Archives for category: California
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

California: Palo Alto Superintendent Offers Bribes to Students to Reduce Opt Out Rate

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2019 //
19

“

 

Last year, a majority of juniors at Palo Alto High School did not take the state tests. State law protects the right of students to opt out. The tests have no value other than to prop up the testing regime.

Now the district superintendent, in an all-Out effort to break the opt out, is pulling out all the stops and offering prizes and awards to students who take the tests. 

“All juniors at Palo Alto High School will be required to participate in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress this year, in an effort by the school board to assemble a higher participation rate, according to Supt. Don Austin.

“The Palo Alto Unified School District is offering incentives to students who complete all of the CAASPP examinations next week, according to an email forwarded to Paly parents by Assistant principal Tom Keating, from Superintendent Austin.

“Through a raffle, students will be able to win student parking permits for the 2019-20 school year (which usually cost up to $100), athletic passes for the 2019-20 school year, 2018-19 yearbooks or VIP parking passes to the 2019-20 graduation ceremony.

“Regardless, all students who complete all of the testings will win one item of Paly “swag,” according to the letter.

“Last year, only 40 percent of Paly juniors completed the test, compared to the 95 percent required participation rate, Austin stated in an email to parents on Feb. 28.

“In the email, Austin stated that although parents are highly encouraged to permit students to take the exam, parents or guardians are able to submit a written request to the principal of their student’s school to excuse their child from any or all parts of the CAASPP summative assessments.

“Compared to Henry M. Gunn High School, which had a parent-guardian exemption percentage that fell from 64 percent in 2016  to 28 percent in 2017, Paly has a previous history of having an abnormally low attendance record compared to other schools, according to an article by Palo Alto Online. 

“In the email, assistant principal Keating also stated that one of the major benefits of taking the exam is state recognition and awards upon graduation. Students are able to earn three additional awards or seals with the completion of the exam.”

The local paper claims that the tests are “mandatory.” But they are not.

Opting out is legal! 

Categories California, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

Julian Vasquez Heilig Advises Berkeley Chancellor About Wendy Kopp, TFA, and Free Sppech

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2019 //
44

 

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig considers the protest against Wendy Kopp’s selection to give the commencement address at Berkeley. 

The chancellor of Berkeley responded to protest by saying that the institution does not disinvite controversial speakers.

Heilig points out that the legislature is currently considering a proposal to ban TFA’s inexperienced teachers from schools that enroll low-income students. Berkeley students don’t know that and won’t learn it.

He counters that students should be prepared to consider different views. That’s free speech.

“While I believe it is important that we protect constitutional free speech, I also believe that educational leaders must promote dialogues rather than monologues when discussing controversial topis— this approach allows the power of ideas to prevail. As an educational leader, I have participated in Cambridge-style debates, attend workgroups at the American Enterpise Institute (until they couldn’t handle my free speech) and even participated in a mock trial at the Libertarians Freedom Fest. So for me, it’s malpractice for educational leaders to allow monologues instead of dialogues when there are controversial topics at hand.”

Berkeley will hear Kopp’s self-praise but will not learn why California’s oldest and largest civil rights groups support a bill, AB 221, to exclude TFA from schools that serve their children. Why not a debate?

 

Categories California, Education Reform, Teach for America

California: The Latest Charter Reform Is Unlikely to Change Much

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2019 //
12

When the California Teachers Association and the California Charter School Association stand side-by-side to applaud a law about charters, you have to wonder who wrote the law and whether it will rein in charter corruption.

The latest reform effort was a law to guarantee charter transparency and accountability. Former Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill twice.

The State Board of Education approved 71% of the charters that appealed to them after being rejected by the local district and county board of education. Almost a third of those it approved have since closed.

Capital & Main says the new law won’t make much difference.

 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed into law Senate Bill 126, written to hold the state’s charter schools to the same transparency as other public schools. (Charter schools are funded by tax dollars but privately administered.) The bill, among other provisions, clarifies that charter schools are subject to existing state financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest laws. It’s a significant break from Newsom’s charter school-friendly predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, who twice vetoed similar legislation.

Still, the California Charter Schools Association, the well-funded charter lobbying group, praised the bill as a “balanced, fair application” of the state’s transparency laws, while preserving charter schools’ autonomy.

Some 31% of charter schools authorized by the state between Jan. 2002 and May 2018 are no longer open.

The fact that the bill sailed through the legislature without opposition strikes Julian Vasquez Heilig, a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at California State University, Sacramento, as “one small, small step for mankind.”

“[Senate Bill 126] is two pages long,” he says. “The governor and Democrats are using it to say they’re doing something. But we are still spending hundreds of millions to build charters next to failing public schools. And many of those charters are not doing anything innovative that public schools are not already doing.”

And, despite protestations of “failing public schools” voiced by charter school supporters, many more charter schools are failing due to lack of oversight that the new law is not set up to fix. Not only would additional laws to provide rules for and financial scrutiny of charter schools protect district schools, they might shore up charter schools as well.

My suggestion to the editors: Please delete the word “other” from the first sentence. Charter schools are publicly financed but they are not public schools. They are private contractors.

New Oversight Law Won’t Prevent Charter School Financial Difficulties

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

California: Who Gave the Charter Reform Task Force to the Charter Industry? Mystery Solved!

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
68

 

Sometimes it helps to solve a mystery when you put it out there for public review. Like posting photos of the “Ten Most Wanted Criminals” in every postoffice. Tips come in.

An hour ago, I learned the identity of the person who named the members of the Task Force that is supposed to propose reforms to the state’s notoriously weak charter law. Seven of the 11 members of the Task Force are connected to the charter industry. The choices are so brazen that the chair of the board of the charter lobbying group (California Charter School Association) was named to the Task Force, along with another CCSA employee.

A tip came in. It makes perfect sense.

Governor Newsom’s chief of staff Ann O’Leary selected the Task Force.

O’Leary served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which is unflinchingly pro-charter school.

She was education advisor to Hillary Clinton during her campaign in 2016. Early in the campaign, Carol Burris and I met with her at the Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn. We tried to persuade her that Clinton should oppose charter schools because they are the first step towards privatization. We mustered all our evidence about the dangers to public schools, the risks of deregulation of public money, persistent corruption, suspicious real estate deals, profiteering, etc. She was unmoved. She was insistent that Hillary would not oppose charters. We came back for a second meeting, and the best we could get was that Hillary would oppose for-profit charters. Hillary would not oppose charters.

During the campaign, while in South Carolina, Hillary was asked about charters, and she spontaneously spoke critically about charter schools, saying that they don’t accept everyone. O’Leary must have gotten loud complaints from some funders, because she quickly wrote an article for “Medium” walking back Hillary’s mild critique and reassuring readers that yes, indeed, Hillary supports charter schools, just like Arne Duncan.

Don’t worry, California charter lobbyists and billionaires, corporate charter chains, and entrepreneurs! Ann O’Leary will protect your charters!

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Fraud, Hillary Clinton, Privatization

California: How Did Charters Gain Control Of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force to Reform Charter Law?

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
28

 

Bill Raden of Capital & Main presents us with this puzzle: how did it happen that seven of the 11 members of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force in charter school reform are part of the charter industry? 

The Fox is in charge of the henhouse.

Since the Task Force is supposed to examine the fiscal impact of charters on public schools, why is the industry judging itself?

Shouldn’t the Task Force have been composed of public finance experts and others who are not tied to the industry?

Or, if the Task Force was supposed to be representative, shouldn’t the majority represent the almost 90% of families whose children attend public schools, not the 10% in charters?

Why are two members drawn directly from the lobby for the charter industry?

This Task Force is a blatant example of “capture” by the industry. It is akin to the tobacco industry taking control of a commission charged with examining the link between smoking and cancer.

it is an insult to public school parents and teachers, who wrongly assumed that Governor Newsom was not indebted to billionaires like Reed Hastings.

Who did the dirty deed? After talking to Tony Thurmond, I’m convinced he did not give the Task Force to the charter industry.

I’m betting that Gavin Newsom did it to placate the billionaires who love charters.

Does he need them for future campaigns?

The teachers and public school parents of California should be outraged.

If Tony Thurmond manages to get consensus from this Task Force That leads to reform, he deserves credit.

As the series published this past week in the Los Angeles Times showed, the Charter law enables corruption, prevents reasonable regulation, and encourages small districts to poach resources from other districts. The charter industry has fought any genuine accountability and transparency. It heedlessly collapses the efforts of a district like Oakland to recover a sound financial footing. Under the current law, charters in California are parasites, crippling their host.

The answer is not to remove the ability of local districts to control charter growth inside their boundaries but to empower them to make decisions about whether charters should open or close. The role of the state should be to police the fidelity and integrity of districts and charters, not to overrule districts when they reject a charter.

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

California: The Charter Law is Broken and Adversaries Don’t Agree on How to Fix It

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2019 //
32

 

 

This is part 3 of the Los Angeles Times’ series about charter school dysfunction in California, written by Anna Phillips. 

Phillips traces many of the problems, especially lack of oversight, to state law.

She explains that the billionaires who fund the rapid expansion of charter schools have squared off against the powerful California Teachers Association, andthe two never agree.

The resultis That a badly flawed lawremains in place.

Phillips quotes several charter school advocates who want to eliminate the role of local school boardsin authorizing charter schools and transfer that power to a single state charter board.

What the advocates never mention is that the school boards have been rendered toothless by the law, which allows charters to appeal their rejection at the local level to the county board. If the county board rejects them, they can appeal to the state board, which has been extremely friendly to charters due to appointments by Governors Schwarzenegger and Brown, both very charter-friendly.

Phillips quotes one charter advocate who points to New York as a model. New York hastwo charter authorizing Boards: the State Board of Regents and the SUNY Charter Institute. Neither supervises the charters they authorize. The SUNY committee consists of appointees of Governor Cuomo, who loves charters and receives big campaign contributions from the charter billionaires and Wall Street charter lobby. When billionaire Merryl Tisch was chair of the Board of Regents, it too was an ally of charters. She is now on the SUNY board. Even now, the Regents continue to endorse charter expansion,despite local objections.

The Network for Public Education, which is not funded by teachers unions, believes that charters should be authorized ONLY by local school districts to meet their needs, not because an entrepreneur wants a school of his own or because a corporate chain sees a chance to grow.

The irony is that the charter billionaires seem already to have captured Governor Gavin Newsom, even though they supported another candidate. Newsom promised charter reform, and he signed a bill requiring accountability and transparency and forbidding conflicts of interest and nepotism. But he may have shackled the charter reform agenda by appointing charter allies to a majority of places on the new state task force to recommend changes to the charter law. Phillips ends her article by mentioning the task force but fails to mention that charter allies were given seven of 11 seats, surely by Newsom.

So this otherwise great series ends for me on a disappointing note. It is far easier for billionaires to capture a single state board or two state boards than to deal with hundreds of local school districts. There is a limit to the number of elections and seats they can buy, even with their deep pockets. One thing has become clear about “Reformers.” They don’t like democracy. They like mayoral control and state control. Local school boards get in their way.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

California: Small Districts Make Money by Authorizing Charters in Big Districts with No Oversight

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2019 //
7

 

This article is the second of three written by Los Angeles Times education reporter Anna Phillips. The first told the story of charter operators who were making millions of dollars opening subpar charters.

This story is about California’s broken system for authorizing charter schools. Small rural districts with small budgets can collect millions by authorizing charters that open outside their district. Charters that have been rejected elsewhere can go shopping for a friendly authorizer who gladly takes a commission of millions and conducts no oversight.

Its a win-win-lose-lose. The rural district gets money, the charter gets authorized. And no one checks on its quality. The only losers are the public schools in districts where the new charters drain away students and resources, and students who sign up for charters of unknown quality and unpredictable sustainability. Here today, gone tomorrow.

“State law allows school districts to charge charters fees that are meant to cover the cost of monitoring the schools, but it does not restrict how districts use the money. As a result, districts have spent charter oversight fees on sports coaches, textbooks and computers for their own schools.”

”When the California Legislature passed the Charter Schools Act in 1992, it was intended to introduce competition into public education as well as an incentive for districts to experiment. There was supposed to be a marketplace of ideas about new ways of teaching and learning. But what has evolved in some parts of the state resembles an actual marketplace in which charter schools can shop for lenient authorizers and school districts can rake in much-needed cash.

”Before he was elected to the school board for Acton-Agua Dulce, Pfalzgraf recalls attending meetings and watching with growing concern as a line of charter operators sought approval to open new schools. He remembers those meetings as breezy, friendly affairs in which the answer was nearly always yes and district officials asked few questions, even of schools known to have been rejected previously by other districts.

“You’re telling people they’re supposed to vet charters. But they also know that if there’s no charter revenue, they don’t have a job,” Pfalzgraf said. “I think staff was looking at this and going, ‘If I recommend no, what’s going to happen to me?’

The district’s income from charter fees has more than doubled in the past five years, surpassing $3 million last school year. Roughly 25% of its operating budget now comes from those fees, according to its current superintendent.

”Students attending the out-of-town charter schools have not always benefited. Last school year, most of the charters Acton-Agua Dulce oversaw posted lower passing rates on state exams than its own district schools. In four of the charters, more than 95% of students failed the math test…”

“Many of the charters approved by small districts are classified as non-classroom-based, meaning their students receive much of their instruction off campus. Schools in that category typically aren’t a threat to district enrollment numbers because they draw from different markets — home-schooled children, students who work full time and others who have dropped out.

”In Shasta County, for example, a one-school district with 35 students and one part-time administrator has approved three non-classroom-based charters.

”In Kern County, a district with about 300 students has authorized five charters — all but one conducts most of its classes online.

”In one small San Diego County district, charter oversight fees made up nearly a third of its operating budget last school year.”

The districts collect about 3% of the charter’s revenue, a hefty sum. It can add on thousands more for fees of various kinds.

This loophole in the law encourages corruption. It is corrupt for a small district to balance its budget by opening a charter in another district, poaching its students without oversight or acccountability.

This is an invitation to small districts to make money by harming other districts.

The law incentivized greed and malfeasance, not educational improvement.

The law must change!

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

California: Now Is the Time to Reform Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2019 //
9

California has more charter schools and students than any other state, due to its size and its notoriously weak charter law. Add to that a progressive Governor with a blind spot for charters (Jerry Brown opened two when he was mayor of Oakland) and to a gaggle of billionaires in both parties who favor privatization.

in the new report by the Network for Public Education, Asleep At the Wheel, California was home to a large proportion of phantom charters. An amazing 39% of federally funded charters in California either never opened or closed soon after opening.

A new organization has been founded in California to encourage charter school reform, which can happen only by revising the state charter law.

The organization is “Reform Charter Schools.”

What a difference two California strikes make — Reform Charter Schools started in 2016 when the environment for demanding that charter schools function under the same rules as neighborhood public schools was much more hostile. Some brave activists in Orange County were among the first to call out charter corruption. Now the group has rebooted to spread the message that even ordinary well-run charters defund and depopulate public schools by virtue of their business model.
Reform Charter Schools has developed a place for people to read about and learn what the bills say as they go through the committee process, and a petition calling for strong charter accountability here: http://reformcharterschools.org/.
The site has resources for those who want to launch their own school board resolution to call for a moratorium on charters, and is starting to offer the petition in multiple languages. (The simplified Chinese version to sign is here.) Some pro-public ed grassroots groups have already started meeting with their Assembly representatives.
Californians, go to Reform Charter Schools and get the ball rolling.
=========
Links for all of the above in case they don’t copy over, in the order they appear:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ReformCharterSchools1505.1508/learning_content/
http://reformcharterschools.org/school-board-charter-moratorium-resolution-templates/
http://reformcharterschools.org/simplified-chinese-strong-charter-school-accountability-with-ab-1505-1508/
http://reformcharterschools.org
Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization

BREAKING: Los Angeles Times Exposes Charter School Fraud and Profiteering

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2019 //
37

 

Anna Phillips of the Los Angeles Times has written a powerful expose of California’s “Wild West” charter industry. This is the first of three articles.

The article is titled:

“How a couple worked charter school regulations to make millions”

The article begins:

“The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles.

“Though she was fresh out of college, she was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for the school to churn so quickly through teachers or to mount surveillance cameras in each classroom. Old computers were lying around, but the campus had no internet access. Pay was low and supplies scarce — she wasn’t given books for her students.

“She struggled to reconcile the school’s conditions with what little she knew about its wealthy founders, Clark and Jeanette Parker of Beverly Hills.

When Kawamoto saw their late-model Mercedes-Benz outside the school, she would think: “Look at your school, then look at what you drive.”

“That didn’t sit well with us teachers,” she said.

“The Parkers have cast themselves as selfless philanthropists, telling the California Board of Education that they have “devoted all of our lives to the education of other people’s children, committed many millions of our own dollars directly to that particular purpose, with no gain directly to us.”

“But the couple have, in fact, made millions from their charter schools. Financial records show the Parkers’ schools have paid more than $800,000 annually to rent buildings the couple own. The charters have contracted out services to the Parkers’ nonprofits and companies and paid Clark Parker generous consulting fees, all with taxpayer money, a Times investigation found.

”Presented with The Times’ findings, the Parkers did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“How the Parkers have stayed in business, surviving years of allegations of financial and academic wrongdoing, illustrates glaring flaws in the way California oversees its growing number of charter schools.

“Many of the people responsible for regulating the couple’s schools, including school board members and state elected officials, had accepted thousands of dollars from the Parkers in campaign contributions.

“Like other charter operators who have run into trouble, the Parkers were able to appeal to the state Board of Education when they faced the threat of being shut down; the panel is known for overturning local regulators’ decisions. A Times analysis of the state board’s decisions has found that, over the last five years, it has sided with charters over local school districts or county offices of education in about 70% of appeals.

“California law also enables troubled charter operators to escape sanction or scrutiny by moving to school districts more willing to accept them. The Parkers have used this to their advantage, keeping one step ahead of the regulators.”

The Parkers live in a 7,700 foot mansion in Beverley Hills, valued at more than $15 million.

The city and county have repeatedly tried to close down their charter schools, only to be overridden by the state. Their scores swing wildly from the lowest in the state to among the highest, then down again. The Parkers contributed to the then superintendent’s campaign fund. He recommended renewal. The state board agreed. Soon after the renewal, a teacher at the school wrote county and state officials to complain about malfeasance and neglect at the school, so bad that students were endangered. Children were sometimes served food that was spoiled or undercooked. Supplies were scarce.He was fired.

Mrs. Parker, who receives a salary of $285,000 as superintendent of her charter chain, gave Mr. Parker a contract for $575,000 to manage construction of their new school in Inglewood.

Last year, Governor Jerry Brown reluctantly signed legislation banning for-profit charters (reluctantly, because he had previously vetoed similar legislation), but that has no effect on this charter chain, which is technically not for profit.

Phillips describes the law, how it was written to “unleash creativity” by deregulating charters and by requiring them to get approvals by local, then county, then state officials. California has 330 different authorizers, compared to only 18 in Texas. Oversight is patchy, slipshod, sometimes nonexistent. As the Parkers realized, campaign contributions to school board members can ease the way to approval.

The Parkers are adept at shopping for friendly authorizers. They opened a charter in distressed Compton and generously contributed to the campaign funds of board members, including the board President.

When the school came up for renewal, district staff warned of deficiencies, noting that “Jeanette Parker had not disclosed who was on her organization’s board or whom her charter was doing business with.”

“Please note that the petition is generally vague and inconsistent regarding the details of the programs outlined in the petition,” the report said.

“Still, district officials recommended renewal. They had been assured, Brawley said, “that the deficiencies identified in the petition would be rectified.”

“When the charter’s renewal came up in December, Compton school board members did not discuss the charter’s academic performance. They did not question the Parkers, who sat before them in the audience.

“What they did was a foregone conclusion.

“The board took less than a minute to vote unanimously to renew Today’s Fresh Start until June 2023.”

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, For-Profit

California: An Alert for Supporters of Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2019 //
5

 

A reader in California asks for help to fix one of the charter reform bill that has a big loophole.

He writes:

“Thank you for all you do for public education. In California right now are 4 assembly Bills – AB-1505 – AB-1508.

“AB-1508 in particular is intended to enable local school districts to consider the financial, program and facilities impacts when approving/denying new charter petitions. This leaves a huge gap for districts to have a say in renewing charters that were imposed on the districts by the California State Board of Education despite denial at the local and county levels.

“Would you be able to alert your readers in California to contact the bill’s authors before it goes to the floor for a vote to add language to AB-1508 to apply to charter renewals as well as new petitions?

“If enough Californians can respond, we may be able to make this proposed law even stronger to bring back local control over the 1323 charter schools in operation in the state.

“AB-1508 sponsors are CA Assembly Members Kalra (author), Bonta, McCarty, O’Donnell, Smith and CA Senators Beall and Skinner.”

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »