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Rocketship to Nowhere

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2013 //
37

I posted a couple of times about John Merrow’s PBS profile of the Rocketship charter chain, but I think there is more to be said on the subject.

The chain now has seven charters in San Jose, California, and it will soon expand into many more urban “markets.” When it enters a new territory, it expects a commitment for at least five charters. It aims to enroll one million children eventually. It is presently planning new schools in Nashville, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and other cities.

Merrow’s show was well done and nicely framed. He begins with old documentary footage of Henry Ford’s assembly line and asks why we as a nation have not even able to “mass produce” high quality schools. He then shifts to Rocketship, where we see children, teachers, and parents chanting in what appears to be a daily ritual. I think they were chanting some sort of self-esteem boosting words or slogans, like “I am a Rocketship,” but I’m not certain of that.

Then we learn the following:

About 75% of the teachers are Teach for America, so we don’t expect to see many experienced teachers.

Students spend two hours a day in front of a computer, which assesses their skill levels and offers them problems adjusted to their ability.

The school has fewer teachers because of its computer time, which saves about $500,000 a year.

The founder of Rocketship is unalterably opposed to unions, because he says they would limit his flexibility.

The teachers are paid more than public school teachers, and some are paid a good deal more, though it was not explained what determined compensation.

The schools have high test scores, even though their students are low-income.

The schools offer neither art or music. They seem to be focused solely on tested subjects.

There was some talk of changing the computer labs next year, though it was not clear how.

Some of the students, especially the younger ones, appeared to be bored at the computer.

The takeaway?

These are schools for poor children. Not many advantaged parents would want their children in this bare-bones Model-T school. It appears that these children are being trained to work on an assembly line. There is no suggestion that they are challenged to think or question or wonder or create.

Bit their test scores are high.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Why Is John Deasy Reconstituting a Successful School?

By dianeravitch
December 29, 2012 //
35

This is a puzzling story. At Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, teachers, administrators, students, and the community leaders worked together to improve te school. It seemed to be working. The school made enormous gains.

But then Superintendent John Deasey stepped in and pulled the plug. He will reconstitute the school, break it up into four small schools, fire the staff, and start over. The staff can reapply for heir old jobs, but half or more are not likely to be invited back.

The school seemed to be turning itself around. White harsh measures?

Can anyone explain?

Categories California, Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles

Can High-Quality Schools Be Mass Produced?

By dianeravitch
December 29, 2012 //
8

John Merrow raised this question in his PBS show about Rocketship charters.

I have not visited one of these schools so do not pass judgement on them. I can say without qualification that I would not want my grandchildren to attend a school where children spent two hours a day in front of a computer screen doing point and click. I have heard that these charters offer no art or music. I hope that’s not true. I will wait to hear from others.

But the key question here is: Is it possible to “mass produce” a high quality school.

My assumption here is that the goal is to cut costs by replacing teachers with computers and having a “system” that can be managed by inexperienced, low-cost teachers.

My answer is that the question is an oxymoron. Any school that is “mass produced” [i.e., teacher-proofed] cannot be high quality. Just as one cannot mass produce a string quartet, or mass produce great families, or great anything, one cannot mass produce a great school. A high quality school has a culture made up of its principal and teachers. They cannot be mass produced. Period.

John Merrow’s show last night was called: Profiling Rocketship Education

“Rocketship Education operates seven schools in San Jose, California that are among the top performing low income schools in the state. The dream was to eventually serve one million students. Although others have tried, nobody has successfully mass produced a high quality, cost effective school model. Will Rocketship be the first?”

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, On-Line Education, Privatization

Setting Schools Up to Fail

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2012 //
14

A teacher in California writes:

I am just about finished with your book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, and as a public high school teacher of 22 years, I would like to thank you for your eloquent defense of public education. My wife is also a public school teacher, and we have made it a point to send our two sons to our neighborhood public schools. This means that as teachers and parents we have been eyewitnesses to the injustices that are being done to public schools in the name of “reform.”

A particularly egregious story comes from our sons’ elementary school, Toyon Elementary, in San Jose, California. The school was designated Program Improvement under the terms of NCLB some years ago, and struggled hard to escape the designation. This is not an easy thing to do: the school where I teach is also laboring under the PI designation (and stigma), and my experience suggests that it’s a bit like quicksand: the more you struggle to get out, the more you get sucked in.

Still, through hard work and determination and no small amount of heroism on the part of its teachers, Toyon Elementary managed to escape the quicksand of Program Improvement a couple of years ago. It was a wonderful thing to see. We likely disagree on this, but I believe that the shortcomings in NCLB are no mere design flaws, but in fact a very conscious attempt to destroy the public schools. So to see a school actually beat the devil that is NCLB was for us a sight to behold.

But soon after the school got out of PI, we received a letter informing us that Toyon was now designated “Low Performing,” under the terms of Race to the Top. It seems that the effort of some in our state to qualify for Race to the Top funds–particularly state senator Gloria Romero–had given us and our children whole new categories under which to be called “failures.”

So there you have it: public schools in this era are not even allowed to take satisfaction in their success–especially success as defined by their adversaries. Since its true goal is annihilation of the public schools, the beast of reform will not countenance even the slightest defeat; in such an emergency, it will merely change the rules and declare victory.

Sincerely,
Martin Brandt

Categories California, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

What Happened to Public Education in 2012 Elections

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2012 //
13

Joanne Barkan has written an excellent summary of how public education fared in the recent elections.

Barkan knows how to follow the money. Her article “Got Dough?” showed the influence of the billionaires on education policy.

She begins her analysis of the 2012 elections with this overview of Barack Obama’s embrace of GOP education dogma:

“Barack Obama’s K-12 “reform” policies have brought misery to public schools across the country: more standardized testing, faulty evaluations for teachers based on student test scores, more public schools shut down rather than improved, more privately managed and for-profit charter schools soaking up tax dollars but providing little improvement, more money wasted on unproven computer-based instruction, and more opportunities for private foundations to steer public policy. Obama’s agenda has also fortified a crazy-quilt political coalition on education that stretches from centrist ed-reform functionaries to conservatives aiming to undermine unions and privatize public schools to right-wingers seeking tax dollars for religious charters. Mitt Romney’s education program was worse in only one significant way: Romney also supported vouchers that allow parents to take their per-child public-education funding to private schools, including religious schools.”

Barkan’s analysis shows significant wins for supporters of public education–the upset of uber-reformer Tony Bennett in Indiana, the repeal of the Luna laws in Idaho, and the passage of a tax increase in California–and some significant losses–the passage of charter initiatives in Georgia and Washington State.

The interesting common thread in many of the key elections was the deluge of big money to advance the anti-public education agenda.

Even more interesting is how few people put up the big money. If Barkan were to collate a list of those who contributed $10,000 or more to these campaigns, the number of people on the list would be very small, maybe a few hundred. If the list were restricted to $20,000 or more, it would very likely be fewer than 50 people, maybe less.

This tiny number of moguls is buying education policy in state after state. How many have their own children in the schools they seek to control? Probably none.

The good news is that they don’t win every time. The bad news is that their money is sometimes sufficient to overwhelm democratic control of public education.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Colorado, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, K12 Inc., Michigan, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Unions, US Education, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Expose of Charter Corruption in The New Republic

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2012 //
42

Timothy Noah, a senior editor of The New Republic, has written a stunning expose of charter school corruption. He begins with Arizona, where the laws are so lax that self-dealing by charter executives is the rule, not the exception. Noah points out that 90 percent of charter operators are exempt from state laws requiring competitive bidding. The state has never withdrawn an exemption.

Noah bases his observations about Arizona’s Wild West of charters on investigative reporting by Anne Ryman of the Arizona Republic.

He quotes from Ryman’s article:

“The schools’ purchases from their own officials,” Ryman writes, “range from curriculum and business consulting to land leases and transportation services. A handful of non-profit schools outsource most of their operations to a board member’s for-profit company.” A nonprofit called Great Hearts Academies runs 15 Arizona charter schools. Since 2009, according to Ryman, the schools have purchased $987,995 in books from Educational Sales Co., whose chairman, Daniel Sauer, is a Great Hearts officer. And that doesn’t count additional book purchases made directly by parents. Six of the Great Hearts schools have links on their Web sites for parents who wish to make such purchases. The links are, of course, to Educational Sales Co. Since 2007 Sauer has donated $50,400 to Great Hearts. You can call that philanthropy, or you can call that an investment on which Sauer’s company received a return of more than 1800 percent. I’m not sure even Russian oligarchs typically get that much on the back end.

Oh, yes, Great Hearts Academy. This is the same Arizona-based outfit that has been turned down four times by the Metro Nashville school board because it did not have a diversity plan. Because of its rejection of Great Hearts, the Nashville schools were fined $3.4 million by Tennessee’s TFA state commissioner of education Kevin Huffman. Huffman and the governor really, really want Great Hearts in Nashville and apparently they “won’t back down” until Great Hearts has at least three or four campuses in Nashville, regardless of what the school board says. The governor and legislature are set to pass an ALEC-model law to create a commission to overrule local school boards that have the nerve to turn down a charter school.

By the way, Great Hearts Academy just got permission to open charters in San Antonio.

Noah notes corruption in Ohio and California charters, including the Adelanto Charter School, which was shut down. It will now be replaced the the nation’s very first parent trigger charter, also in Adelanto, California, which was selected by only 50 parents in a school that enrolls more than 600 children.

Keep writing, Timothy Noah.

Categories California, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Privatization

Why Charter Lobby Pushed San Diego Bond Issue

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2012 //
3

San Diego had a bond issue on the ballot. It passed handily.

It appeared to be a great victory for public schools.

But unknown to many, there was a sweet deal tucked into the bond issue.

The district will get $2.8 billion in loans, but $350 million is set aside for charters.

Decisions about how to allocate the money will be made by a committee, this article says, dominated by representatives of the charter industry.

Here is another name to add to the billionaire boys’ club: Irwin Jacobs of Qualcomm. This La Jolla billionaire believes that most students in the San Diego schools should eventually be in a charter school. Jacobs gave $80,000 to the campaign for the bond issue in San Diego. He was also one of the biggest contributors to the Obama campaign.

Another true believer in privatization of public education.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

California: Prop 30 Passes, Prop 32 Loses

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
3

Governor Jerry Brown led a successful campaign to raise taxes to fund the state’s public schools and universities.

His Proposition 30 passed with heavy support from Los Angeles County.

Had it not passed, the cuts to education would have been devastating.

Hats off to Governor Brown and Superintendent Tom Torlakson for fighting to increase taxes to pay for educating the state’s children.

Due to prior anti-tax activism, California is now 47th in the nation in education spending.

Proposition 32, which was intended to hobble labor unions’ political activities by eliminating automatic dues checkoff for political contributions, was defeated.

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Education Reform

Charter Cash Loses in Santa Clara County

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
3

Charter school advocates and operators poured big money into Santa Clara County, California, to defeat Anna Song, a school board member who had dared to vote against a charter school.

Song was outspent overwhelmingly, by 25-1, yet she won.

This is a victory for parents and citizens against privatization.

A reader sends this update:

On a positive note, the huge investment in Santa Clara failed miserably. The Charter Industry spent something like $250k (against the incumbent’s $10k or so) to launch a smear campaign against a woman who voted against the renewal of one charter school. They even went after her husband. She still won in a landslide.

In another encouraging election here in Los Altos, CA, a charter-backed candidate who was the biggest single fund raiser also went down in flames. Part of her strategy was to hide the fact that she was associated with the charter school. Despite winning major endorsements including that of our local paper-of-record, she lost by a huge margin.

I think we need to be realistic on these elections: you can’t spend next to nothing and expect to defeat billionaire-backed campaigns. But the truth gives us huge leverage–10 to 1 in many cases.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform

Who Tried to Buy School Elections?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
6

Robert Valiant has launched a website to gather information about who funded campaigns for charters and vouchers and against teachers, unions and public education.

If you have links to newspaper articles or other reliable sources, please post them to this website.

I hope that a law firm or investigative journalist will find out where Rhee collected money and which races she supported. She certainly influenced the legislature in Tennessee, where she helped Republucans gain a super-majority, enabling her ex-husband TFA State Commissioner Kevin Huffman to impose the full rightwing reform agenda.

http://dumpduncan.org/forum/discussion/42/registry-of-attempts-to-buy-education-elections-by-prizatizers.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, California, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana, Klein, Joel, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Luna, Tom, Merit pay, Privatization, US Education, Walton Foundation
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