural Republicans.

The Texas Monthly writes:

Sound and fury signifying nothing: that’s the Texas Legislature, the overwhelming majority of the time. Lawmakers yell and scrap for 140 days every other year, nibble around the edges of issues that require urgent action, and typically produce little worth remembering. On two occasions, the Eighty-eighth Legislature stood tall: when the House expelled a member, Bryan Slaton, for sexual misconduct and again when it impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton. But for the most part the session was a drag.

It could have been different: this session offered transformational opportunities for Texas. The GOP’s control of redistricting in 2021 ensured safe seats for almost all its members for the rest of the decade, and lawmakers came to town with an unprecedented $33 billion budget surplus, the largest in state history. Previous generations of legislators would have danced with the devil at midnight to be so politically secure and have such ample patronage to dole out. Almost any dream, large or small, could be made real. Connect Dallas and Houston by high-speed rail? No problem. Pull Texas from near the bottom in spending per public school student? We could afford it.

To do any of that, state leaders would have had to put aside their petty intrigues and think big. Instead those intrigues shaped the session. Governor Greg Abbott invested the lion’s share of his political capital in a school-voucher program, knowing full well that rural members of the GOP deeply opposed it. Abbott offered those members their choice of a carrot or a stick and then when they wouldn’t acquiesce, tried beating them with both.

Here are some of the legislators who stood up to Abbott and blocked vouchers:

Representative Ernest Bailes, a Republican from Shepherd, Texas:

Bailes isn’t outspoken or otherwise prominent, like most of the lawmakers on these lists. The Republican has represented his rural southeast Texas district since 2017 but is rarely seen at the House microphones. The big dogs in the room might describe Bailes’s proposals this session as minor—one of his notable bills would have adjusted labeling rules for Texas honey producers.

Rural Republicans who support public schools were in the hot seat this session as the governor pushed a voucher program they saw as inimical to their districts’ interests. That fight brought out the best in Bailes, whose wife works as a schoolteacher and whose mother is a former school board president. The rurals held together and won. On two occasions Bailes won glory for himself.

One small victory came when state representative Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat, claimed, while laying out a bill, that in one of the school districts in Bailes’s district just 5 percent of third-grade students could read at grade level. The school district was, in fact, “one of the highest-ranked districts in the state of Texas,” Bailes told Dutton from the House floor. Bailes wondered aloud what other falsehoods Dutton was deploying. Dutton’s bill was voted down, and it took him five days to resuscitate it.

A greater victory came when Public Education chair Brad Buckley asked the House to allow his committee to have an unscheduled meeting so that he could pass a hastily drafted voucher bill onto the floor—late at night, without a public hearing. In most cases, these requests are approved, no objection registered. But there, like Leonidas at Thermopylae, stood Bailes at the microphone.

Did Buckley really intend to bring an eighty-page bill to the floor without inviting public comment, Bailes asked? Buckley demurred. Did he not think Texas kids deserved better than “backroom, shady dealings”? Bailes, defender of Texas bees, had the powerful chairman dead to rights. The chamber sided with Bailes. Individual voices still matter in the House. Texans should be glad Bailes used his when it counted.

Representative John Bryant, a Democrat from Dallas.

Bryant is easily the most energetic new voice among Democrats. He’s well prepared. He’s principled. Elected in 2022, he just might be the future of House Democrats. Also: he previously served in the House before some current members were even born and is 76.

But it’s a Sylvester Stallone 76—not, say, a Donald Trump 76. He’s come out of retirement, he’s back in shape, and now he’s whipping up on the youngsters.

Bryant came back to Austin this year with a clear mission: to set an example of how to serve courageously in the minority. Because of his previous tenure in the Lege, he arrived with seniority, landing a nice Capitol office and, more important, a plum seat on the Appropriations Committee, which writes the budget.

Unlike many in his party who seem content to warm their seats, Bryant came armed with facts and tough questions. He impressed and unnerved his colleagues by making Texas education commissioner Mike Morath squirm over the sad state of education funding during a hearing on the budget. Bryant’s genial but ruthless grilling of witnesses earned him a visit from a Democrat cozy with House leadership. Would he please stop asking so many questions? It was upsetting the Republican chairman and jeopardizing certain Democrats’ pet legislation. Bryant declined the request. As he kept pounding—on raising the basic allotment for public schools, on the dismal state of the mental health-care system, on the need to increase funding for special education—he started winning over skeptical colleagues, who saw in him a model for principled opposition.

“Bryant is a folk hero,” said one insider. “He’s reintroduced the spirit of the Democrats in the seventies.” Said another: “John Bryant is a really good John Wesleyan Methodist who believes you do all you can, for as long as you can, for as many people as you can. And that is the only thing that is really motivating him.”

Senator Robert Nichols, Republican from Jacksonville.

There are no Republican mavericks in Dan Patrick’s Senate. But until a real iconoclast shows up, Robert Nichols will do.

Nichols, who represents a largely rural swath of East Texas where few private schools exist, has long opposed creating vouchers, which siphon money away from public schools. Patrick has long supported creating them. So it was notable when the East Texan schooled the lieutenant governor and voted against his voucher plan. “He’s managed to effectively represent his vast district in the politically hostile work environment created by Dan Patrick,” said a longtime Capitol insider.

And Nichols wasn’t just the lone Senate Republican “no” on school vouchers. He’s one of the few Republican legislators to support adding a rape exception to the state’s abortion ban and raising the legal age for purchasing certain semiautomatic weapons to 21. Both of these positions enjoy overwhelming public support yet remain politically untenable because the Republican Party is in thrall to campaign contributors and the 3 percent of Texans who decide its primary elections. When a state’s priorities are set by a small but vocal minority, standing up for broadly popular policies counts for real courage.

So far Nichols appears to have maintained a relationship with Patrick, and he’s been able to get several bills passed. Perhaps Nichols’s greatest accomplishment this session was making Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, part of the University of Texas System. Membership in the UT System will provide the East Texas institution, which celebrates its centenary this year, with a much-needed infusion of money and energy.

The Texas Monthly left off a few outstanding Republican legislators who stand strong against vouchers. So I’m adding them here to my own list of the best legislators in Texas because they stand up for the common good and ignore Gregg Abbott’s demands. They are not afraid of him.

Glenn Rogers (R, Graford)

Glenn Rogers has been fearless in his fight for public education. He wrote this op-ed in the Weatherford newspaper at the beginning of the session: https://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/opinion/columns/rogers-defending-our-local-schools/article_8fb5b78c-1057-5a84-ba96-a60de51bd65c.html. And this one from last year against vouchers: https://www.brownwoodnews.com/2022/04/03/school-vouchers-a-slippery-slope/. Glenn is only in his second term. The billionaire Wilks brothers will come after him again in the 2024 primaries.

Steve Allison (R.-San Antonio)

Steve Allison from Alamo Heights in San Antonio. served on the Alamo Heights ISD school board for many years before running for the House in 2018. He has voted against vouchers and in favor of raising pay for teachers, librarians, counselors, and school nurses. He increased funding for women’s health care, providing lower-income women increases access to cancer screenings and mammograms.

Drew Darby (R.-San Angelo)

Drew Darby is a veteran legislator who strongly supports public schools and opposes vouchers. In this interview with the local media, he explains why he opposes vouchers. He says there is already plenty of choice in his district. The crucial issue, he says, is whether it is right to take money away from public schools and give it to schools that are completely unaccountable and that choose which students they want to educate. Greg Abbott can’t scare him! He has been recognized by the Pastors for Texas Children as a “Hero for Children.”

Charlie Geren (R.-Fort Worth)

Charlie Geren is a veteran legislator who has stood strong against vouchers repeatedly. He is clear about his advocacy for teachers and public schools. On his Twitter feed, he publicizes his support for teachers. He has been recognized as a “Hero for Children” by the Pastors for Texas Children. Greg Abbott can’t scare him!

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Republicans, Resistance, Rural Schools, School Choice, Texas, Vouchers
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