Archives for category: Bush, Jeb
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Florida: Jeb’s Corporate Raiders Attack Public Schools Again

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
11

Florida has more than 600 charter schools. They open and close like day-lilies. Many operate for profit. The charter industry cannot rest so long as a public school remains undisturbed by the forces of disruption and greed.

A new law has been proposed law to open more opportunities for the industry. It is cynically named “Schools of Hope.” But hope is for the entrepreneurs, not the children.

The Florida House of Representatives passed the law two days ago on a party-line vote. One Democrat called the legislation “Most Children Left Behind”

Behind the new law stands Betsy DeVos’s mentor, Jeb Bush. Jeb will push privatization so long as there remains a public school in Florida, regardless of results.

This letter came from Fund Education Now, a parent group.

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Status: HB 5105 “Charter School Turnaround Heist/Schools of Hope” passed in the House along strict party lines. No companion in Senate except Sen. Bean’s SB776, which is scheduled to be heard for the first time in committee on Monday, 4/17/17. Please take the time to read and understand the dangerous lie behind HB 5105 and why the Senate must stop it.

Take action now: Urge the Senate to reject Charter ”Schools of Hope” Turnaround language – No on SB776, block inclusion in Budget & “Train Bill”

Politics behind HB 5105:

Thirteen people filled out testimony cards in the House to speak on “Schools of Hope”/HB 5105; the sole proponent was a lobbyist from Jeb’s Foundation for Florida’s Future
Florida legislators chronically move cut scores while ignoring the more important measure of actual learning gains, a practice that deliberately throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year.

Case in point: the controversial “proficiency” language found in HB 773 which, if passed, alters the FSA cut scores again causing the pass rate to fall from 54% to somewhere between 27% and 39%, rapidly increasing the number of “D” and “F” schools, clearly benefiting “Schools of Hope.”

By allowing a “Schools of Hope” to open anywhere in a 5 mile radius from a “D” or “F” public school, legislators are ensuring that entire districts, even affluent areas, will qualify, triggering rapid charter growth.
Codifies a longstanding resentment that for-profit charter developers feel toward public school districts that charters aren’t being allowed to replicate fast enough.

Laws are passed every session to increase unmitigated charter growth.

Right now districts have multiple statutory options to aid in transforming a D or F school, only one of which is the transfer to a for-profit charter operator. Charter lobbyists and folks such as HB 5105 sponsor Manny Diaz, complain that districts don’t pick this option enough.

HB 5105 sweetens the charter pot by forcing districts to select the “transfer to for-profit charter operator” option and eliminating the district managed option entirely.

Send your letters now: Tell the Senate to reject the “Schools of Hope”/Charter Schools Turnaround Heist!

“Schools of Hope” do not ensure success for struggling students:

Students exiting their so-called “D/F” school become part of a large diaspora will be impossible to track to review outcomes, making it unlikely that the success or failure of “Schools of Hope” will ever be known.

The 77,000 students who currently attend D/F-graded public schools (2% of Florida’s 2.75 million public school students) are under zero obligation to attend the “School of Hope” situated within 5 miles of their current school.

“Schools of Hope” are under no obligation to provide transportation

Students who attend their so-called D/F school will be dispersed into the community, free to use the Opportunity Scholarships, Corporate Tax Credit/Private School Vouchers or the state’s liberal open enrollment policy that crosses all districts as well as the “School of Hope.”

Once the for profit charter “School of Hope” accepts the student(s) from the so-called D/F school, which could be as few as 1, they are free to host a lottery for the rest of the community

All the rhetoric about saving kids from so-called “failure factories” is a ruse. Under the “Schools of Hope,” nothing is guaranteed except the exponential growth of charter schools and the deliberate defunding of public district schools.

Triggers multiple ways for districts to lose schools and students, giving voters and parents no voice:

Gives for-profit charter developers access to a $200 million capital slush fund if they are willing to open a so-called “school of hope” within a five mile radius of any “D” or “F” public school, which opens entire districts to charter development.

Immediate transfer of D and F public schools into private, for-profit hands. Districts already have multiple statutory options to aid in transforming a D or F school, only one of which is the transfer to a for-profit charter operator.

Loss of public assets nearly $1 billion per year

Bill takes away district right to manage its own school

Establishes system of “Success” Charter schools that could be designated an independent district with its own taxing authority

Eliminates District managed option
Compresses the time-frame for schools that receive a D or F grade to be handed over to for-profit charter operator

Removes options from school boards for turn-around solutions

Picture of loss:

115 public district schools could be handed over immediately to corporate charter developers

450 additional public schools vulnerable to this charter school heist

77,000 students in those 115 public district schools under immediate takeover threat means the transfer of $555 million dollars to for profit charters per year based on UFTE of $7,420.58.

$200 million capital slush fund per year offered to for-profit charter chains willing to open a so-called “school of hope” within a five mile radius of any D or F public school.

For-profit Charter Chains not interested in struggling students:

Florida charters have demonstrated a chronic disinterest in this population.

Legislators are consumed with labeling children and schools with D or F, but unwilling to walk through the doors to see the remarkable work being done despite chronic underfunding

Charter Chains and legislators disregard the fact that struggling D or F schools face the deep effects of generational poverty that requires greater investment and support not “failure” labels and ridicule.

Charter chains know that struggling students cost more and are “not attractive” to a ‘for-profit” model

Legislators ignore District Success:

A prime example of this is Orange County’s successful Evans High Community School, which is a collaborative effort between the district, UCF and other agencies.

This level of student investment – at least $1M more per year per school – is something no for-profit corporation is willing to justify to its board

Florida has a history of constantly moving cut scores while ignoring the more important measure of actual learning gains, a practice that deliberately throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year.

“Schools of Hope” is based on a lie:

Florida’s A-F Accountability/school grades are based on a false premise since school grades almost always reflect zip code status

Florida’s constantly moving cut scores vs. the more important measure of actual learning gains throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year rendering the grades meaningless

Alters statute to include both D and F schools, exponentially driving up the numbers of schools available for take over

Florida Charter Schools have not lived up to their promises

State has spent $760 million on the building and operation of charter schools since 2000.

Majority of state funding for the construction and renovation of schools goes to charter schools.

U.S. Department of Education found no evidence to support the claims that charter schools ‘save children from “failing schools.”

Research shows that restarting a former public school as a charter school had no significant impact on math or reading test scores, high graduation or college enrollment

In 2016, Florida charter schools closures were the highest in the nation

HB 5105 “Schools of Hope” enticements offered to for-profit charter chains:

Gives for profit operators a $200 million slush fund,

Provides for-profit charter developers with a state tax-payer sponsored revolving loan program

Transfers federal funds meant for district schools to private entities

Forces districts to turn over public school buildings AND requires the school district to maintain them.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from school building codes, taxes, fees and assessments and state procurement laws.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from the current charter law and requirements that they close if they fail.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from the class size limits in our constitution.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from teacher certification requirements

Rescinds district-managed option for turning around struggling schools

Stretching the truth – calling Charter Chains “public”

Parents at Charter Schools have little recourse and must address complaints to a corporate school board whose members may not even live in the state.

For-profit Charter schools are run by corporate operators, are allowed to profit from publicly bonded real estate deals and are governed by separate school boards – all enriched by public dollars.

The 501c3 front door provides cover for a private, exceptionally lucrative for-profit back door charter operators that are exempt from transparency because they are private corporations

Legislators benefit from charter school growth. HB 5105 sponsor, Rep. Diaz, earns his living working for the unaccredited Doral College, which is owned by mega charter school developer Academica, the group that just won the state’s first district charter school takeover located in Jefferson County, The ink isn’t dry on the deal to serve 600 students and already Academica is petitioning the Florida Legislature for an additional $5 Million.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Mercedes Schneider on Hanna Skandera, Felled by the Common Core

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2017 //
7

Mercedes Schneider comments here on the Senate GOP decision not to move forward with Hanna Skandera as Assistant Secretary of Education for Elementary and Secondary Education because of her Common Core love.

Skandera is a protege of Jeb Bush. She was deputy commissioner of education in Florida.

Since she took the job in New Mexico, despite lacking the statutory requirement of real education experience, she tried to impose the “Florida model” of charters, virtual charters, A-F grading, high-stakes testing and VAM. COmmon Core was part of the Florida model.

There is something ironic here.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Mexico, Privatization, Testing

Valerie Strauss: Democrats Paved the Way for Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
41

 

 

Valerie Strauss wrote an excellent article about the hypocrisy of Democrats who now loudly oppose Billionaire Betsy DeVos, but spent the last eight years bashing teachers, unions, and public schools while pouring billions of dollars into the proliferation of privately-managed charter schools. Once Democrats became cheerleaders for school choice, they abandoned the principle that public schools under democratic control are a fundamental public responsibility.

 

I urge you to read this article, which recounts the perfidy of Democrats who fell for privatization and betrayed public education. In many cases, support for charter schools opened the door to billionaires and hedge funder donations, to groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now and Families for Excellent Schools. Think Corey Booker, Andrew Cuomo, Dannell Malloy. Think of the silence of the Democrats as the U.S. Department of Education spent more than $3 billion on charter schools. How do they now express opposition to DeVos’s love for charters (and vouchers). She has exposed their hypocrisy.

 

Both of my last two books are about this theme–how the Democrats embraced privatization and opened the door to vouchers.

 

So I have to add a couple of points to her accurate summary:

 

In March 2011, President Obama and Secretary Duncan were in Miami with Jeb Bush to celebrate the “turnaround” of Miami Central High School. At the same time, thousands of working people were protesting the anti-labor policies of Scott Walker in Madison. Neither Obama nor Duncan ever showed up in Madison to show support for the teachers and union members who support Democrats.

 

The other point that needs to be added is that a month after Obama, Arne, and Jeb met to toast the turnaround of Miami Central, the state education Department in Florida listed it as a “failing” school that should be closed. I reported this in “Reign of Error.” The press never did report it. Why were Obama and Arne burnishing Jeb’s “credentials” as a “reformer?” Paving the way for Jeb’s good friend Betsy DeVos.

 

Let’s see if Democrats rediscover the importance of public education, where all kids are welcome, no lottery, no exclusion of kids with disabilities. In public schools, not every child can get admission to every school, but every child must be served and enrolled. Not some, but all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

have to add

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Trump Won the Presidency, But Jeb Bush Won the U.S. Department of Education

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2017 //
35

 

 

Valerie Strauss writes today that Trump heaped scorn on Jeb Bush during the primaries, but Jeb is the big winner in Trump education policy. Betsy DeVos is a close friend of Jeb and was a member of Jeb’s board. Jeb promotes charters, vouchers, digital learning, and Common Core. The person likely to be appointed as DeVos’ guide to policy issues is Hanna Skandera, who worked closely with and for Jeb and is now State Commissioner of Education in New Mexico. Skandera is an enthusiastic supporter of the Common Core, as are all of those slated to lead the Department.

 

“Bush as much as anyone led the corporate school reform movement — treating public schools as if they were for-profit businesses — turning Florida into a testing ground when he became governor of the state in 1999. He created a “Florida Formula” of schools reforms that became a model for other states, including state “report cards” that assign letter grades to schools based largely on test scores and widespread school choice right after he became governor of Florida in 1999.”

 

Jeb says public schools are government monopolies and he has led the campaign to smash the monopoly.

 

 

Categories Bush, Jeb, Education Reform, Trump

Steven Singer: Don’t Be Fooled! Betsy DeVos Loves Common Core!

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
18

Steven Singer wants you to know the truth: No matter how much she denies it, Betsy DeVos really really loves Common Core!

 

He has the evidence to prove it.

 

She’s a board member of Jeb Bush’s pro-Common Core think tank, Foundation for Excellence in Education, where she hangs out with prominent Democratic education reformers like Bill Gates and Eli Broad. But she says that somehow doesn’t mean she likes it.

 

She founded, funds and serves on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), an organization dedicated to the implementation and maintenance of Common Core. But somehow that doesn’t mean she’s for the standards.

 

She’s even spent millions lobbying politicians in her home state of Michigan asking them NOT to repeal Common Core. But somehow that doesn’t mean she’s in favor of it.

 

It must be a hard position to be in.

 

Her entire nomination for Trump’s cabinet is contingent on convincing the public that she hates this thing that he explicitly campaigned against but she favored.

 

Rarely has an education policy been such a political hot potato as Common Core. Typically Republicans hate it and Democrats love it. However, little of this has to with its actual merits – or lack thereof.

 

Common Core is a set of academic standards saying what students should know in each grade. Nonetheless, these standards are deeply unpopular with teachers, students, parents and the general public. Part of this stems from the undemocratic way state legislatures were bribed to enact them by the Obama administration in many cases before they were even done being written and often circumventing the voting process altogether. Other criticisms come from the way the standards were devised almost entirely by standardized test corporations without input from experts in the field like child psychologists and classroom teachers. Finally, the standards get condemnation for what they do to actual classrooms – narrowing the curriculum, promoting excessive test prep, increased paperwork, the purchase of new text and work books and requiring new and more unfair standardized assessments.

 

As a Republican, DeVos must do everything she can to distance herself from this policy.

 

It’s just that her history of advocating for it gets in the way.

 

Every statement that Singer makes is documented in links. And the story is longer than what is quoted here. Open and see his stunning graphics and read the rest of the post.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Education Reform

Has Trump Outsourced the Department of Education to Jeb Bush?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2016 //
22

The U.S. Department of Education, in the Trump regime, is starting to look like a Jeb Bush sweep.

 

Betsy DeVos was on the board of Jeb’s Foundation for Education Excellence, which is noted for its advocacy for vouchers, charter schools, digital learning, and high-stakes testing.

 

Hanna Skandera, State Superintendent in New Mexico, worked for Jeb Bush, was a member and chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, and is a supporter of Common Core (and president of the PARCC consortium).

 

Now Politico reports that Paul Pastorek of Louisiana, also a member of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, is under consideration for the ED Department’s general counsel. Pastorek was a leader and cheerleader for the complete privatization of the public schools in New Orleans.

 

As superintendent [of Louisiana] from 2007 to 2011, he helped oversee the rebuilding of New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina. He has held a number of education reform leadership positions, serving as co-executive director of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, for example. Pastorek helped found the PARCC consortium and he’s chairman of PARCC Inc.’s board of directors.

 

In other words, Trump has forgotten that he promised to eliminate Common Core (which he can’t do unless the states want to do it.) He said repeatedly that Common Core is a “disaster.” But all of his likely top appointments are Common Core advocates, like Jeb Bush.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Testing, Trump

Edd Doerr: The Great School Voucher Fraud

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2016 //
24

Edd Doerr is the president of Americans for Religious Liberty and a strong proponent of separation of church and state. In this paper, he gives a brief overview of the history of this infra, explains why vouchers are a very bad idea, and reviews the 27 state referenda on vouchers or variant on public funds for religious schools.

 

Since his paper was written in 2012, a proposal to amend the Florida state constitution to permit vouchers (called the Religious Freedom Amendment) was defeated in 2012 by 55-45%, despite a vigorous campaign by Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee on its behalf, and despite the deceptive tactic of asking voters whether they support “religious freedom.” This past election, voters in Oklahoma rejected a constitutional amendment that would “have stripped the provision in the state constitution that prevents public money or property from being used to support religion and religious institutions.”

 

Wherever vouchers exist, they have been authorized by state legislatures, never by voters. State legislatures are influenced by political contributions and are easier to manipulate than voters, as Dick and Betsy DeVos learned when their own state voucher proposal in Michigan went down to defeat in 2000.

 

In Doerr’s paper, he shows how voucher advocates ignore the Founding Fathers’ conviction about religious liberty. He cites Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia legislation called “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.”*

 

Doerr quotes a section of the bill:

 

This Act ended legal compulsion to attend church services and barred tax support for religious institutions. It provide that “no man . . . shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.”

 

Doerr goes on to write:

 

While the Constitution drafted in 1787 did not grant the federal government power to deal with religion in any way, it proscribed religious tests for public office, and provided for an affirmation instead of an oath of office. The absence of a specific religious freedom guarantee bothered Jefferson and others. Six states ratified the Constitution but insisted on a religious freedom amendment. Rhode Island and North Carolina declined to ratify it until a bill of rights was adopted. Shortly after his election to the House of Representatives Madison introduced a compilation of proposals for a bill of rights to be added. Several versions of a religious liberty provision were considered before the following wording of what is now the First Amendment was adopted: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

 

President Jefferson, in a carefully thought-out 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, declared that these words built a “wall of separation between church and state.” Supporters of church-state separation hold that the “no establishment” clause was noted by the Supreme Court as early as 1878, but was best and most succinctly interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education ruling. The Court stated:

 

“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state’.”

 

So bear in mind as Trump and DeVos and others promote vouchers that would divert money from public schools to religious schools, they are at war not only with voters but with the Founding Fathers.

 

*Doerr cites the wrong date for passage of the bill in Virginia, which was 1779, not 1786.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Religion, Separation of church and state, Trump, Virginia, Vouchers

Emily Talmadge: The Beast Will Thrive in a Trump Administration and We Must Say No

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2016 //
9

Please watch the 10-second video at the end of this post. You will love it!

Emily Talmadge, a teacher-blogger in Maine, used to worry about the dangers inherent in a Clinton administration. Now she warns that the threat of competency based education–delivered online, all the time, profiting a few, bad for humans–will thrive in a Trump Administration.

“The real agenda – the ongoing march toward a cradle-to-grave system of human capital development that relies on the most sophisticated data collection and tracking technologies to serve its unthinkably profitable end – is fueled and directed by a multi-billion dollar education-industrial-complex that has been built over the course of decades.

“It’s an absolute beast, an army of epic scale, and it’s a system that has the same uncanny ability to blend in with its surroundings as a chameleon.

“Take, for example, the new “innovative assessment systems” that are being thrust on us every which way in the wake of ESSA. Under the banner of free market ideology, the far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is promoting the very same assessment policies that far-left groups like the national unions and the National Center for Fair and Open Testing are now pushing. And though some claim that one ideology is merely “co-opting” the ideas of the other, the reality is that they lead to the same data-mining, cradle-to-career tracking end.

“Consider, too, the massive push for blended, competency-based, and digital learning – all unproven methods of educating children, but highly favored by ed-tech providers and data-miners.

“Most of these corporate-backed policies were cooked up in Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, and then made their way not only to the far-right ALEC, but also to left-leaning groups like the Center for Collaborative Education, the Coalition for Essential Schools, and the Great Schools Partnership. Depending on what sort of population each group is targeting, these wolves will dress themselves up in sheep’s clothing and make appeals to different values. For the right, they will package their policies in the language of the free market and choice; for the left, they will wrap them in a blanket of social-justice terminology.

“Pull back the curtain far enough, however, and you will see they are selling the same thing.”

Emily lives in Maine, whose Tea Party Governor Paul LePage was one of the first to jump on the Jeb Bush “Digital Learning Now!” bandwagon.

It was exposed in a wonderful, prize-winning “follow the money” investigative report.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Competency Based Education, Education Industry, For-Profit, Hoax, Maine, Online Learning, Technology, Computers

Jeb Bush Will Lecture at Harvard This Fall

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2016 //
45

Jeb Bush has been advocating everything related to corporate reform for many years. As Governor of Florida, he imposed high-stakes testing, charters, simplistic accountability measures, letter grades for schools, and did whatever he could dream up to promote competition and choice. He tried to get vouchers, but was only able to get vouchers for special education (a program once described in a prize-winning article as a “cottage industry for graft”). He sought a constitutional amendment to make vouchers possible, and Michelle Rhee joined him to promote vouchers. But in 2012, voters said no by 58-42.

This fall, this hater of public schools will teach at the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, which is supervised by voucher advocate Paul Peyerson. Students will no doubt learn that public schools must be replaced by a free market. They will learn that choice will create Mira Les. They will learn that families should schools just as they choose milk in the grocery store: whole milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, chocolate milk, buttermilk. No one will tell Jeb about Sweden and Chile.

Saddest of all is that he is giving the annual Godkin Lecture, an honor once reserved for distinguished scholars.

As the evidence piles up that choice is no panacea, do you think he will apologize for the schools and communities he has disrupted?

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Florida, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Valerie Strauss: Why Did Donald Trump Give His Big Education Speech in a State with Multiple Charter Scandals?

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2016 //
47

Valerie Strauss found many ironies in Donald Trump’s decision about where to give his big education policy speech.

To begin with, he parroted Jeb Bush’s line about public schools as a government monopoly. He mocked him in the debates, now he steals his lines.

Next, he made his speech in Ohio, which has been celebrated for the public exposure of numerous charter school scandals. The biggest charter operators have the worst schools and donate the most money to Republican politicians.

And amazingly, he chose a for-profit charter as his venue, which recently was given an F by the state for poor student growth.

Another irony: the absurd idea of rating schools with a humiliating letter grade was devised by none other than “low energy” Jeb Bush, who has not endorsed Trump.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Trump
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