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Peter Greene: Conservatives Think States Can Support Both Public Schools and “Choice.” They Can’t.

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2024 //
21

Peter Greene critiques the conservative idea that states should support public schools and all sorts of choice. Greene explains why this idea erodes the quality of public schools, which enroll the vast majority of the nation’s students. Conservatives blame teachers’ unions for whatever they dont like about pibkic schools, but Greene denonstrates that they are wrong. Open the link to read the full article.

He writes:

In the National Review, Michael Petrilli, Thomas Fordham Institute honcho and long-time reformster, poses the argument that folks on the right don’t need to choose “between expanding parental options and improving traditional public schools.” Instead, he asserts, they “can and should do both.”

On the one hand, it’s a welcome argument these days when the culture panic crowd has settled on a scorched earth option for public schools. As Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president, put it in his now-delayed-until-after-it-can’t-hurt-Trump-election-prospects book, “We don’t merely seek an exit from the system; we are coming for the curriculums and classrooms of the remaining public schools, too.” For many on the right, the education policy goal is to obliterate public schools and/or force them to closely resemble the private christianist schools that culture panickers favor. 

Pertrilli is sympathetic to the “let’s just give parents the money and be done with it” crowd. 

We’ve inherited a “system” that is 150 years old and is saddled with layers upon layers of previous reforms, regulations, overlapping and calcified bureaucracies, and a massive power imbalance between employees and constituents, thanks to the almighty teachers unions.

Sigh. Reforms and regulations, sure, though it would be nice for Petrilli to acknowledge that for the last forty-ish years, those have mostly come from his own reformster crowd. And I am deeply tired of the old “almighty teachers unions” trope, which is some serious baloney. But his audience thinks it’s true, so let’s move on. 

Petrilli’s point is that conservatives should not be focusing on “school choice” alone, but should embrace an “all of the above” approach. Petrilli dismisses Democrats as “none of the above” because of their “fealty to the unions,” which is, again, baloney. Democrats have spent a couple of decades as willing collaborators with the GOP ; if they are “none of the above” it’s because they’ve lost both the ability and authority to pretend to be public education supporters. The nomination of Tim Walz has given them a chance to get on the public education team, but let’s wait and see–there’s no ball that the Democratic Party can’t drop.

Petrilli sits on a practical point here (one that Robert Pondiscio has made repeatedly over the years)– public schools are a) beloved by many voters, b) not going away, and c) still educate the vast, vast majority of U.S. students. Therefore, folks should care about the quality of public education.

Petrilli then floats some ideas, all while missing the major obstacle to his idea. There are, he claims, many reforms that haven’t been tried yet, “including in red states where the teachers unions don’t have veto power.” I believe the actual number of states where the union doesn’t have veto power is fifty. But I do appreciate his backhanded acknowledgement that many states have dis-empowered their teachers unions and still haven’t accomplished diddly or squat. It’s almost as if the unions are not the real obstacle to progress.

His ideas? Well, there’s ending teacher tenure, a dog that will neither hunt nor lie down and die. First of all, there is no teacher tenure. What there is is policy that requires school districts to follow a procedure to get rid of bad teachers. Behind every teacher who shouldn’t still have a job is an administrator who isn’t doing theirs. 

Tenure and LIFO (Last In First Out) interfere with the reformster model of Genius CEO school management, in which the Genius CEO should be able to fire anyone he wants to for any reason he conceives of, including having become too expensive or so experienced they start getting uppity. 

The theory behind much of education reform has been that all educational shortfalls have been caused by Bad Teachers, and so the focus has been on catching them (with value-added processing of Big Standardized Test scores), firing them, and replacing them with super-duper teachers from the magical super-duper teacher tree. Meanwhile, other teachers would find this new threatening environment inspirational, and they would suddenly unleash the secrets of student achievement that they always had tucked away in their file cabinet, but simply hadn’t implemented.

This is a bad model, a non-sensical model, a model that has had a few decades to prove itself, and has not. Nor has Petrilli’s other idea– merit pay has been tried, and there are few signs that it even sort of works, particularly since schools can’t do a true merit pay system and also it’s often meant as a cost-saving technique (Let’s lower base pay and let teachers battle each other to win “merit” bonuses that will make up the difference).

Petrilli also argues against increased pay for teacher masters degrees because those degrees “add no value in terms of quality of teaching and learning” aka they don’t make BS Test scores go up. He suggests moving that extra money to create incentives for teachers to move to the toughest schools. 

Petrilli gets well into weeds in his big finish, in which he cites the “wisdom of former Florida governor Jeb Bush” and the golden state of Florida as if it’s a model for all-of-the-above reform and not a state that has steadily degraded and undercut public schools in order to boost charter and private operations, with results that only look great if you squint hard and ignore certain parts(Look at 4th grade scores, but be sure to ignore 8th and 12th grade results). And if you believe that test results are the only true measure of educational excellence.

So, in sum, Petrilli’s notion that GOP state leaders should support public education is a good point. What is working against it?

One is that his list is lacking. Part of the reform movement’s trouble at this point is that many of its original ideas were aimed primarily at discrediting public education. The remaining core– use standardized tests to identify and remove bad teachers– is weak sauce. Even if you believe (wrongly) that the core problem of public education is bad teaching, this is no way to address that issue. 

Beyond bad teachers, the modern reform movement hasn’t had a new idea to offer for a couple of decades. 

Petrilli also overlooks a major challenge in the “all of the above approach,” a challenge that reformsters and choicers have steadfastly ignored for decades.

You cannot run multiple parallel school systems for the same cost as a single system. 

If you want to pay for public schools and charter schools and vouchers, it is going to cost more money. “School choice” is a misnomer, because school choice has always been available. Choicers are not arguing for school choice–they’re arguing for taxpayer funded school choice. That will require more taxpayer funds. 

You can’t have six school systems for the price of one. So legislators have been left with a choice. On the one hand, they can tell taxpayers “We think school choice is so important that we are going to raise your taxes to pay for it.” On the other hand, they can drain money from the public system to pay for charters and vouchers all while making noises about how the public system is totes overfunded and can spare the money easy peasy. 

I can offer a suggestion for conservatives who want to help public schools improve.

Get over your anti-union selves.

Please open the link to finish the article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, School Choice, Segregation, Unions, Vouchers

Milwaukee: Three Decades of Charters and Vouchers Produced No Gains for Kids

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2024 //
7

A major, nonpartisan review of Milwaukee schools over the past three decades produced a dismal result: No improvement.

Backed by millions from the rightwing Bradley Foundation, voucher advocates promised that competition would produce gains for all sectors. It didn’t.

Milwaukee has a significant number of charter schools and voucher schools. About 55% of all students are enrolled in traditional public schools. The public schools enroll a disproportionate share of students with disabilities.

Rory Linnane of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:

Three decades since their beginnings in Milwaukee, publicly funded private school programs and independently run charter schools now enroll over 40% of the city’s students.

Reflecting on the city’s shifting education landscape, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum examines enrollment, financing and academic outcomes for Milwaukee schools in every sector, including traditional public schools, private schools and charter schools…

‘Transformed system has not transformed outcomes for children,’ researchers say

Milwaukee in the ’90s was “widely seen as the epicenter of ‘education reform’ in the country,” the forum noted, as state lawmakers opened the door for private operators to start their own schools. Proponents argued that the free-market competition would push all city schools to improve.

In 1990, state lawmakers created the country’s first “voucher” program in Milwaukee, providing public funding for students to attend private schools. Soon after, Minnesota lawmakers were the first to write legislation for charter schools, allowing teacher-led nonprofits to operate schools. Wisconsin was one of the first states to follow in 1993, but without the requirement that teachers lead them.

Thirty years later, the forum noted there is “little evidence … that the average Milwaukee child receives a higher quality education today.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Failure, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

New Hampshire: Voucher Program Aims to Destroy Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2024 //
12

Veteran journalist Garry Rayno wrote a passionate editorial about the destructive voucher program in New Hampshire, promoted by out-of-state billionaires. Ninety percent of the students in the state attend public schools, but Republicans have diverted taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools. Their goal is a universal voucher program, where every student in the state is eligible for a voucher, with no income limits.

Rayno wrote at InDepthNH.org:

America’s traditional institutions, the foundation for the greatest political experiment in history, are under attack from the social safety net to food regulations, and from the court system to environmental protection.

The drive to create doubt and even rejection of these long-standing pillars of our society is to eventually destroy the underpinnings of government to create a new order where the rich will flourish even more with all the advantages, while everyone else will fight over the crumbs of the plutocrats.

The current large target in this fight to turn democracy into an oligarchy is the public school system.

The first blow to the public school system in New Hampshire was the push for charter schools, which are still public schools but without the regulations and requirements traditional public schools must meet.

Charter schools have had to ask the state for more and more per pupil money to stay afloat, about double the per pupil adequacy grant amount for traditional schools.

The charter schools that found a niche have been successful, but many have fallen by the wayside over the years even with federal grant money approved during the Trump administration for start-ups and expansions.

And until recently, they have not strayed into the Christian Nationalist area that has been widely promoted by Hinsdale College in Michigan and adopted by some states.

Then came the voucher push sold as a way of helping low-income families find a more suitable education environment for students who do not do well in the public-school setting.

After several unsuccessful attempts, proponents, who include Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and State School Board Chairman Drew Cline, lawmakers successfully approved the Education Freedom Account program as a rider to the 2022-2023 biennial operating budget after it failed to pass the House and was retained.

Since then attempts to expand the eligibility of parents by raising the income cap passed two sessions ago, but failed in the recently completed session.

Instead of helping the low-income families with educational options the program has largely been a subsidy program for parents with children who were already in religious or private schools and homeschooling. 

Only about 10 to 15 percent of the increasingly expensive draw on the Education Trust Fund have left public schools for alternative education programs.

What proponents ultimately seek is a “universal program” which would be open to any New Hampshire student regardless of his or her parents’ income, although a similar program has nearly bankrupted Arizona and put public education at risk in Ohio, where it is being litigated.

New Hampshire is not alone in the push to do away with public education as we know it.

A letter from many national figures seeking to privatize education like Betsy DeVos and Edward Bennett; the CEOs of organizations pushing for privatization; former federal and state governors; sitting governors from almost all southern states; two state education commissioners including Edelblut, and state elected officials most from Republican controlled states was sent to Republican Congressional leaders saying, “The task before the next Congress is clear and unambiguous: bring education freedom to millions of students across America who desperately need it!”

The letter also touts the GOP’s platform approved at its recent national convention “to cultivate great K-12 schools, ensure safe learning environments free from political meddling, and restore Parental Rights. We commit to an Education System that empowers students, supports families, and promotes American Values… Republicans believe families should be empowered to choose the best Education for their children. We support Universal School Choice in every State in America.”

The political meddling the platform contends is that “Lessons about American values have been displaced by political or cultural trends of the day,” without noting several states have recently required the Bible be taught in public schools. 

Children whose faith is Muslim or Buddhism or are Native Americans may believe those state’s Biblical requirement is political meddling.

What the proponents of universal vouchers seek is to have Congress do what some state legislators, including Texas, have failed to do and that is approve universal private or religious education on the public’s dime.

This push to do away with public education has attempted to tarnish what has always been the great equalizer, by saying schools are failing, teachers are indoctrinating students and withholding information from parents. 

You would think public schools are a far-reaching conspiracy to destroy family values, while ignoring the fact that 90 percent of students are in public schools and many are very successful.

New Hampshire public schools ranked sixth in the nation this year, down from the number two spots five years ago.

The number ranking was before the push to privatize education became successful with the help of Gov. Chris Sununu who put both Edelblut and Cline where they are, in charge of the public education system in the state, although both seek to diminish its reach.

Edelblut focuses on the learning disparity between well to do school districts and the poorly performing ones that lack the property values to support schools in the same way property wealthy communities do as the reason to seek alternatives.

Yet when the state education funding system is raised as a possible culprit for the disparity, Edelblut is quick to dismiss that as a different issue when it isn’t.

One of the major concerns about the Education Freedom Program, the Business Tax Scholarship Program and charter schools, is the lack of accountability.

How do taxpayers know their money is being used wisely if there is no way to determine those students are receiving “an adequate education,” as the state Supreme Court ruled?
Attempts to bring more accountability have failed in the Republican controlled legislature.

At the same time, Cline this week in his column “The Broadside” touts the state as doing pretty well for educational entrepreneurs according to a recent ranking.

“There’s more that can be done to make New Hampshire a freer state for education entrepreneurs looking to start small, decentralized, and unconventional educational environments, but so far the state is doing better than most,” according to Cline.

He cites the Education Entrepreneur Freedom Index released by the yes.every kid.foundation for the ranking.

It shouldn’t be surprising that according to Wikipedia,  “Yes. every kid. (YEK) is a 501(c)(4) advocacy group that is a part of the Koch Network. Launched by the Charles Koch-funded Stand Together in June of 2019, YEK supports the privatization of education. The organization is a proponent of the school choice movement, advocating for subsidized private school vouchers and charter schools.”
The Koch Foundation has long advocated for ending public education and installing a private education system where you pay for what you get. Not exactly the great equalizer.

Cline argues New Hampshire should be looking to encourage more private education.

“States with more relaxed homeschool and nonpublic school laws/regulations score higher, as entrepreneurs have an easier time getting started in these states,” he notes.

Cline and the Koch organization suggest relaxing state requirements for non-public schools and also zoning regulations to make it easier to locate educational facilities including child care businesses by allowing education in all zoning districts in a municipality.

“Though New Hampshire lost a point for rules requiring state approval for non-public schools, the state could become much more friendly to education entrepreneurs, the study’s authors conclude, primarily by relaxing some child-care rules and local regulations,” Cline writes.

Supporters of Education Freedom Accounts are fond of saying the best accountability is if parents are satisfied with the education their children receive, which you would hope is the case or why would you leave your child in an unsatisfactory educational environment?

But that is not what the state Supreme Court said in its Claremont I decision. It said the state has a responsibility to provide an adequate education to every student in the state and to pay for it. Parents have choices but the state defines an adequate education.

The state legislature has yet to live up to its responsibility and allowing a bypass through religious and private schools and homeschooling is not constitutionally fair to those children.

If you believe public education is failing in this state, you should begin looking at the top: the governor, the commissioner and to the state board of education chair.

Their priority is not public education.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Inequity, New Hampshire, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state

Public Education Advocates Urge Kamala Harris to Select a VP Who Opposes Privatization

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2024 //
26

The following letter was sent to Vice President Kamala Harris by advocates for public schools from across the nation. They pointed out that public schools, attended by 50 million students, are being harmed by privatization programs, which force public schools to cut budgets, lay off teachers, and eliminate courses and activities. Voucher schools are allowed to discriminate against. Students they don’t want: students with disabilities, students with low test scores, LGBT, and students of a different religion. For the past decade, research concurs that vouchers actually harm poor kids, who lose academic ground. Most vouchers are amused by students who already attend private and religious schools.

They urged VP Harris to reject Pennnsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro because of his support for vouchers. They urged her to support someone with a strong record of opposing privatization, like Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky or Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota

Please read.

Real Democrats support real public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Wacky Heritage Foundation Report Warns that Charter Schools Are “Woke”

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2024 //
16

A recent Heritage report warns that parents can’t trust charter schools because so many of them are just as “woke” as public schools. Some are even more woke than public schools.

The report, written by Jay Greene, Ian Kingsbury, and Jason Bedrick, asserts that the major philanthropic foundations supporting charter schools—the Walton Family Foundation and the Gates Foundation—are also woke. This is where it gets crazy. Walton is woke? The anti-union, rightwing Waltons?

The solution the authors prefer is a fully funded voucher system, where schools are not regulated by the state and do not need money from woke philanthropies like Walton or Gates. That way, parents who are racist, homophobic, and sexist can find a school that teaches their values.

They begin:

There is a loose set of political and social values that can succinctly be labeled as “woke.” These woke values tend to be characterized by a departure from traditional American and classical-liberal values of individual responsibility and equal treatment in favor of emphasizing differentiated treatment by group identity and social rather than individual justice. Of course, there is a constituency of parents who favor an education infused with these woke values—but they tend to be a distinct minority. As past research suggests, when parents have more control over the education of their own children, that education tends to be less woke.

Given that parental empowerment is associated with less woke education, one might expect that charter schools—which are chosen by parents rather than strictly assigned based on the location of a family’s home—are less woke than nearby public schools operated by school districts. But school choice could produce more woke options if those choices are highly regulated and controlled by distant regulators and philanthropists. School districts still retain a fair amount of responsiveness to the preferences of the communities they serve given their democratic governance.

Charter schools, on the other hand, might become less responsive to the preferences of local parents if they have to please state authorizers to be established and remain open and if they are overly dependent on national philanthropies to subsidize their operations. Those charter schools may have to adopt woke values to gain permission to open from the public authorities that grant them their charter and to receive funding, especially for capital expenses, from large donors with progressive values.

Parents may nevertheless choose woke charter schools, either because they are among the minority that hold those values or because safety and quality of instruction may induce parents to select a school that is otherwise at odds with their values. By contrast, policies that permit private school choice with vouchers or K–12 education savings accounts do not require permission from an authorizer for schools to open their doors and therefore are less likely to require capital funds from donors since they often already have school buildings. That means that private schools are typically more directly accountable to parents than charter schools and so are more likely to reflect the values of the families they serve.

It is an open question whether highly constrained and regulated types of school choice, like charter schools, are actually less responsive to parental preferences regarding values than are public district schools, which are also regulated and insulated from parental control by unions and the imperfections of democratic governance.

The purpose of this Backgrounder is to examine whether, on average, charter schools embrace a woke education more strongly than do nearby public schools operated by school districts. By analyzing key words in student handbooks as a proxy for wokeness, the authors find that charter schools actually tend to be more woke than traditional district schools. The authors consider how regulatory and donor capture of charter schools could be reduced so that this type of school choice could be more responsive to parental preferences regarding the values emphasized in the education of their own children.

They conclude:

School choice should empower parents to obtain an education for their own children that is consistent with their values. That is still occurring with private school choice, but with charter school choice it is falling short. Regulatory and financial constraints need to be removed from charter schools so they can better align with the values preferences of parents. In states and localities where charter schools have not been able to be more responsive to parents, private school choice is the better path for avoiding the woke capture of school choice.

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Privatization, School Choice, Walton Foundation

Lisa Haver: Pennsylvania Must Avoid the Voucher Scam

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2024 //
6

Lisa Haver is a former Philadelphia teacher. She is co-founder and coordinator of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. She warns about the absurdity of defunding the state’s public schools while expanding vouchers to subsidize students currently in private and religious schools. This article appeared in the Philadelphia Hall Monitor.

Lisa Haver writes:

Musician and entrepreneur Jay-Z last month joined the ranks of out-of-town billionaires lobbying to expand voucher programs in Pennsylvania. Representatives from his Roc Nation came to Philadelphia to push for passage of PASS (Pennsylvania Award for Student Success), legislation that would divert more tax dollars from the state’s education budget to private schools. Roc Nation representatives repeated claims by voucher supporters, including Governor Josh Shapiro and suburban billionaire Jeffrey Yass, that PASS would give the students an alternative to the city’s “failing schools.” Jay-Z’s spokespersons told reporters that after seeing students “struggling in the public education system, within the lowest performing schools, we wanted to do something to help the community.” 

Not being from around here, Jay-Z and his representatives, apparently, are not up on the history of underfunding and privatization in the city and the state and the many schemes over the years that have failed to deliver on promises for a better education and stronger communities.  They seemed unaware of how vehemently Philadelphians oppose the idea of diverting even more money from underfunded public schools to affluent private schools.

The proposed expanded voucher legislation allows for even less accountability than the state’s existing programs. Since their passage in 2001, the Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) have sent over $2 billion in taxpayer funds to private schools. Education Voters PA estimates that 78% of EITC and OSTC funds go to religious schools that do not have to be accredited or adhere to the same curriculum standards that public schools do. This means public money going to schools that teach creationism or that slavery wasn’t really that bad and to schools that can and do discriminate against LGBTQ students and those with special needs. School choice has always meant the schools’ choice. And a feature, not a bug, of EITC and OTSC is the absence of data. Ed Voters PA points out that Act 46, passed in 2005, “explicitly prohibits the state from collecting data about voucher programs or students” who participate in them. 

There is already conflicting information about how PASS would work, who would be eligible, and the size of the scholarships, which range from $2500 to $15,000 depending on grade and level of need. But even the maximum allowance wouldn’t cover the tuition of the exclusive private schools whose tuition ranges from $25,000 to almost $50,000. The reality is that most of the voucher money goes to families with students already in private schools, not to students transferring from public schools.  

Republican legislators and pro-school choice lobbyists maintain that distributing public funds to privately managed schools with a minimum of public oversight will help the city’s children get a better education. Where have we heard that before? 

In 1997, the state legislature passed the Pennsylvania Charter Law. Privatizing public schools, they assured us, would rescue the children trapped in failing public schools. The reality? Yearly assessments–using the framework formulated by charter operators themselves–show that Philadelphia charters rarely outperform district schools in academics. The district has spent millions in years-long legal proceedings to close substandard schools. Other charters have closed due to financial malfeasance of the schools administrators, or in the recent case of Math Science Civics, the whims of the charter CEO. The state charter law allows substandard charters to operate for years while they appeal non-renewal actions. 

Parents who had hoped to find better schools in charters are returning to their neighborhood schools, with over half of the city’s charters now under-enrolled. Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, which enabled the privatization of public schools, students have been subjected to learn-to-the-test scripted curricula, with test prep classes replacing interesting and challenging electives. Their schools have been branded as failures, and many of their neighborhoods have lost the schools that served as community anchors.

Does Jay-Z really believe that the children of Philadelphia will win in a “hunger games” approach to education? 

Last year, school districts in Pennsylvania won a significant victory when the Commonwealth Court ruled that the state must provide, as mandated in the state constitution,  a “thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” Jay-Z should join the parents, students, educators and community members urging the state legislature to pass a budget that will fund smaller class size, school libraries, and healthy school buildings–in every school in every Philadelphia neighborhood.  

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Failure, Funding, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Vouchers

Peter Greene on a Bill to Ban Federal Funding of For-Profit Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2024 //
6

Peter Greene wrote in Forbes about a bill just introduced in the House of Representatives to ban federal funding of for-profit charters. He explains how some ostensibly non-profit charters are actually managed by for-profits. Will Congress have the gumption to stop profiteering in charter world? Expect fierce opposition from the charter lobby. Bottom line: charter schools claim to be “public schools.” Public schools do not operate for profit.

He begins:

In almost every corner of the U.S., charter schools are non-profit. And yet, there are numerous ways to run a non-profit for profit.

In two reports (Chartered for Profit and Chartered for Profit II), the Network for Public Education showed numerous examples of the most common techniques. Some charters lease their buildings back from related businesses. In one New York case, a chartering organization leased a space from the diocese, then leased that space to its own charter school for over ten times the amount it was paying.

There are “sweeps” contracts, where a non-profit charter hires a for-profit management organization to handle everything, in return for nearly every dollar the charter takes in. As one EMO contract cited in the report states, it receives “as renumeration for its services an amount equal to the total revenue received” by the school “from all revenue sources.”

In many cases, a non-profit charter school simply serves as a pass through for money headed to a for-profit business.

Why be concerned? Because every dollar spent on students is a dollar that the company doesn’t get to keep. Every dollar that makes it into the classroom doesn’t make it into the company’s pocket. When profit-making businesses provide human services, there is a conflict of interest between the company and its customers.

Don’t public school districts use for-profit contractors? They do, particularly for big ticket items such as for preparation and bus service. But those contracts are overseen and approved by elected school board members who are responsible for looking after the interests of the students, not the vendors. Nor do public schools contract with vendors to conduct the main business of the school.

To address the issue of charter schools operated for a profit, United States Representative Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and Representative Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) this month introduced the Championing Honest and Responsible Transparency in Education Reform (CHARTER) Act. Said DeLauro,

The CHARTER Act would ensure that for-profit education management organizations can no longer jump through loopholes that have given them access to funding that has always been intended for nonprofit entities. Educating our children should be for their enrichment and future prosperity – not to maximize the profits of their owners and investors.

The bill adds to the definition of a charter school given in Section 4310 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In addition to the other qualifiers already in the federal definition of a charter school, the bill would add that a charter school

does not enter into a contract with a for-profit entity, or have a charter management organization or other nonprofit entity enter into such a contract on behalf of such school, under which the for-profit entity operates, oversees, manages, or otherwise carries out the administration of such school, which may include curriculum development, budget management, and faculty management (such as hiring, terminating, or supervising school-level staff);

The bill also specifies that a charter school may contract for food, payroll, facilities maintenance, transportation services, classroom supplies or other ancillary services.

The bill then goes on to require the amended definition be used for ESEA and IDEA, thereby blocking charters that don’t meet the amended definition from receiving any federal funds.

The issue of charters operated for profit has been addressed before, when the Biden administration tightened rules governing the Charter School Program grants handed out by the federal government. Those changes required charters to be more transparent about where the money was going, and the grantee had to offer assurances that a for-profit CMO “does not exercise full or substantial control” over the school.

If the CHARTER Act gains traction in Congress, it will continue this trend of seeking greater assurance that federal dollars sent to charter schools will find their way to the classroom, and not some for-profit company’s bank account.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Courage, Education Industry, For-Profit

Ohio: Charter Schools Ripping Off Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
2

Steve Dyer, former legislator and perennial budget hawk, tracks wasteful spending on charter schools in Ohio in this post. Ohio is throwing away billions on charters and vouchers, at the expense of its public schools, which typically outperform its privatized schools. A pro-charter analyst concluded that Ohio’s charter schools were among the worst in the nation.

Dyer writes on his blog Tenth Period:

It’s difficult to say that a $1.3 billion state program can go under the radar, but lately it seems that Ohio’s charter school industry has done just that, thanks in large part to the absolute explosion of taxpayer funded subsidies given to wealthy private school parents.

And while the state’s largest taxpayer ripoff ever — in excess of $200 million plus — happened as the result of the infamous ECOT scandal (the state is only going after about $100 million of the $200 million plus that I calculated because they just didn’t do the forensic audit of years prior to the couple prior to the school shutting down), the per pupil funding explosion in Ohio’s charter schools has been equally remarkable.

The amount of money the state sends, on average, to Ohio’s charter schools is now more than what 129 Ohio School Districts SPEND per equivalent pupil, including all locally raised property and/or income taxes. 

That’s right. 

Ohio now provides Ohio’s Charter Schools (all but 5 of which rated in the bottom 25% of all schools nationally) more money on average than 1 in 5 Ohio school districts spend per equivalent pupil, including all their local property tax money. 

I’ve included a list of all the school districts that spend less per equivalent pupil than Charter Schools receive on average in state aid.

That’s quite a list, don’t you think?

This explains how Ohio’s charter schools now get nearly $1.3 billion in state aid while having fewer students than they had in the 2013-2014 school year, I suppose. That year — the record for number of charter school students — had about $300 million less going to charters despite having about 1,000 more students than today.

This is why it’s critical to keep our eyes on all the privatization efforts, not just the shiniest one in front of us. 

It is. Inevitable.

Organize and vote accordingly.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in about 25 years of following, analyzing and writing Ohio education policy, it’s that there is nothing more certain than Ohio Republican elected officials taking tax dollars out of the hands of our 1.4 million public school students and instead stuffing the bank accounts of political contributing profiteers and wealthy private school parents. 

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Failure, For-Profit, Funding, Ohio, Politics, Privatization, Scandals

Kathy Gebhardt Wins State Board Race in Colorado, Despite Dark Money

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2024 //
3

Kathy Gebhardt was elected to the Colorado State Board of Education, despite nearly $1 million behind a charter school candidate. Kathy says she is not opposed to charters, but she did stop a Hillsdale College Barney charter school from opening in her district. Governor Jared Polis, a charter enthusiast, backed her opponent; Polis opened two charters himself, years ago. Kathy’s experience was far more extensive that that of her opponent. The voters paid attention. Kathy won. Her election assures that the charter lobby will not control the state board of education.

For the background, read Peter Greene’s summary of the race and Carol Burris’s endorsement of Kathy, whom she has worked with.

Carol Burris wrote:

No one is more qualified to serve. Kathy is an education attorney with expertise in school finance, a long-time school board member, and has served on both state and national school board organizations. All five of her children attended public schools.

The Denver Post reported:

Former Boulder school board president Kathy Gebhardt won the Democratic primary for a seat on the Colorado State Board of Education on Tuesday, despite a group supporting charter schools having spent nearly $1 million to oppose her campaign and back political newcomer Marisol Lynda Rodriguez.

The preliminary results for the 2nd Congressional District seat on the state education board almost certainly ensure Gebhardt will win the seat in November as there is no Republican candidate in the race. She will replace board member Angelika Schroeder, whose six-year term ends in January.

“It shows that money can’t buy an election,” said Gebhardt, adding that the results so far showed that “people were stepping up for public education.”

As of 10:15 p.m., Gebhardt led with 43,156 votes, or 56% of the total. Rodriguez had 33,911 votes, or 44%.

Rodriguez told The Denver Post that she called Gebhardt to concede shortly before 9 p.m.

Categories Charter Schools, Colorado, Dark Money, Education Industry, Elections

Breaking News! Oklahoma Supreme Court Rejects Religious Charter School!

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2024 //
25

Good news! The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against public funding for a religious charter school. Many were watching closely to see how the court ruled. A decision that went the other way would have rebuffed the tradition of separation of church and state and erased the distinction between charters and vouchers. The fact that Oklahoma’s ultra-conservative Governor Kevin Stitt and its State Commissioner of Education Ryan Walters strongly supported the religious charter school idea makes the decision even more startling.

CNN reports:

An effort to establish the first publicly funded religious charter school in the country has been blocked by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

The court Tuesday ordered the state to rescind its contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in a 6-2 decision with one recusal.

“Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school,” wrote Justice James R. Winchester for the court. “As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian. However, St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic faith as part of its school curriculum while sponsored by the State.”

A charter contract for St. Isidore was approved by a state board last year.

Charter schools in Oklahoma are privately owned but receive state funding under the same guidelines as government-operated public schools.

The fight over the school exposed a fault line between two of the state’s top Republican politicians. Gov. Kevin Stitt strongly advocated for the school, saying when the contract was approved that it was “a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our state.”

But the school’s charter status was strongly opposed by Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who filed the lawsuit against it and predicted the state could be forced to fund other types of religious education if St. Isidore succeeded.

“The framers of the US Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma’s Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the State from sponsoring any religion at all,” Drummond said in a statement Tuesday. “Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism.”

PLEASE OPEN THE LINK TO FINISH THE STORY.

[Thanks to reader FLERP for alerting us to this story.]

Categories Charter Schools, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Religion, Separation of church and state
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