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Houston: Principal Turnover Hits 20% After State Takeover

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
47

The Houston Chronicle reports an acceleration in principal turnover since the state took over control of the Houston Independent School District and placed non-educator Mike Miles in charge. The principals of nearly 60 schools have resigned or been removed. A military man, Miles was “trained” by the Broad Superintendents Academy. He is imposing standardized curriculum and instruction across the schools he directly controls (called the “New Education System”).

Even the principal of an A-rated school lost his job.

The memos came in one after the other, a laundry list of grievances listing all the ways Federico Hernandez was supposedly failing as principal of Houston ISD’s Middle College High School.

A teacher used Post-It notes rather than index cards during a lesson, according to one complaint from Hernandez’s supervisor. Others allowed students to sit in the back of a classroom or kept a light off during class. Some implemented multiple response strategies, “but not correctly,” read the memo shared with the Houston Chronicle.

Even though the campus run on Houston Community College’s Felix Fraga campus boasts an A-rated academic performance, those were among the infractions that got Hernandez removed from his job less than two months into the school year.

He is one of at least 58 principals who left their schools, involuntarily or otherwise, in 2023 since Superintendent Mike Miles was appointed to his post by the Texas Education Agency on June 1, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of HISD staffing records. After taking into account schools that share a principal, such as Jane Long Academy and Las Americas Newcomer School, or those that recorded multiple changes between June and December, such as Madison High School, the Chronicle confirmed there have been at least 61 leadership changes across 59 campuses…

Erica Harbatkin, an education policy expert at Florida State University who studies principal turnover, said it is not unusual for administrators to reassign principals in an attempt to shake up under-performing schools. They typically don’t do so during the school year, though, because principals need time to plan and coordinate their staff, and “coming in after the school year started… obviously undermines some of those strategies.”

Harbatkin said replacing a principal is one of the quickest ways to effect change at a school, for better or worse.

“The theory of action behind more contemporary school turnaround and improvement policy is that these schools are in this pattern of low performance, and they need something to get them out, some sort of big external shock … and one of the ways that happens is through replacing the principal,” Harbatkin said.

If not done carefully, however, principal turnover can lead to negative effects on student achievement, Harbatkin said. Her research found that principal turnover “is associated with lower test scores, school proficiency rates, and teacher retention.”

“When principals turn over teachers tend to turn over as well, and if that turnover is not well-planned, if there’s not good distributed leadership in the school or someone who can step into the role, that’s likely to make those negative effects even larger,” Harbatkin said.

No one explained the theory or rationale for removing a principal from a high-performing school. Maybe he failed to comply with an order…

Ebony Cumby, who served as principal at Askew Elementary in west Houston for 12 years, resigned within a week of Miles’ appointment after sitting through the first couple days of principal meetings.

“Throughout that period, there were things that I thought were exciting changes that needed to be made in the district, and there were other things that I could foresee being problematic, especially for a district as large as HISD,” Cumby said.

Cumby said she appreciated Miles’ attempts to “bring more consistency” to the district by standardizing the curriculum and other elements, but she was put off by what she described as “a cookie-cutter way of teaching” that she would be expected to enforce. After over two decades at HISD, she ended up leaving public education altogether for another industry.

“I noticed early on that there were things in place that, whether it was intentional or not, were going to take autonomy away from teachers and require them to conform to a certain way of doing things and really take away their creativity, which as a principal was a big deal to me,” Cumby said. “To kind of hear that its ‘our way or the highway’ did not sit well with me.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Disruption, Extremism, Failure, Houston, Principals, Texas

North Carolina: More $$$ for Voucher Schools, More Tests for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
3

It is a strange irony that Red State legislators believe passionately in testing and accountability for public schools, yet excuse voucher schools from those same measures. If public school students must be tested, why not students who receive vouchers to attend private and religious schools on the taxpayers’ dime? Why not use the same measuring stick for all students so the voucher schools can be held accountable?

Here is a report from Public Schools First NC:

North Carolina’s voucher program has been widely criticized for its lack of accountability. The Opportunity Scholarship and ESA+ programs come with little financial oversight, no curriculum or content standards requirements, no educational or credential requirements for teachers, and no publicly available student performance testing data.

Since 1992, NC students in grade 3-8 public schools take the North Carolina End-of-Grade (EOG) Tests designed to measure student performance on the goals, objectives, and grade-level competencies specified in the NC Standard Course of Study. Standards in NC are used at the state level to ensure all students will be taught the content deemed essential and necessary by the state to allow teachers and parents to assess student progress and readiness for the next grade level.

The 2023 Appropriations Act takes a small step toward addressing the gap between the abundant regulation and accountability measures in place for traditional public schools and the state’s laissez faire approach to private schools. After spending half a billion dollars since 2014 and adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the voucher program’s annual budget this year, legislators added a small testing provision that may enable taxpayers to get a glimpse into the academic performance of voucher recipients. Starting in 2024-25, public school students and voucher recipients in grades 3, 8, and 11 will be administered the same standardized test.

But instead of requiring the estimated 4,000 grade 3 and 8 voucher-receiving private school students to take NC’s EOG tests, the approximately 220,000 public school students in grades 3 and 8 will have to take a nationally standardized test that was not developed to measure NC Standard Course of Study in addition to taking the EOG.

The common test in 11th grade will be the ACT, which is already administered to public school students statewide. Currently, voucher-receiving private schools are required to take a test (selected by the school administrator) in 11th grade. Many private schools already administer an assessment of their choice, so there will be little change other than NOW the state is picking up the tab for the new tests.

The common test for grades 3 and 8 will be recommended by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. But the 2023 Appropriations Act (p. 193) specifies that it must be a nationally standardized test, which disqualifies the NC End-of-Grade (EOG) and End-of-Course (EOC) tests. Although they are standardized tests, the EOGs and EOCs are specifically designed to assess goals and objectives of the NC Standard Course of Study, not a broad swath of national standards. Because they are only administered to students in North Carolina, they aren’t “nationally” standardized.

The national tests, often called “off the shelf” tests, are designed to appeal to as many states and districts as possible, so they measure standards common across states rather than one specific state. As a result, they may not align well with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

The EOG and EOC test administrations are required by federal and state law, so there is no option to replace them with a test that doesn’t specifically measure the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. However, as a condition of receiving voucher funds, the General Assembly could require the 4,000 or so voucher-receiving students in grades 3 and 8 to take the EOG tests instead of adding another test for the 220,000 public school students in grades 3 and 8.

In addition to affecting the testing burden of far fewer students, administering the EOG to private school students would be much cheaper than purchasing an “off the shelf” national test for hundreds of thousands of public school students.

Should public school students have to take another standardized test to assure lawmakers that private school students are learning? Should taxpayers have to foot the bill for hundreds of thousands of new tests instead of paying next to nothing for a few thousand EOG tests that are already developed and administered in North Carolina?

The legislative short session starts in April. This testing provision may be changed if enough people encourage their legislators to address it. Contact your legislators.

Read our fact sheet for more information on student testing in North Carolina.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, North Carolina, Republicans, Standardized Testing, Vouchers

North Carolina: Vouchers for the Rich! Propaganda Wins!

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
6

Thomas Mills, a blogger in North Carolina, describes the hoax of “vouchers for all” in his state. Vouchers began as a way to offer new opportunity to poor kids. But since the General Assembly removed income caps on voucher families, vouchers have become a subsidy for rich kids who never attended public schools. The Republicans who passed universal vouchers knowingly and cynically turned them into a subsidy for the wealthy, a reverse Robin Hood scheme.

Mills writes:

This week, the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program, also known as the voucher scheme, began accepting applications. House Speaker Tim Moore tweeted, “The expanded NC Opportunity Scholarship Program is now open for applications! In fact, the website was so inundated that it crashed at 12:15 am, shortly after going live. Thanks to the NC General Assembly, ALL families of K-12 students are now eligible to apply.”

When Moore says “ALL families,” he’s referring to wealthy families since the legislature eliminated the income cap for the vouchers. The site crashed because North Carolina has so many people already in private schools who now are eligible for state subsidized education. Rich folks who send their children to private schools are about to get a windfall while poor schools are going to lose funding. It’s Robin Hood in reverse.

The whole program is a scam, the epitome of a bait-and-switch. Republicans pushed through their voucher program as a way to level the playing field, offering poor families a way to send their children to private schools when public schools weren’t working for them. Now, they’re saying that families that don’t send their children to public schools shouldn’t have to pay for them. They have dropped any pretense of helping struggling families and moved straight to subsidizing rich people. According to Republicans, rich people have no community obligations.

Let’s be clear. The name “Opportunity Scholarship” is pure propaganda. There are two types of scholarships, need-based and merit-based. Giving vouchers to rich people just because they decide not to send their kids to public schools is a tax break, not a scholarship. And it’s a tax break designed for wealthy people at the expense of poor people.

Republicans are working hard to damage public schools. They fundamentally don’t believe in the responsibility of the state to provide a sound, basic education. They have cut per pupil spending, let teacher pay lag, and reduced support staff in schools. They’ve tried to dictate curriculum to indoctrinate students in a conservative philosophy, all while claiming public schools are brainwashing our kids with left wing ideas. They’ve left us with demoralized teachers and overworked staff and our children are paying the price.

Now, the state Supreme Court is about to get into the act, too. Thirty years ago, a group of students from North Carolina’s poor counties sued the state, claiming that their school systems lacked the funding to provide the quality of education that the state constitution demands. They won their suit and, since that time, the courts have reviewed funding to ensure that poor counties got the money they deserve.

However, with a new court dominated by far-right Republicans, the decision may be overturned. Chief Justice Paul Newby and his band of conservatives justices have not been shy about throwing out precedent, giving new meaning to an activist court. They will decide if the most recent allocation determined by the court will be rescinded. The GOP legislature contends that the court has no business telling the lawmakers how to spend tax dollars.

If the Republicans win, they will have essentially reinterpreted the constitution. Article 9, Section 2 of the constitution reads, “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” Traditionally, the court has interpreted the “uniform system” of “equal opportunities” to mean the quality of education should be as good in poor counties as it is in rich ones. The GOP would render the clause either aspirational or maybe just a suggestion, despite the word “shall.”

The assault on public education in North Carolina is unprecedented and radical. Republicans aren’t just making cuts around the edges. They are changing the way we view public schools and our collective responsibilities. They are shifting resources and increasing the burden of financial responsibility on the poor while reducing the funds from the rich, just like they did with our tax system.

Ironically, the people who suffer the most are the people who make up the GOP base. Rural counties will watch their tax dollars go to wealthy families in urban and suburban areas while their public schools will suffer from increasing lack of revenue. Of course, Republican donors will almost certainly benefit. As they say, partisanship is a helluva drug.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Propaganda, Vouchers

Gary Rubinstein: Why Don’t Success Academy High School Students Take Advanced Regents Exams?

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
12

Gary Rubinstein has been following the ups and downs of New York’s highest scoring charter school chain: Success Academy. Every year, the grades 3-8 test scores at the chain are through the roof. But Gary noticed that the high school students at Success Academy do not take Advsnced a regents exams as they do at the New York City’s highest performing high schools.

Gary examines this question:

Success Academy is a charter network with about 40 schools in the New York City area. They are known for their high standardized 3-8 test scores. Though it has been proved that their test scores are somewhat inflated by their practices of shedding their low performing students over the year and also by, at some schools, focusing exclusively on test prep in the months leading up to the tests, they still have these test scores to show their funders and the various charter school cheerleaders.

In June there was an article on the website of something called Albany Strategic Advisors, some kind of consulting firm about how well middle school students at Success Academy performed on four of the New York State Regents exams: Algebra I, Living Environment, Global History, and English. The last sentence of the second to last paragraph explains that these results are important because “Taking the exams in middle school allows students to take more advanced college preparatory courses in high school.”

These ‘more advanced college preparatory courses in high school’ include 10 other courses that have Regents exams including Geometry, Algebra II, Chemistry, Physics, US History, and Spanish. The minimum requirements for getting what is called ‘a Regents diploma’ in New York is one math Regents, one science Regents, one Social Studies Regents, and the English Regents. But to get an ‘Advanced Regents diploma’ you need all three maths and all three sciences and one foreign language Regents. Most competitive high school have their students take these other Regents which are known to be fairly straight forward tests with very generous curves.

About 8 years ago I noticed that there were no Regents scores for any of the other 10 exams in the Success Academy high school. Then 6 years ago I found that some of their students actually were taking some of the more difficult Regents but they were doing very poorly on them. And now, 6 years later, I checked up on them again to find that in the three Success Academy high schools which enroll a total of about 1,100 students from grades 9 to 12, they again do not have any scores for any of the Regents that are typically taken at competitive schools.

So why does this matter?

Well, Success Academy has spent eighteen years carefully cultivating their image. They want families to think that they have the highest expectations and that families should trust them to educate their children because those higher expectations will lead to those students learning the most. And we all know about their 3-8 state tests in Math and ELA. But it is pretty ‘odd’ that their students don’t take the more difficult Regents. The most likely reason for this is that Success Academy only wants information public that makes them look good and avoids any action that could reveal public data that reveals that they do not live up to their reputation. So I believe that they don’t allow their students to take the Regents because they believe that the scores on those Regents won’t be as impressive as their 3-8 state test scores compared to other schools. If I am right then this is an example of Success Academy choosing to preserve their inflated reputation over giving their students the opportunity to challenge themselves on these competitive exams.

Please open the link to finish the article. Nobody does this kind of close review better than Gary Rubinstein.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York, New York City, Standardized Testing

How Many People Drank Bleach, as Trump Suggested?

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2024 //
38

During the outset of the pandemic, when Americans were frightened and confused about how to protect themselves from the deadly virus, President Trump held a news conference where he added his non-scientific opinion as to what people should do to avoid catching the highly contagious COVID. Trump believed in his deep knowledge of science because, he once said, he had an uncle who taught at MIT.

The New York Times reported that Trump’s suggestion about how to avoid COVID caused a large public response, as well as warnings from public health agencies:

WASHINGTON — In Maryland, so many callers flooded a health hotline with questions that the state’s Emergency Management Agency had to issue a warning that “under no circumstances” should any disinfectant be taken to treat the coronavirus. In Washington State, officials urged people not to consume laundry detergent capsules. Across the country on Friday, health professionals sounded the alarm.

Injecting bleach or highly concentrated rubbing alcohol “causes massive organ damage and the blood cells in the body to basically burst,” Dr. Diane P. Calello, the medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, said in an interview. “It can definitely be a fatal event.”

Even the makers of Clorox and Lysol pleaded with Americans not to inject or ingest their products.

The frantic reaction was prompted by President Trump’s suggestion on Thursday at a White House briefing that an “injection inside” the human body with a disinfectant like bleach or isopropyl alcohol could help combat the virus.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute,” Mr. Trump said after a presentation from William N. Bryan, an acting under secretary for science at the Department of Homeland Security, detailed the virus’s possible susceptibility to bleach and alcohol.

“One minute,” the president said. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”

Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was sitting to the side in the White House briefing room, blinking hard and looking at the floor as he spoke. Later, Mr. Trump asked her if she knew about “the heat and the light” as a potential cure.

“Not as a treatment,” Dr. Birx said, adding, “I haven’t seen heat or light —” before the president cut her off.

Mr. Trump’s remarks caused an immediate uproar, and the White House spent much of Friday trying to walk them back. Also Friday, the Food and Drug Administration warned that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, two drugs that the president has repeatedly recommended in treating the coronavirus, can cause dangerous abnormalities in heart rhythm in coronavirus patients and has resulted in some deaths.

Later, Trump insisted he was being sarcastic, not serious.

After Trump’s press conference, reports to poison control centers spiked.

Time magazine reported on a bulletin from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, which held that reports of poisoning from ingesting bleach and other disinfectants rose after Trump’s remarks.

The Hill reported a sharp increase in calls to poison control centers after Trump made his remarks.

The Michigan Poison Center reported an increase in calls to poison centers in at least five states after Trump’s remarks. The makers of Clorox and Lysol issued statements urging the public not to ingest their products.

The Harvard Business Review published an article asserting that we can never know for sure how many people drank bleach and how many died, because so many people who answer survey questions don’t understand the question or the answer.

The NIH concluded that no one died of ingesting bleach because 100% of those surveyed gave answers to the questions that were silly, mischievous, or ignorant. The author of the Harvard Business Review article was a contributing author to the NIH study.

Politico posted a reminiscence of the day that Trump recommended ingesting bleach exactly one year later, when he was no longer in office.

One year ago today, President Donald Trump took to the White House briefing room and encouraged his top health officials to study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting Covid. It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history.

Some ex-Trump aides say they don’t even think about that day as the wildest they experienced — with the conceit that there were simply too many others. But for those there, it was instantly shocking, even by Trump standards. It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic. Twelve months later, with the pandemic still lingering and a U.S. death toll nearing 570,000, it still does.

“For me, it was the craziest and most surreal moment I had ever witnessed in a presidential press conference,” said ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl, who was the first reporter at the briefing to question Trump’s musings about bleach.

For weeks, Trump had been giving winding, stream-of-consciousness updates on the state of the Covid fight as it clearly worsened. So when he got up from the Oval Office to brief reporters gathered in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on April 23, there was no expectation that the day’s proceedings would be any different than usual.

Privately, however, some of his aides were worried. The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press.

“A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,” said one former senior Trump White House official. “I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.”

Trump started his press conference that day by doing something he’d come to loathe: pushing basic public safety measures. He called for the “voluntary use of face coverings” and said of his administration, “continued diligence is an essential part of our strategy.”

Quickly, however, came a hint at how loose the guardrails were that day. Trump introduced Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security. “He’s going to be talking about how the virus reacts in sunlight,” the president said. “Wait ‘til you hear the numbers.”

As Bryan spoke, charts were displayed behind him about surface temperatures and virus half-lives. He preached, rather presciently, for people to “move activities outside” and then detailed ongoing studies involving disinfectants. “We tested bleach,” he said at one point. “I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes.”

Standing off to the side, Trump clasped his hands in front of his stomach, nodded and looked out into the room of gathered reporters. When Bryan was done, he strode slowly back to the lectern.

“A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world,” Trump began, clearly thinking the question himself, “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that, too. It sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”

Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump’s former coronavirus response coordinator, sat silently off to the side as the president made these suggestions to her. Later, she would tell ABC, “I didn’t know how to handle that episode,” adding, “I still think about it every day.”

Inside the Biden campaign, aides were shocked as well. They were working remotely at that juncture, communicating largely over Signal. But the import of what had happened became quickly evident to them.

“Even for him,” said one former Biden campaign aide, “this was stratospherically insane and dangerous. It cemented the case we had been making about his derelict covid response.”

In short order, the infamous bleach press conference became a literal rallying cry for Trump’s opponents, with Biden supporters dotting their yards with “He Won’t Put Bleach In You” signs. For Trump, it was a scourge. He would go on to insist that he was merely being sarcastic — a claim at odds with the excited curiosity he had posing those questions to Birx. His former team concedes that real damage was done.

“People joked about it inside the White House like, ‘Are you drinking bleach and injecting sunlight?’ People were mocking it and saying, ‘Oh let me go stand out in the sun, and I’ll be safe from Covid,” said one former administration official. “It honestly hurt. It was a credibility issue. … It was hurting us even from an international standpoint, the credibility at the White House.”

That Trump was even at the lectern that day was head-scratching for many. For weeks, he and his team had downplayed the severity of the Covid crisis even as the president privately acknowledged to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that it had the potential to be catastrophic. But as it became clearer that the public was not buying the rosy assessments, Trump had decided to take his fate into his own hands — assembling the press on a daily basis to spin his way through the crisis.

He loved it. The former administration official said Trump was elated with the free airtime he was getting on television day after day. “He was asking how much money that was worth,” the aide recalled. The coverage was so ubiquitous that, at one point, Fox News’ Bret Baier attended the briefing and peppered the president with questions because his own show was being routinely interrupted.

The bleach episode changed all that.

Aides immediately understood what a public health quagmire Trump’s remarks had created. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted he was being taken out of context.

“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” McEnany said in a statement issued the next day. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”

His aides realized that it was not a good strategy for him to present medical advice to the public, but Trump loved the attention.

Categories Accountability, Health, Science, Trump

Florida: While Attacking LGBT People, the Zieglers Were “on the Hunt” for Threesome Partners, Police Say

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2024 //
54

The Florida Center for Government Accountability reviewed a police report about Christian and Bridget Ziegler.

Christian Ziegler was recently ousted as chair of the Florida Republican Party after a woman told the police that he had raped her. They had previously had sexual relations, and Christian contended that the encounter was consensual. Also revealed in the investigation was that Christian and Bridget had had a threesome with the accuser, and the accuser expected to do it again, but not without Bridget.

Bridget Ziegler is a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, an organization that lectures everyone about family values, encourages book bans, and accuses public schools of harboring pedophiles. M4L is especially indignant about any recognition of students who are LGBT or about books that include LGBT characters.

Bridget Ziegler is a member of the Sarasota school board and was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the board created by the legislature to take control of Disney World after the Governor engaged in a public dispute with Disney’s management. Disney spoke out against DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, and DeSantis retaliated by dissolving the Disney board that managed Disney World in Orlando.

Bridget has pushed many DeSantis-backed measures in Sarasota schools that have been widely criticized as discriminatory to the LGBTQ community and also helped formulate Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Why would a woman who has engaged in lesbian sex devote her energies to demonizing LGBT students and teachers? It’s a puzzlement.

Michael Barfield of the Florida Center on Government Accountability began his commentary:

While Republican power couple Christian and Bridget Ziegler publicly pushed for “family values” and backed an agenda widely viewed as anti-LGBTQ, they were secretly on the “hunt” for threesome lovers and had prior concerns the woman who alleged Christian sexually assaulted her was too “broken” to properly consent to their advances, newly released police reports from the now-closed rape investigation reveal.

Among the startling evidence recovered from Christian’s cell phone, according to the report, was a list of women, including the alleged sexual assault victim’s name, with a one-word subheading: “Fuck…”

The report indicates that the couple first engaged in a three-way sexual encounter with the woman roughly three years ago, and it was on Feb. 19, 2021 that Christian texted his wife to “come home, stop, and pick up [the woman] to play again and be crazy,” according to the police report.

Hypocrisy. Rank hypocrisy.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Ethics, Florida, Hoax

Umair Haque: MAGA and the Failure of America’s “Grand Social Experiment”

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2024 //
59

Umair Haque is an economist and a brilliant analyst of social and political trends. I read whatever he writes with a sense of amazement at his insight and his ability to synthesize events and their underlying causes. The following post from his blog called “The Issue” is especially alarming. It explains a lot about why we don’t have good health care, why the public sector is neglected, why privatization has run amok.

If you read one thing today, read this.

He writes:

He’s cruising towards clinching the nomination—as we all knew he would. The dreaded Trump-Biden rematch appears to be squarely in the sights.

And there are many, many theories being floated about Trump’s resurgence. Did he ever really go away, though? Still, it’s worth examining them for a moment. Trumpism’s a form of racial power, in a society divided. Trump’s power’s amplified by technology and society’s dependence on social media. Trump might win, but the coalition’s going to be so unstable he won’t accomplish much. It’s the last gasp of a nation facing demographic change. And so on.

I think that all these carry water. But I also think…there’s a truer truth at work here. Perhaps, in a sense, Trumpism’s America’s destiny. I know that’s a provocative thing to say, but I don’t mean it that way. I just can’t help thinking it lately, because…

What’s the most salient fact about America? Americans? Even—especially—Trumpists? The vast majority of Americans want a very, very different society. A more…can I say it? Liberal one. Even Trumpists don’t agree with most of Trump’s policies—they just support Trump, the Father Figure, come hell or high water. But when we ask Americans what kind of society they want, invariably, the vast, vast majority will plead for things like healthcare, childcare, retirement, stability, security. In short, Americans want eudaemonia—genuinely good lives.

But a kind of Stockholm Syndrome’s set in. They won’t…choose that form of sociopolitical economy. Even when it’s offered to them time and time again, whether in the way of a Bernie, or a Liz, and so forth.

Why is that? What explains that? This isn’t just “voting against your own interests”—it’s something stranger, deeper, weirder: remember, even Trumpists don’t agree with much of Trump’s agenda. So what can explain this pattern persisting over decades?

Let’s look at America objectively for a moment. What do you see? We’re going to speak factually, empirically—this isn’t about politics at all, really.

America’s a nation which failed to modernize, as I often say. It didn’t invest in itself. Europe and Canada’s investment rate is about 50%—while America’s is just 20% or so. Hence, Europeans and Canadians have cutting edge social contracts—made of the very things Americans desperately lack, like universal healthcare, childcare, high-speed rail, retirement, and so on. It’s true that in recent years, for example, in Europe, investment hasn’t kept pace—and hence, pessimism has grown there, too.

But America’s a special case. Its flatly refused to build a functioning social contract for…the entire modern era. Decade after decade, America’s rejected basic public goods. And so the result of course is that Americans pay eye-watering rates for everything that’s free in most other rich nations—education, healthcare, etc. My favorite example is universities. Harvard will set you back north of $60K a year—the Sorbonne in Paris is free. That’s the difference a functional social contract makes.

America’s social contract, sadly, is more pre-modern, Darwinian, Victorian: the strong survive, the weak fall and or perish, and that’s what’s not just right and just, but “efficient” and “productive.” Life is dog-eat-dog, and brutal competition defines every aspect of life. But how has that worked out?

Before we get there, another question needs to be asked. Why did—do—Americans fail to choose a modern social contract, time and again? There are many reasons, each one like the layer of an onion. It wasn’t offered to them. They were offered a lukewarm choice between Reaganomics, and then Clintonomics—etcetera. All of these, while they differed in the details, were variants of the same form of economy: nobody should have anything much as a basic right, everything should be financialized and capitalized, profit-maximization in “free” markets would unleash prosperity for all, and the wealth would trickle down.

But the very opposite happened. The wealth trickled up. We recently discussed how billionaires have gotten so much richer just during the pandemic that every American household would be $40,000 better off. That’s more than the median income—an astonishing statistic. And that comes after yet another wealth transfer upwards, during the last few decades—$50 trillion to the very richest. That’s half of the entire world’s GDP. Another startling statistic.

America, in other words, was the subject of Grand Social Experiment. Call it what you like—hypercapitalism, free markets, neoliberalism. We’re at the point where labels don’t matter much anymore—just the point does. The experiment failed. I’m not saying that American life is all bad, but I am saying that the results are self-evident: democracy’s on the brink, there’s a feeling of hopelessness on every side, among every social group, generation after generation’s experiencing rapid, sharp downward mobility, and young people say they “can’t function anymore”—just a smattering of statistics of social collapse.

So. America was a nation that failed to invest in itself—the Grand Social Experiment. We can put it in yet another way, a more philosophical one: all the old guff about “standing on your own two feet” and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” and whatnot. The results have been catastrophic: now democracy itself faces an existential challenge from a figure who’s already tried to unseat it once.

How are those two things linked? I think they’re connected in many, many ways. You see, when people experience what Americans have, especially those in the former working and lower middle class—a profound sense of dread, hopelessness, even trauma, shaped by downward mobility, and the disappearance of a future, community, social bonds, security, stability—they seek just strength and succor in the arms of demagogues. Those wounds open the door for an omnipotent Father Figure—they practically invoke the need for one.

These are shades of Weimar Germany, of course. The demagogue arrives, and scapegoats long-hated groups in society, blaming them for the woes of the pure and true. Isn’t that more or less what Trumpism’s appeal is based on? And doesn’t it begin to explain just why plenty of those who support Trump as demagogue even when they want a very, very different society from the one he’s going to deliver? They’re not thinking straight, as we all say. But there’s a reason why. The wounds go deep, right into existential territory itself. And then there’s an existential backlash, too. It’s me or you. I’m the master, you’re the slave. I deserve to live, you deserve to…

All Grand Social Experiments need…maybe not propaganda, but a certain ideological hardening to take place. They can’t happen otherwise. And this, too, is what happened in America. People were fed the myths of “free markets” and “trickle down economics” and so on for decades. So much so that even to this day to challenge them is to be labelled a “socialist.”

This was a process of ideological politicization. That is, these were all theories. Politics trucks in theories. But when those theories come true—or not—then we’re in the realm of empiricism, facts, reality. Americans were told that these theories had to come true. So much so that both parties offered slightly different versions of them. Sadly, that’s still true today—the Democrats are there for democracy’s sake, true, but they’re hardly offering much in the way of a modern social contract. Yes, on issues like abortion, the Democrats offer something better than theocracy. Still, their notion of progress falls well short of a truly modern social contract. Both parties agree, basically, that a modern social contract isn’t something Americans enjoy. That’s how deep this ideological hardening goes.

“Conditioning” might be too strong a word—but certainly, Americans were told to believe in the Grand Social Experiment for decades, to the point that any other alternative was considered “radical,” or even “communist” and so on—even while Europe and Canada proceeded to forge a different, socially democratic path. And of course it’s eminently true that there was a racial component to all this: Americans were told to reject “paying for those people’s schools” or educations or what have you, the clear implication being that “they” were different, lazy, foolish, liabilities. No clear aspiration to universalism was had, and in no sense were Americans bonded together as equals—the strong were to survive, and the weak perish, and that was what was moral, just, true, and theoretically sound, the key, somehow, to prosperity. Lead was to turn to gold. And to question it was taboo.

America still lives in the residue of this process of ideological hardening. This conditioning, though like I said, I think that’s too strong a word. I think that’s what explains this strange Stockholm Syndrome: Americans want a modern social contract, by and large, and yet here they are, unable to bring themselves to back one. In that vacuum, in that gap, what choice is left? The insecurity and instability, the fear and trauma—they turn people towards demagoguery. They reopen old wounds of hate and spite, instead of healing them with prosperity and trust and progress. They reduce people to their animal selves, seeking what stability and security they can find in older hierarchies of power and dominance, in which there appears to be some nostalgic certainty.

That’s a lot to chew on. I’m not saying I’m right. But I am saying that this may be where a society that fails to forge a modern social contract ends up. Haven’t we seen just this in plenty of “third world” countries? This oscillation between democracy and authoritarianism? I’m not saying America’s a “third world” country—don’t kid yourself, it’s not exactly Bangladesh. But I am saying that this place isn’t a stable equilibrium. The place the Grand Social Experiment—everyone’s a competitor, rival, adversary, in a brutal game called only the strong survive—ends? It might be right here. Destiny.

Destiny, of course, isn’t fate. It can be made and remade. But will America understand that before it’s too late?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corruption, Cruelty, Economy, Elections, Extremism, Poverty, Privatization, Trump

New Hampshire: Another Day, Another Charter School Scandal

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
6

New Hampshire reluctantly accepted federal money to open new charters. The reluctance occurred when Democrats were in charge of the legislature. Once Republicans captured control of the legislature, the reluctance disappeared. Governor Sununu selected a home-schooling parent as state commissioner of education, and New Hampshire is now all in for vouchers and charters.

But New Hampshire can’t escape certain inevitable problems that accompany school choice:

First, sending public money to private schools does not improve education; in fact, it weakens the public schools, attended by the vast majority.

Second, vouchers always cost more than was predicted.

Third, most vouchers will be used by kids already attending private schools.

Fourth, many charter operators are more interested in money than in the hard work of education.

New Hampshire is now going through the throes of a charter school closure. Four other new charter schools in the state have closed.

New Hampshire Public Radio reported:

A charter school in Exeter is closing less than two years after it opened, as former school officials face an ongoing investigation for alleged embezzlement and fraud.

“We tried everything that we could to save the school but sadly, the obstacles were insurmountable,” Jennifer Roopenian, the current chair of the Coastal Waters Chartered Public School board of trustees, told NHPR via email on Sunday.

Roopenian said the board learned of another “financial discrepancy” last week, and “despite our attempts to find a solution, the board had to make the heartbreaking decision to close the school.”

The development comes as the Exeter Police Department is pursuing two investigations into former officials associated with the school, which served students from kindergarten through 12th grade. One investigation involves alleged tampering with a public record; the other involves alleged embezzlement. State agencies, including the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office and New Hampshire Department of Education, say they are also communicating with the police about the allegations but declined to give more details.

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School opened in 2022 with a mission inspired by Waldorf teaching, which focuses on arts, nature and creativity. But some parents say there were red flags that the school was in trouble early on, and no one — the state, or the school board of trustees — was providing proper oversight to ensure its success.

By this winter, the school had lost more than half its student population since its opening year.

“They sold a really good story about the Waldorf method, about how kids would be learning in traditional ways as well as Waldorf ways,” says Stephanie Carr Thomas, a former Coastal Waters parent who pulled her children out of the school in 2022. “But that’s not what happened.”

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School is one of a handful of charters that have opened in New Hampshire amid increased funding and a growing interest in school choice. Charter schools are approved by the State Board of Education and receive funding directly from the state, about $9,000 per student. In 2022, Coastal Waters also won a $1.36 million federal grant as part of the New Hampshire Department of Education’s charter school expansion initiative.

Nicole Mazur, a former Coastal Waters parent and board member, said the school’s alternative vision drew families who couldn’t afford private school but wanted more personalized, outdoor-based education for their kids. And at the beginning, she said, many parents tried to help the school succeed.

“There were people wanting to help and volunteer, and helping to work out whatever kinks there were, just saying: ‘Tell me where to be and I’ll be there, and we’ll help,’’’ Mazur recalled. “There was a lot of excitement and positivity.”

But she said that excitement quickly gave way to concerns about the school’s facilities and finances…

In late 2022, Mazur and several other parents quit the board of trustees and pulled their kids out of the school, citing concerns about their children’s well-being and lack of financial transparency by the board chairman and treasurer, William Libby. Libby did not respond to NHPR’s request for comment.

Reports from both the state and the school show that enrollment continued to shrink over the last year, from 128 students in 2022 to 47 students as of last week…

Some Coastal Waters families say it’s unclear what power the education department has in its own investigation. The department’s misconduct investigations typically involve licensed individuals who have violated the educator code of conduct or code of ethics. But some former Coastal Waters officials didn’t have New Hampshire educator licenses to begin with.

The state requires charter schools to ensure at least half of its teaching staff either hold state certification or have three years of teaching experience. Roopenian, the current Coastal Waters board chair, said the school’s most recent teaching staff met those requirements.

Jesse Peloski, who withdrew his children from Coastal Waters in late 2022, said he worries the mechanisms for reporting and monitoring concerns about charter schools are “potentially very broken.”

“There is a huge desire for alternatives to public schooling,” he said. “But there’s also a huge opportunity for exploitation there.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, Fraud, New Hampshire, Scandals, School Choice

John Thompson: Oklahoma’s Leaders Engage in Strange, Irresponsible Behavior

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
16

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, keeps a close watch on state government and the state legislature. He has friends in both parties, so he is diplomatic. But since I don’t live in Oklahoma, I read what he reports in this post with a mixture of amazement and amusement. I can’t believe these people think they will improve education by their shenanigans. There are serious and reasonable people in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, they do not run the state.

John also forwarded to me a critique of pending legislation in the State Senate that would require every science teacher to give equal time to evolution and “intelligent design,” i.e. creationism. The critique came from the National Center for Science Education. I repeat: Where are the sane people? The grown-ups?

He writes:

Our Internet and phone went out for five days as the legislature’s bill filing period closed, so I was limited to learning the latest craziness of the national MAGA campaign, and national coverage of Oklahoma news. For example, State Superintendent Ryan Walters selected “Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the ‘Libs of TikTok’ social media account,” as member of the Oklahoma library media advisory committee. She has no background in education and does not live in Oklahoma. And the governor has already “banned the use of TikTok by any executive branch agency or employee and blacklisted the software from all state networks and state managed devices.”

But, the Oklahoman reported, “Walters said he put Raichik on the advisory committee because she was on the front lines showing the world exactly what the radical left is all about — lowering standards, porn in schools and pushing ‘woke indoctrination’ on kids.”

The Oklahoman also explained, “Last year, a ‘Libs of TikTok’ post drew attention to a video posted by an elementary school librarian in Tulsa.” The Libs of TikTok version “had been edited from her original TikTok” and identified the teacher and the school. The Oklahoman explained:

After the post was made, the Ellen Ochoa Elementary School in Tulsa received a bomb threat on Aug. 22. That day Ryan Walters had also retweeted the “Libs of TikTok” post.

The threat appeared to have been made in retaliation for a librarian’s public post on TikTok.

Also leading the recent news, Republican Senator Nathan Dahm’s Senate Bill 1837 sought to:

Create the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.” The measure requires criminal background checks of every member of the news media, licensing of journalists through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the completion of a “propaganda free” training course through the Oklahoma State Department of Education, a $1 million liability insurance policy and quarterly drug tests.

KOSU reported that they would also have to “attend an eight-hour ‘propaganda-free’ safety training developed by PragerU.”

Not to be outdone, Republican Rep. Juston Humphrey’s House Bill 3084, sought to ban:

“Students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries at school” from participating in class and school activities.

Humphrey would “require parents or guardians to pick the student up from school. … But, if parents are unable to pick the student up, the bill says ‘animal control services shall be contacted to remove the student.’”

Humphrey also filed:

House Bill 3133, as it is currently worded, states that any person who is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma; is a member of a criminal street gang as such term is defined in state statutes; and has been convicted of a gang-related offense enumerated in state statute shall be deemed to have committed an act of terrorism and will be subject to property forfeiture.

Humphrey had previously said “he intends to file legislation that will require any Oklahoma elected official known to be in support of a terrorist organization to be removed from their seat.” He did so to stop “Hollywood’s fake agenda.”

Other Republicans contributed bills such as Sen. Dusty Deevers’ Senate Bill 1958 “that would no longer allow Oklahomans to file for divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, also known as no-fault divorce.”

And Rep. Jim Olsen:

Filed legislation to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms.” It “would require each classroom to clearly display a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments, measuring at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year. The bill also outlines the specific text to be used for the display.

He did so because “The Ten Commandments is one of the foundations of our nation,” and “Publicly and proudly displaying them in public school classrooms will serve as a reminder of the ethics of our state and country as students and teachers go about their day.”

Olsen also “pointed to numerous passages in the Bible he said clearly endorsed corporal punishment as a part of proper child training, including Hebrews 12:11, which states, ‘Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterword it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.’”

Others continued the filing of bills to support Ryan Walters’ agenda. For instance, Rep. Tom Gann:

Said he is taking a proactive step toward safeguarding Oklahoma’s public school students with the introduction of House Bill 3112. The bill would prohibit schools and school districts from accepting financial donations or gifts from countries (meaning China) designated as “hostile” or “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)” by the United States Secretary of State.

And Chris Banning “released a statement applauding State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters for working to eliminate all references to American Library Association guidelines in Oklahoma’s Information Literacy Standards and proposing new standards that are aligned with Oklahoma values.”

I kept scrolling back from December and January filings until I got to two other types of statements For example Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall’s, praised:

The conservative rating for the Oklahoma Legislature after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Foundation’s Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA) released its 2023 ratings of the voting records of state legislators in all fifty states. Oklahoma was ranked as the second.  

But also I read a number of Republican statements condemning the bomb threats directed at the Tulsa Union Public Schools after the Libs of TikTok’s false post which likely prompted the threats. For example. “Rep. Ross Ford, R-Broken Arrow, vowed to help track down those who have made recent bomb threats made against several schools in the Union Public Schools district.”

So, what has the rightwing done in terms of policy when they could have been protecting children and educators? Gov. Stitt appointed Nellie Tayloe Sanders, “who last year helped advance a controversial Catholic charter school proposal (the St. Isidore religious school)” as his new secretary of education.

Worse, on Newsmax, Stitt seemed to warn of a civil war prompted by a confrontation between the Texas National Guard and President Biden. He certainly seemed to say that Oklahoma and our National Guard would side with Texas against the U.S..

And Ryan Walter’s confusing and flawed $16 million teacher bonus program is now clawing back $50,000 incentives they gave to teachers who were doing their best to follow the confusing application rules that Walters’ staff mismanaged.

That’s just the latest batch of the rightwing’s frightening behavior. Some serious reporters dismiss “headline-grabbing proposals such as prohibiting so-called furry costumes in public schools and the licensing and drug testing of journalists [that] have little chance of passage,” arguing that “scores of other bills, if passed, could mean big changes for Oklahomans in everything from land sales and medical marijuana to prescription drugs and state pension system investments.”

But, reading the proposed legislation, it seems overwhelmingly impossible that more good than harm could come out of the 2024 session. And, the historian in me worries that these irrational, but not passable, bills could do even more harm than the legislation that could come out of the Republican-controlled legislature. After all, they are parts of a continuing barrage against trust in government and democratic principles.

So, what can be done to curb the stress the MAGAs are imposing?

We can hope that more adult Republicans will push back against their extremist colleagues. Or, I guess we could wish for more ice storms that will shut down the Internet so we don’t need to dwell on their threats to democracy.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Ignorance, Oklahoma

Jeff Bryant: Two Federal Education Programs with Opposite Purposes

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2024 //
15

Jeff Bryant, independent education journalist, writes here about two federal education programs with disparate goals. One is the relatively small Community Schols Program, which aims to build and strengthen communities, and the other is the Charter Schools Program, which is wildly overfunded and which divides communities. His article appears on the website of the Independent Media Institute; it was originally published by The Progressive.

Bryant writes:

The Department of Education has separate grant programs for funding either charter or community schools; the latter provides money for what schools and families really need, the former, not so much.

[This article was produced by the Progressive. Read the full article here.]

Two education-related grant programs operated by the U.S. Department of Education—both of which dole out millions in federal tax dollars for educating K-12 children every year—present two opposing truths about government spending on public education: that it can be wasteful and misguided, or innovative and informed.

The first program enjoys the significant backing of industry lobbyists and wealthy foundations, and allows private education operators—some that operate for-profit—to skim public money off the top. It also adds to racial segregation in public schools, and squanders millions of dollars on education providers that come and quickly go, or simply fail to provide any education services at all.

The second program helps schools expand learning time and opportunities for students, especially in high-poverty and rural communities; promote parent engagement; encourage collaboration with local businesses and nonprofits; and become hubs for child- and family-related services that contribute to students’ health and well-being.

These strikingly different outcomes result from two different intentions: the first program’s goal to promote a type of school that is vaguely defined versus the second’s goal to expand a way of doing school that is supported by research and anecdotal evidence.

The first grant program is the Charter Schools Program (CSP), which funds privately operated charter schools and their developers and advocacy organizations. The program, started during the Clinton Administration and greatly expanded during the Obama years, gives money directly to charter schools and to state education agencies and charter school-related organizations to distribute to new, existing, or proposed charters.

In October, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the nation’s top lobbyist for the charter school industry, hailed the federal government’s release of $572 million in taxpayer dollars from the CSP, calling the money “the most essential funding to enable the existence of public charter schools.”

In New Mexico, local press outlets reported that a $52 million CSP grant went to a charter industry advocacy group called the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico, which in turn would award subgrants to individual charter schools. One reporter quoted the group’s leader who said, “There was a large application with several requirements in there. And we were scored based on, you know, how well we met the requirements and a peer review process.”

In Idaho, Idaho Ed News reported about the $24.8 million CSP grant going to Bluum, which the reporter called “a nonprofit charter support organization.” The grant is to be used “to grow and strengthen Idaho’s charter school network,” the article said.

Maryland’s top charter school industry booster, the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools, celebrated its $28.7 million CSP saying it would provide “subgrants to open new charter schools and/or replicate and expand charter schools.”

Not all CSP grants went to advocacy groups. The largest—totaling $109,740,731—went to the Indiana Department of Education. According to Chalkbeat, one out of three charter schools in Indiana have closed since 2001.

A 2019 analysis conducted by the Network for Public Education, a pro-public schools advocacy group, found that over its lifespan CSP has wasted as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and quickly closed.

Another CSP grant of $37,579,122 went to the Minnesota Department of Education. In Minnesota, courts have grappled for years with the question of whether racial imbalances in public schools, caused to a great extent by the expansion of racially segregated charter schools, violate the constitutional right of students of color to receive an adequate education.

Other CSP grants went to credit enhancement for charter school facilities, essentially giving public money to real estate development firms and investment companies that finance and build new charter schools.

[…]

Read the rest of this article on the Progressive.

Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Competition, Disruption, Education Reform, Funding, U.S. Department of Education
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