Archives for category: Charter Schools
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

For-Profit Colleges, Under Investigation, May Collect $1 Billion in Federal Bailout Money

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2020 //
13

The $2 trillion appropriated by Congress as coronavirus relief funds will benefit for-profit colleges with poor records, according to Marketwatch. They are likely to collect $1 billion. DeVos has been an investor in for-profit colleges, so don’t expect her to care. Democratic Senators have complained to DeVos but got no response this far.,

Dozens of for-profit colleges that are among those most likely to benefit from stimulus funding face thousands of claims from students demanding their money back because they say they were defrauded, according to analysis prepared for MarketWatch.

Some of the schools eligible for bailout funds also face federal scrutiny for mismanaged funds, while others have been dubbed “failed” under a federal standard requiring them to provide an education adequate for repaying loans, the analysis shows. Some schools eligible for bailout funds have settled lawsuits with the U.S. Justice Department following allegations of fraud and misuse of federal student aid…

The analysis found that of the top estimated 100 for-profit schools eligible for coronavirus crisis subsidies, 79 had students who demanded their loans be forgiven under a federal program meant to provide relief to students who alleged they had been defrauded. From these top 100 for-profit schools, 12,000 students had filed federal complaints alleging they were victims of fraud. Twenty-three of the top 100 for-profit schools most likely to receive funding were previously characterized by federal regulators as “failed” under a requirement that students go on to find jobs good enough to repay loans. DeVos last year rescinded the requirement that schools meet this standard as a condition for benefiting from federal subsidies.

Twelve of the top 100 for-profit schools eligible for stimulus funds also faced some form of legal action as of 2017 for alleged fraud involving recruitment and misuse of federal student aid programs, according to the analysis. Thirteen, meanwhile, were under “heightened cash monitoring,” an extra level of scrutiny under U.S. Department of Education rules meant to serve as a caution to students that can indicate problems with finances or accreditation.

“Colleges like these with a predatory history and thousands of prior students who are still awaiting compensation for deceptive practices should not be getting a federal bailout,” said Bob Shireman, deputy undersecretary of education under President Obama who now oversees higher education programs at The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank.

As the rushed effort to dispense $2 trillion in stimulus funds unfolds, experts are questioning how the government more broadly will guard against fraud, waste and abuse, and whether the public can trust whether tax dollars will be used to achieve the program’s goals.

Expect waste, fraud, and abuse, and a big payday for some of the worst actors in higher education, as well as a payday for the charter industry, which lobbied to be included in the fund for struggling small businesses, although they have not lost a dime.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Outrage: Charters Pursue Federal Small Business Funds

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2020 //
7

Are charters public schools or are they businesses? The charter lobby wants a slice of the $2 trillion intended to save small businesses even though the charters have suffered no loss of funding during the pandemic.

Many businesses are nearly bankrupt. This money was meant for them, not charters and their lobbyists.

Please sign this petition to Congress.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Funding

John Thompson: Beware the Virtual Charter Scam!

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2020 //
22

John Thompson writes here about yet another virtual charter scam, this one in Oklahoma.

He writes:

After years of failing to regulate charters, especially online and for-profit charters, Oklahoma is just one state that illustrates how hard it is to catch up and hold virtual schools accountable for either education outcomes or financial transactions.

In July 2019, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation search warrant, “[Epic’s co-founders] enticed ghost students to enroll in Epic by offering each student an annual learning fund ranging from $800 to $1,000.” This was despite the fact that Epic knew that the parents of many homeschool students “enrolled their children . . . to receive the $800 learning fund without any intent to receive instruction.”

Epic’s recruitment of “ghost students,” who were technically enrolled but received minimal instruction from teachers, allowed the company to legally divert state funds for their own personal use, while simultaneously hiding low graduation rates to attract more support.

This year, Epic has received over $100 million in taxpayer money. And the company, in an exposé by the Tulsa World, admitted that over the years its “Learning Fund”—which is shielded from public scrutiny—received $50.6 million from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Tulsa World estimates the Learning Fund could cost the state about $28 million for 2019-2020. Moreover, the private management company Epic Youth Services receives a “10 percent cut” of the charter’s student funding. Also, state appropriations pay for the millions that Epic spends on advertising and generous contributions to elected officials.

If nothing else, Epic is helping to nail down the case that charters are a tool for privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Oklahoma, On-Line Education, Virtual Charter Schools

Tom Ultican: Two Books You Will Enjoy Reading

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2020 //
3

In this post, Tom Ultican reviews two recent books.

One is Mercedes Schneider’s guide to sleuthing through online records and following the money. It is called A Practical Guide to Digital Research: Getting the Facts and Rejecting the Lies.

Schneider is an expert at “following the money,” and she reveals the secrets of her craft in this book. The book grew out of a presentation that Schneider gave at an NPE conference in Indianapolis in collaboration with Darcie Cimarusti and Andrea Gabor. As Tom Ultican explains, the purpose of the session was to teach a seminar in doing the kind of research that these three have mastered. When Mercedes was asked to summarize her presentation, she realized that it would require a book to do it, and this is that book.

So if you want to dig up the tax records of a pseudo-reform organization, here is the place to start.

The other book that Tom reviews is one that I co-write with veteran educator Nancy E. Bailey. Regular readers of this blog know Bailey as a blogger whose views are grounded in long experience and knowledge. She and I discovered that we both had a fascination with the language now used to misrepresent teaching, schools, and education. And from our online conversations came this book called EdSpeak and Doubletalk: A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling.

The book is a glossary with a pro-public education attitude. It aims to identify and describe the lingo of corporate education reform and to decipher the many faux groups that are funded by billionaires to advance privatization. Of course, we think it is an invaluable tool for parents and educators who want to stop the billionaires before they get a foothold. It will help you find your way through the vacant and deceptive vocabulary used by faux reformers to grab your public schools.

As Tom points out, the book has another advantage:

Thanks to the authors and the facilities at Teachers College, this is a living book. At the book’s cyber address, there is a link to a 58 page downloadable supplement as well as an updates tab.

In other words, as new organizations, new flimflam, and new jargon emerges, it will be added to the book online and available to arm you with knowledge.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Carol Burris: Charter Schools Ask for Federal Money Though They Suffered No Loss

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2020 //
22

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, expresses outrage because the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has asked for federal rescue money for charter schools, although they have suffered no losses.

She writes:


Shame on the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools!

I have great sympathy for small businesses that are devastated by COVID-19. And I am glad that the Small Business Administration is giving those businesses low-interest loans to cushion the blow. It is shocking, therefore, that the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools is actively encouraging its members to take advantage of those taxpayer funds intended for small businesses, although their income has not been interrupted at all.

Read below what the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools included in its weekly newsletter:

“SBA Emergency Loans Now Available to Charter Schools

“The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) now has authority to offer emergency loans to both small businesses and nonprofits under its Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program in eligible areas. While SBA authorities are focused on small businesses, we worked with federal lawmakers to ensure that the loan funding for this crisis is offered to charter schools and other nonprofits to borrow up to $2 million for up to 30 years at 2.75 percent for nonprofits. These loans are designed to help businesses and nonprofits meet financial obligations and operating expenses that would not be of concern if the COVID disaster had not occurred.”

By the way, some of these loans will not need to be repaid.

Are charter schools following Executive Director Nina Rees’s (former employee of Dick Cheney) advice?

Yes, they are.

Read this story that just appeared in the Washington Post.

According to reporter Perry Stein, even though D.C. charter schools, like public schools, get most of their funding from the government, they can apply for funds under the CARES Act. Yet, public schools cannot.

”Charters claim they need the money because they have to give out laptops to their students. So do public schools. Charters claim they may lose donations. It is doubtful that the billionaires who give them money will stop. When crises occur, billionaires do just fine.

”Once again, the charter sector, through the lobbying efforts of Nina Rees of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, worked behind the scenes to gain fiscal advantage for the privately operated schools they claim are public schools.

”This time Rees did it during a crisis of enormous proportions–one that is devasting the small business community for which so many charter and public school parents work.”

Will the National Alliance, which is flush with cash, also apply for these funds? We will do our best to find out. Although our donations have decreased, the Network for Public Education will not apply for these funds. In fact, we are actively asking our members to donate to organizations that are providing crisis relief.

Charters claim to be public schools–except when being a “business” is to their advantage.

Charters claim to be “public schools” when that’s where the money is. But when the money is available for small businesses, they claim to be small businesses. Public schools aren’t eligible for the federal money. But charter schools are.

Public schools are not small businesses. Charters just defined themselves: Not public schools. Small businesses.

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

Gene Glass: New Study Finds That Charter Schools Receive More Funding Than Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2020 //
9

Gene V. Glass is one of the nation’s most eminent researchers and statisticians of education. He is a professor emeritus at Arizona State University.

He writes:

Education Policy Analysis Archives is an open access (free to read) peer-reviewed journal now in its 28th year of continuous publication.

EPAA just published an article by David S. Knight (Univ. Washington) and Laurence A. Toenjes (Univ Houston) entitled “Do Charter Schools Receive Their Fair Share of Funding? School Finance Equity for Charter and Traditional Public Schools.”

The charter school industry constantly complains that states underfund them. They lobby legislatures asking for funding equal to the per pupil expenditure of the traditional public schools. No matter that they offer fewer services than their public school counterparts, or that they rake off far higher funds for administration than public schools. (I make no apologies for ignoring the legality that charter schools are also public schools, because so many of them attempt to operate like private schools by discouraging applications for some types of student and by projecting the image that they are private schools.)

Knight and Toenjes’s conclusion will not be welcomed by the charter industry: “Using detailed school finance data from Texas as a case study, we find that after accounting for differences in accounting structures and cost factors, charter schools receive significantly more state and local funding compared to traditional public schools with similar structural characteristics and student demographics. … Policy simulations demonstrate that on average, each student who transfers to a charter school increases the cost to the state by $1,500.”

The complete article can be downloaded at https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/4438

Gene V Glass
http://gvglass.info

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

Jan Resseger is Smarter Than Me: This Post Proves It

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2020 //
62

I wrote a post yesterday and planned to post it at this hour. It was a brief recapitulation of an opinion piece that Kevin Huffman wrote yesterday in the Washington Post, in which he boldly stated that the current reliance on distance learning would hurt students and set back their learning.

Kevin Huffman is one of the leaders of the corporate reform movement. He worked for Teach for America, was married to Michelle Rhee, served as Commissioner of Education in Tennessee, where he pushed charters and vouchers and standardized testing. But when he tried to lose the state’s lowest performing school, the Tennessee Virtual Academy, he ran into a blank wall. It couldn’t be done. The TVA had friends in the legislature and it was impossible to close it down.

So in this article, he warned that the necessary emphasis on distance learning would not end well. In the post I planned to publish (but didn’t), I noted that he plugged the “no-excuses” Achievement First charter chain and Jeb Bush’s accountability-obsessed Chiefs for Change. I was not planning to mention that the “expert” he quotes is Hoover economist Erik Hanushek, who has a devout belief in testing and VAM and has predicted that increasing test scores would add trillions to the nation’s GNP. He has promoted the theory that teachers who can’t get their students’ scores up should be fired. Clean the ranks every year and—voila!—test scores will rise.

But unlike gullible me, Jan Resseger understood that Huffman’s article was a coded propaganda piece for the corporate reformers’ favorite organizations and remedies. Not only did he plug Achievement First and Chiefs for Change, he also cited the billionaire-funded City Fund, where he works. He did not note that it was created to subvert local school board elections by pumping money into the campaigns of charter-friendly candidates.

Resseger writes:

Kevin Huffman begins his recent Washington Post column with a warning about problems he expects to result from the widespread, coronavirus-driven school closures: “As the coronavirus pandemic closes schools, in some cases until September, American children this month met their new English, math, science and homeroom teachers: their iPads and their parents. Classes are going online, if they exist at all. The United States is embarking on a massive, months-long virtual-pedagogy experiment, and it is not likely to end well.”

This is pretty harsh. While in many places teachers are going to enormous lengths to create interesting projects to challenge children and keep them engaged, virtual schooling is a challenge. Online efforts school districts are undertaking to meet children’s needs during this long break are likely to be uneven. Huffman describes Stanford University research on the problems with virtual schooling, problems that are being exacerbated today by inequitable access to technology.

But what Kevin Huffman neglects to tell readers is that his purpose is not entirely to analyze his subject—the ongoing shutdown of schools. At the same time as he discusses the widespread school closure, he also manages to share the agenda of his current employer, The City Fund, a relatively new national group that finances the election campaigns of of charter school advocates running for seats on local school boards, supports the rapid expansion of charter schools, and promotes portfolio school reform. And when the Washington Post tells readers that Huffman, “a former education commissioner of Tennessee, is a partner at the City Fund, a national education nonprofit,” the Post neglects to explain The City Fund’s agenda.

Worse, Huffman proposes that schools should administer standardized tests to students when they return to school in September! Good grief, the results are not available for months. Of what value are such tests? I suppose we can now expect the testing corporations to begin losing for tests on the first day of school.

Resseger read the subtext: students, teachers, and schools can’t possibly survive without standardized testing. Be grateful for the charter chains who offer to help struggling school districts, which do not have the charters’ freedom to push out the kids they don’t want and do not have billionaire money to keep them afloat.

I read Huffman’s article and appreciated that he was wary of distance learning and unprepared parents struggling to teach their children.

Jan Resseger read it and exposed the hidden agenda: praising the billionaire agenda of charters and high-stakes testing. She correctly notes that this agenda failed when Huffman was Commissioner of Education in Tennessee. Some people learn from failure. Some don’t.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Online Learning, Privatization, Technology, Tennessee, Testing

Tom Ultican: Billionaire Philanthropists Accelerate Attacks on Public Schools During Pandemic

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2020 //
79

Thomas Ultican has analyzed the billionaire funders behind the pro-Disruption, anti-democracy website “Education Post.”

The major funders are the usual members of the Billionaire Boys and Girls Club: Bloomberg, Waltons, Chan Zuckerberg, and Mrs. Jobs.

Please open and read his post.

If you thought the Disrupters might have softened their tone during the pandemic, like, as a show of decency, you will be disappointed. They are still attacking, vilifying, and mocking anyone daring to defend public education, which is a cornerstone of our democracy. It must really upset them that after all these years and billions spent on privatization, only 6% of American students enroll in charter schools.

For some reason, I am one of their prime targets. I suppose I should take it as a compliment.

I will never answer in kind.

They are swimming in cash, but what they cannot buy is civility, kindness, compassion, or dignity.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Washington State: Gov. Inslee Signs Bill Aiding Gates’ Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2020 //
23

Washington State has experienced a long history of turmoil over charter schools.

It has held four state referenda over whether they should be allowed in the state. They are opposed by school boards, teachers’ unions, PTAs, and civil rights groups.

Bill Gates and his billionaire clique really wanted the state to have charter schools. So in 2012, they amassed a war chest and outspent the parents, teacher’s, and civil rights groups by a ratio of 17-1. The referendum passed by 1%.

Then the state’s highest court declared that charter schools are not public schools and can’t draw from the public school fund, because they don’t have elected school boards.

Next step, Gates and his friends spend big money to defeat the state court judges that opposed charter schools, but the justices won anyway.

So Gates’ surrogates go to the legislature and seek to get lottery money to support the charters that Bill wants so badly. Eager to please one of the state’s richest people (Bezos is the richest), the legislature dedicates the lottery to Bill’s charters.

After a few years, Gates commissions a CREDO evaluation of his charters, and CREDO says they don’t get different results than the state’s public schools.

Meanwhile, some of the charters close because of low enrollment.

But undaunted, Bill Gates presses forward.

Last week, Governor Jay Inslee signed bipartisan legislation to make sure that the Washington State Charter School Association could hire an e ecutive director and other staff.

Questions: since the charter schools serve no public purpose, why should the state pay for the employees of their lobby? Since the charters don’t get better results than public schools, why are they needed? Since the whole charter sector is tiny and ineffective, why doesn’t Gates pay for it himself?

Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Wednesday that Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, sponsored to enhance administration capabilities at state charter schools.

House Bill 2853 will allow the Washington State Charter School Commission to hire an executive director and other employees.

The House and Senate approved the bill by large bipartisan majorities.

Harris did not attend Wednesday’s bill signing due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, but he put out a statement applauding the action.

“I’m very happy for our charter schools,” he said. “I believe every school in Washington, whether it’s public, private or chartered, deserves the opportunity to be successful. When our schools are successful, our kids are successful.”

Makes sense. The public must fund the charter lobbyists so that charter schools get more money. Don’t expect Gates to pay for his hobby, even though his net worth is more than $100 billion.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Washington State

Jeff Bryant: The Pandemic May Blunt the Drive for High-Stakes Testing and Privatization

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2020 //
27

In this recent article, Jeff Bryant examines Florida’s shameful response to the pandemic. As usual, legislators and Governor DeSanris took advantage of the crisis to add another voucher program, which will drain another $200 million from public schools to support for woefully inadequate voucher schools.

He writes:


“The COVID-19 crisis reveals the true intentions of people,” Kathleen Oropeza told me during a phone call. Oropeza is a public school mom in Orlando and founder of Fund Education Now, a non-partisan grassroots effort to advocate for public education in Florida.

Her remark was in the context of concerns about how state officials were governing schools as the coronavirus was spreading across the state and generating fears of how the disease would affect schools and families.

Days after the first victims tested positive in the state and the first deaths were reported, Florida lawmakers in the House seemed oblivious to the impending crisis and instead passed new legislation to expand the state’s voucher program, thus diverting an additional $200 million from the state’s public schools.

The bill passed despite evidence that many of the private schools that would receive the voucher money openly discriminate against LGBTQ children and families, are not required to hire certified teachers, and generally provide a subpar education.

But there is a bright side to the current crisis:

The rash of canceled tests across the country caused some knowledgeable observers to speculate on Twitter that the testing industry would not be able to withstand the financial difficulties of a nationwide cancelation. But what is also in danger is the whole policy imperative of the market-based education agenda.

Much in the same way that widespread teacher walkouts and the Red for Ed movement over the past two years revealed the overwhelming need for government officials to increase funding and support for frontline teachers, the mounting fallout of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing politicians and policymakers to acknowledge the importance of schools as vital community institutions that need resources and support rather than fiscal austerity, privatization, and punitive accountability—the pillars of the market-based education movement.

Even amidst the avalanche of reported school closings, advocates of the market-based approach were lamenting the failure of their decades-long efforts.

“Neither standards and accountability nor charter schools have lived up to their promoters’ lofty aspirations. And there is much public unhappiness with school reform,” wrote Kevin Carey in an analysis for the Washington Post. Carey, a policy analyst for a Washington, D.C., think tank that favored the education reform agenda, worked for years in policy shops that pushed market-based agendas.

Carey noted a rising political opposition to market-based education advocates from the right and the left, including Tea Party Republicans who object to Common Core Standards and federal overreach in local decision-making and among progressive Democrats who are angered by the unfairness and inequities caused by market-based solutions.

But while he asserted that “School reform began with the civil rights movement,” he completely ignored the econometric principles that ended up driving privatization policies rather than the moral values of human rights and justice that powered the civil rights movement. Market-based education advocates have long obsessed over rigid standards, outcome measures, and competition from charter schools rather than providing schools and students with what they really needed, especially in communities that rely heavily on schools as anchor institutions.

Will elected officials and think tank analysts recognize the failure of standards, testing,
accountability, competition, and market-based policies to close achievement gaps, to reduce poverty, to lift up the neediest students, and to achieve any of their alleged goals?

Please: would the “reformers” acknowledge the failure of their prescriptions and stop claiming, without a shred of evidence, that annual standardized testing is a “civil right,” when it is actually stigmatizing children who are repeatedly labeled as “failures” by the testing indistry?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Standardized Testing, Testing, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »