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Bill Phillis: Charters in Ohio Are Failing, State Wasted $11 Billion

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2019 //
15

Ohio released its school report cards. Bill Phillis summarizes the results:

 

Charter schools report card grades dismal
 
If there is any value in the state report card scheme, it is that it reveals the failure of the charter experiment.
 
71 charters or 23% received F grades compared to only seven tenths of one percent of school districts. Six charters or .3% received A grades compared to 5% of school districts. 87 charters or 28% received a D grade compared to 122 districts or 20%. 60 charters or 19% received C grades compared to 281 or 46% of school districts. 158 charters or 51% received D or F grades compared to 126 or 20% for school districts.
 
The $11 billion Ohio charter experiment, that was established to show districts the way to improve student outcomes, is a dud.
 
It is time for state officials to admit failure and cancel the experiment.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Ohio, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider on the New Orleans Effort to End Its Teacher Shortage

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2019 //
5

 

Mercedes Schneider writes here about a program in New Orleans to recruit new charter teachers. In the all-charter district, the teachers seem to be dropping like flies. Almost 40% of its teachers have less than three years experience.

The program at Xavier University issues a certification for life, but here is the catch: the certification is valid only in New Orleans!

On September 09, 2019, the Hechinger Report published an article entitled, “A New Teacher Vows to Help in a Classroom Full of Need: ‘Under the Right Conditions, They’d Be Stars.’”

The article features a teaching intern who is part of the Norman C. Francis Teacher Residency, an alternative teacher certification program specifically aimed at recruiting individuals who already hold a bachelors degree in another area to agree to teach three years beyond an initial “residency year” at an assigned New Orleans charter school in exchange for roughly $29K in residency-year financial assistance toward earning a masters degree in education.

From the site’s “about” page:

Who we are

The Residency is a first-of-its-kind partnership not only in New Orleans, but nationally.

And from the “what to expect” page:

Residency Year 1

The Norman C. Francis Teacher Residency merges the best of Xavier University of Louisiana’s teacher preparations practices with the work of five of New Orleans’ leading charter school networks.  During the residency year, a cohort of 30 residents enroll as full-time graduate school students, while also apprentice teaching at schools in the NCFTR network. Residents attend graduate school classes as they work alongside a mentor teacher in a classroom throughout the week.  They build confidence through practice and reflection, and over the course of the year, they gradually take on greater responsibility in the classroom.

Employment in Years 2-4

After year 1, the NCFTR team works with teachers and schools to ensure that the transition into year 2 is smooth. Residents who successfully complete the residency year move into classrooms of their own as full-time teachers of record. While working to complete their remaining Master’s Degree coursework, they apply the skills and knowledge they have built in order to take on the responsibilities of lead teaching. They continue to access the network of support that they have built with their residency year cohort.

…

Residents commit to teach for three consecutive years immediately following the residency year. After Year 1, Residents are highly likely to remain in the same school or CMO for their additional three-year commitment. Participants who leave a NCFTR partner school before their four-year commitment ends may be responsible for paying back a portion of funds received in their residency year.

 

My favorite line in the Hechinger Report article that Schneider cites is this one: Though it was just her first year of teaching, Molière, 49, was already an expert at motivating students, who raised their hands high in the air and vied for her attention, then beamed when they got it.

Presumably the teacher had begun work only a week or two ago (the start of the school year), but she was already an expert!

Only in New Orleans are teachers considered “experts” in this first few weeks on the job.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change Plead for End to Backlash Against School Choice

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2019 //
33

Feeling the backlash in a big way, Jeb Bush’s “Chiefs for Change” issued a call to end the “Toxic Rhetoric” about school choice, especially charters. 

Chiefs for Change are strong proponents of privatization. Here are the current members. Is your superintendent a “Chief for Change” who wants to divert money from public schools to the Betsy DeVos agenda of school choice?

They say:

Recent attempts to halt or severely limit school choice—including legislative debates over caps or moratoriums for charter schools—are misguided at best. Effective mechanisms of school choice—those that ensure quality, accountability, equitable access, and equitable funding—provide opportunities that our students need and deserve. 

Families with financial means in America have always been able to choose the school that is best for their child, by moving to a certain part of town or by sending their children to private schools. But most American families do not have that opportunity. The school in their neighborhood may fall short in meeting their child’s needs in any number of ways—but they’re stuck. 

Our nation’s history of redlining to separate both housing and schooling based on race and income, along with local zoning ordinances that restrict and confine affordable housing, alongside the recent wave of “school district secessions” by higher-income neighborhoods, have compounded the problem. Our nation’s children often live in neighborhoods just a short distance from each other but worlds apart in terms of school quality. This is unacceptable. Every child deserves school options where they will learn and thrive. 

That is why today we are calling on policymakers across the nation to end the destructive debates over public charter schools. Proposed caps and moratoriums allow policymakers to abdicate their responsibility to thoughtfully regulate new and innovative public school options: like banning cars rather than mandating seatbelts. They are a false solution to a solvable problem. 

The backlash against school choice, the demand to halt charter expansion, comes from an outraged public that supports their community public schools.

Only 6% of the students in the U.S. attend charter schools, most of which perform no better than or much worse than public schools. An even smaller number of students use vouchers, even when they are easily available, and the research increasingly converges on the conclusion that students who use vouchers are harmed by attending voucher schools.

The claim that poor kids should get “the same” access to elite private schools as rich kids is absurd. Rich parents pay $40,000-50,000 or more for schools like Lakeside in Seattle or Sidwell Friends in D.C. The typical voucher is worth about $5,000, maybe as much as $7,000, which gets poor kids into religious schools that lack certified teachers, not into Lakeside or Sidwell or their equivalent.

Perhaps Chiefs for Change should advocate for for housing vouchers worth $1 million or more so that poor families can afford to live in the best suburban neighborhoods where “families with financial means” live.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

What this press release really means is that the advocates of privatization know that the public is turning against them.

That’s good news.

The public wants to invest its tax dollars in strong, equitable public schools that meet the needs of all students, not in ineffective charters or vouchers that divert money from community public schools.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Texas Charter Schools: Don’t Believe the Boasting and Hype

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2019 //
14

William J. Gumbert has prepared statistical analyses of charter performance in Texas, based on state data.

Charters boast of their “success,” but the reality is far different from their claims. They don’t enroll similar demographics, their attrition rate is staggering, and their “wait lists” are unverified.

Their claims are a marketing tool.

They are not better than public schools.

They undermine and disrupt communities without producing better results.

Yet Texas is plunging headlong into this strategy that creates a dual system but benefits few students.

 

 

Texas Charter Schools – Perception May Not Be Reality

Part 5: The State’s Efforts to “Privatize” Public Education in Local Communities is “Simply Indefensible”

By: William J. Gumbert

If you are a parent residing in an urban or suburban area of Texas, it is likely that you have received promotional materials recruiting your child to enroll at a privately operated, charter school (“charters”). Charters are taxpayer funded, private organizations that the State approves to independently operate schools in community-based school districts. Despite it being your students, schools, tax dollars and communities, the State has unilaterally decided that a “dual education system”, consisting of locally governed, community-based school districts and State approved, privately governed charters, is best for local communities. The State has also conveniently and unilaterally decided to share the public education funding of local communities with privately governed charters.

To conclude this series on Texas charter schools, Part 5 uses the lyrics of Robert Palmer’s hit song “Simply Irresistible” to demonstrate that the State’s politically driven and orchestrated efforts to “privatize” public education in local communities is “Simply Indefensible”. Since the song was a hit in 1988, feel free to click on the YouTube video of the “Donnie and Marie Show” below to remember the vibe.

Screen Shot 2019-09-03 at 10.26.40 PM

“How Can It Be Permissible”:

Without the approval of taxpayers and local communities: State approved charters:

  • ▪ Transfer the control and governance of public schools from local communities to privately-operated charters;
  • ▪ Divert funding from community-based school districts to privately-operated charters. The State has already provided charters with over $22.5 billion of taxpayer funding;
  • ▪ Increase the debt burden of taxpayers as charters are free to incur long-term bond debt without taxpayer approval;
  • ▪ Increase the segregation of students attending public schools in certain communities; and
  • ▪ Reduce the quality of schools in many community-based school districts as 20.4% of all charter campuses are rated as “low performing” (rated equivalent of “D” or “F”) by the State’s 2018 Academic Accountability Ratings.

    “She Compromise My Principle – Yeah, Yeah”:

    Every community has a fundamental responsibility to provide a quality public education that equally serves the unique needs of every student. As public servants, community-based school districts embrace this responsibility as all students are welcome and no student is turned away. If there is not room, community-based school districts hire more teachers and make room. In comparison, the State’s deliberate intervention in local communities allows privately-operated charters to:

    • ▪ Serve a limited number of students and NOT enroll all students;
    • ▪ Recruit the targeted students and families they desire to serve;
    • ▪ Deny enrollment to students with “discipline histories”;
    • ▪ Serve a lower percentage of “students with disabilities”;
    • ▪ Serve a lower percentage of students “at risk” of dropping out; and
    • ▪ Disrupt the education of over 12,800 “economically-disadvantaged” students due to charter closures in the last 5-years.

    “That Kind of Love is Mythical”:

    The promotion of charters is primarily coordinated by charter advocacy organizations that are intended to support and grow the charter school movement. Although not all-inclusive, these organizations train charter administrators, teachers and parents to be advocates, they assist organizations to start new charters, and they coordinate the political strategy to secure favorable support from the Legislature. But it is not publicized that these advocacy organizations are funded by private donors and fueled by privately funded “public policy” organizations that desire to “privatize” public education across Texas.

    To demonstrate parent demand and to garner political support, charter advocacy organizations have notoriously publicized a “wait list” of students. But charters do not publicize the alarming 33.8% attrition rate of students in grades 7-12 that decided to transfer to another Texas public school to start year 2017/18. Charters also do not publicize that the desires of families on “wait lists” are a lower priority than the desire of charters to expand in other regions of the State. By charters expanding in other regions, without expanding current schools to serve students on “wait lists”, charters are choosing to have families “stuck” on the wait list”. In addition, charters strategically attempt to maintain a “wait list” to ensure that their taxpayer funding is preserved as existing students transfer to community-based school districts or another Texas public school in the future.

    In Texas, the promoted (unverified) “wait list” is 141,000 students. However, taking a deeper dive, a more realistic estimate is closer to 75,000 students or an amount that is very similar to the 73,713 disciplinary students that are intentionally denied service by charters. This estimate was derived from certain enrollment statistics in a study funded by the KLE Foundation entitled: “An Analysis of Austin area Charter School Waitlists and Enrollment”. It is important to note that the KLE Foundation is also funding the expansion of charters in Austin.

    “She’s Anything But Typical”:

    In comparison to community-based school districts, charters serve the unique needs of students by:

    • ▪ Employing teachers with lower experience;
    • ▪ Deploying higher class sizes;
    • ▪ Having higher teacher turnover
    • ▪ Spending less on “student instruction”;
    • ▪ Offering fewer co/extra-curricular activities;
    • ▪ Having limited career and technical training; and
    • ▪ Closing 108 charters

    .

    “She’s a Craze You’d Endorse, She’s a Powerful Force”:

  • The charter movement is coordinated by “public policy” and “education reform” organizations that circumvent the voice of local taxpayers by strategically controlling our elected officials at the State and Federal levels. In politics, money is power and the rich and powerful support the charter school movement. As a result, many elected officials are politically motivated to endorse and support the “charter craze”. The following quote from the Texas Charter Schools Association, an advocacy organization to support and expand charters, provides an indication of the movement’s focus on political patronage:

    “Generally speaking, we have a broad enough bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate that largely will prevent anything existential happening to charters” – CEO of TCSA

    “You’re Obliged to Conform, When There’s No Other Course”:

    It is interesting that the Legislature continues to increase the transparency requirements of community-based school districts to enhance the involvement of taxpayers, but at the same time, the State forces charters upon taxpayers by unilaterally controlling the expansion and taxpayer funding of charters. In this regard, taxpayers do not receive public notice of the charters that the State approves to operate in local communities. The State does not notify taxpayers of the public funding it provides to charters and the State has ensured that taxpayers cannot prohibit or limit the bond debt incurred by charters to finance the construction of new charter schools in local communities (charters are granted the ability to incur bond debt without voter approval). Lastly, with charters having “privately appointed boards”, the State has also ensured that taxpayers cannot democratically elect the governing boards of charters and in fact, the State does not even require charters to meet in the communities they serve.

    “She Used to Look Good to Me, But Now I Find Her”:

    The original purpose of charters was to improve the educational opportunities of “economically-disadvantaged” students in urban areas and to develop and share instructional innovations to enhance the education of all students. However, the charter school movement has evolved into an aggressive, strategic and “non-cooperative” movement that is coordinated by “special interests” to “privatize” and “control” the public education system in local communities. Since charters have introduced “private business practices” into public education, the charter movement could be characterized as a “hostile takeover” of public schools and the tax dollars of Texas communities.

    “Simply Indefensible” … “There’s No Tellin Where the Money Went”:

    The charter facts are “irrefutable”;

    Charter expenditures are “inscrutable”;

    Special interests have made charters politically “irresistible”; and

    By the State providing privately governed charters with taxpayer funding, “there’s no tellin where the money went”.

    With the education of children and taxpayer funding at stake, the State’s deliberate and politically-motivated actions to “privatize” public education in local communities is:

    “Simply Indefensible”

    DISCLOSURES: The author is a voluntary advocate for public education and this material solely reflects the opinions of the author. The author has not been compensated in any manner for the preparation of this material. The material is based upon various sources, including but not limited to, the Texas Education Agency, Txschools.org; Texas Academic Performance Reports, tpeir-Texas Education Reports, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, KXAN and other publicly available information. While the author believes these sources to be reliable, the author has not independently verified the information. All readers are encouraged to complete their own review of the charter school movement in Texas, including the material referenced herein and make their own independent conclusions.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Lies, Privatization

Note to Rhode Island Officials: Expanding “Achievement First” Charters Will Not Help Providence Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2019 //
10

Rhode Island Officials—Governor Gina Raimondo and State Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green—are looking at the expansion of the no-excuses Achievement First Charter chain as part of the “solution” to the low-scoring Providence public school district.

Achievement First is a national charter chain known for high test scores, high suspension rates, and high teacher turnover. It was launched in Connecticut, funded in large part by Jonathan Sackler of Purdue Pharma, the opioid king, and significant contributions by hedge fund managers and philanthropists.

Let’s do the math.

Providence public schools enroll nearly 24,000 students. Two-thirds are Hispanic, 9% are white, 79% are low-income. Achievement First reports similar demographics in its two schools in Providence.

With now three schools in the state since opening in the 2013-2014 school year, Achievement First cites that the Rhode Island Department of Education in 2016 gave approval to Achievement First to grow to a high school — and add an additional K-8, giving Achievement First the ability to serve 3112 students — up from the current 1150 students in Providence and Cranston.

AF has 464 students in itselementary school, and 201 in its middle school in Providence. That was last year (2018-19), so the numbers might be higher this year.

So here is the question: If Achievement First expands by adding another elementary school and a high school, if its enrollment grows to serve a total of 3112 in two Rhode Island cities, how exactly does that uplift the Providence school district?

Suppose AF grows from its current enrollment of about 700 in Providence. Suppose it doubles its enrollment to 1,500 in Providence. That’s less that 10% of the students in the city.

What about the other 93% of the students?

What plans do the Governor and the State Commissioner have for them?

How does it transform Providence if a charter chain withdraws the students it wants and the funding for them from the struggling public schools?

To learn more about this charter chain, read this 2017 study from Yale. Thisstudy of Achievement First in Connecticut and New York says that its schools are highly segregated and get remarkably high test scores, but do so with a heavily white teaching staff strictly disciplining Black and Hispanic students, and with unusually high teacher turnover. The study is titled, “Achievement First, Children Second?” and suggests that AF’s strict discipline “may harm student development.”

AF likes to boast that if its schools can achieve great test scores, so can all schools. One way to test the proposition would be to turn an entire district over to AF. One candidate would be Central Falls, Rhode Island, the smallest urban district in Rhode Island, which registered the lowest test scores in the state. There are only 2,657 students in the whole district. Since the state is taking over Central Falls, why not invite Achievement First to demonstrate what it can do with an entire district, every single child…no exclusions, no cherry-picking. This would be a valuable lesson for all of us.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Privatization, Rhode Island

Shawgi Tell: Are Charter Schools Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2019 //
8

Shawgi Tell, a professor of education at Nazareth College in upstate New York, has a straightforward answer to the question he raises. His answer: No. Charter schools are not public schools.

He writes:

Charter school advocates have always desperately sought to convince themselves and the public that privately-run nonprofit and for-profit charter schools that operate like businesses are actually public and similar in many ways to public schools.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Charter schools are not public schools.

In reality, privately-operated nonprofit and for-profit charter schools differ in many profound ways from public schools that have been educating 90 percent of America’s youth for more than a century.

Below is an abbreviated list of the many ways in which privately-operated nonprofit and for-profit charter schools differ significantly from public schools.

Charter schools are exempt from dozens, even hundreds, of state and local laws, rules, regulations, policies, and agreements that apply to all public schools.

At least 90% of charter schools have no teacher unions—the opposite of public schools.
Some charter school owners-operators openly and publicly insist that charter schools are private entities.

Unlike public schools, charter schools are not governed by a publicly elected school board, but by a self-selecting, corporate-style board of trustees.

Many charter schools are not subject to audits, at least not in the same way as public schools.

Many charter schools do not uphold open-meeting laws; they dodge many such public requirements.

Many charter schools do not provide the same services as public schools, e.g., transportation, nurses, food, sports, education services, etc.

Thousands of charter schools are directly and/or indirectly owned, operated, or managed by private, for-profit entities.

Many, if not most, charter schools regularly use discriminatory student enrollment practices. Students with disabilities and English Language Learners in particular are usually under-represented in charter schools. So are homeless students and other students…

Charter means contract. Charter schools are contract Performance contracts are at the heart of charter schools. Contract is the quintessential market category. Contracts make commerce possible. Contract law is part of private law, not public law. Charter schools are legally classified as nonprofits or for-profits. Unlike public schools, they are not political subdivisions of the state. In some places, like New York State, charter schools are not considered political subdivisions of the state. Unlike public schools, charter schools are not state agencies.

He offers many more reasons to support the conclusion that charter schools are not public schools.

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

N.Y. Attorney General: Sackler Family Wired $1 Billion Out of U.S.

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
11

 

New York State Attorney General Leticia James stated that the Sackler Family was wiring money out of the country to protect their assets from litigation related to the opioid crisis.

 

New York Uncovers $1 Billion in Sackler Family Wire Transfers

In a court filing, the state attorney general’s office says that it has found new account transfers by members of the family that owns Purdue Pharma, the maker of opioids.

By Danny Hakim

The New York attorney general’s office said on Friday that it had tracked about $1 billion in wire transfers by the Sackler family, including through Swiss bank accounts, suggesting that the family tried to shield wealth as it faced a raft of litigation over its role in the opioid crisis.

Earlier this week, thousands of municipal governments and nearly two dozen states tentatively reached a settlement with the Sackler family and the company it owns, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin. It was unclear if the new disclosure would change the thinking of any of the parties that agreed to the settlement.

The attorneys general of a majority of states, including New York and Massachusetts, have already balked at the proposed deal, contending that the Sackler family has siphoned off company profits that should be used to pay for the billions of dollars in damage caused by opioids.

The wire transfers are part of a lawsuit against Purdue and individual Sacklers in New York. Letitia James, now the state’s attorney general, had issued subpoenas last month to 33 financial institutions and investment advisers with ties to the Sacklers in an effort to trace the full measure of the family’s wealth.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools

Laura Chapman: The New Line on Private Charters as Spelled Out by the D.C. Establishment

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
14

Laura Chapman, our loyal reader and diligent researcher, writes:

 

If you want to get past the Dintersmith rhetoric, carefully contrived to make an appealing plausible story (with some help from Frameworks Institute.org), you need to look at the website Education 2020 (ED 2020) to see the underling incoherence (hot air) in Dintersmith’s project, and who is supporting it.

About Education 2020: “We (partners) have come together to advocate for a shared vision to advance a comprehensive education agenda that promotes universal inclusion and access to ongoing learning opportunities for everyone living in America. We call on all 2020 Presidential candidates to develop comprehensive education proposals aligned to this shared vision.”

Our coalition members (partners) include: Alliance for Excellent Education, American Federation of Teachers, Autism Society-, Center for American Progress, Children’s Defense Fund, Community Change Action, Institute for Educational Leadership, Learning Policy Institute, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Center for Learning Disabilities, National Disability Rights Network, National Education Association, National Public Education Support Fund, National Women’s Law Center, Reach Higher-, Save the Children Action Network, Save the Children-, Teach Plus-, The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Education Task Force, The Education Trust-, The Institute for College Access & Success, The Partnership for the Future of Learning, The United State of Women, UnidosUS-, Young Invincibles-, ZERO TO THREE.

Education 2020 offers a “Briefing Book” for this promotional activity aided by Dintersmith’s article. The briefing Book includes brief “policy pitches” offered by each of the partners, presented in alphabetical order. These policy pitches are brief, and they do not add up to a “comprehensive agenda” or reflect a shared vision. For example, there are pitches from Teach Plus and the Education Trust, both unsupportive of unions along with pitches from both teacher unions, AFT and NEA.

The Briefing Book includes this idea from the Center for American Progress: “High-quality charter schools are a valuable strategy to increase the number of good public school seats for students. But the growth of charter schools should not be an end in itself, and there are legitimate critiques of the sector that must be addressed. The next administration should take a nuanced approach to charters that includes both the expansion of good school options and the coordination across the traditional district and charter sectors to avoid potentially negative impacts.”

The Learning Policy Institute calls for these actions among others: “Monitor, support, and enforce ESSA’s equity provisions. Key indicators of opportunity and outcomes can be used to inform “equity audits” for low-performing schools to support improvement and effective targeting of resources. “ also “Provide federal funding to support state and district efforts to create greater socioeconomic and racial school diversity and fund the Magnet School Assistance Program at a minimum at parity with the Charter School Program, currently funded at $440 million.”

The Briefing Book for this promotional activity also says: Education 2020 is a coalition housed and supported by the National Public Education Support Fund (established 2009, EIN 26-3015634).
Next question: what do we know about the National Public Education Support Fund? Here is what the fund does according to IRS form 990 for 2017.

“The mission of the National Public Education Support Fund (NPESF) is to promote equitable opportunities for all children to receive a high-quality education from birth through college and career. NPESF is a network hub for EDUCATION PHILANTHROPY, policy, advocacy and practice focused on equitable systems change.” What does “system change mean?” Systems change means reforms favored and charted primarily by billionaire-funded non-profit foundations, as if these tax havens are also sources of superior wisdom about education. The National Public Education Support Fund–a network for education philanthropy”–has the following projects in motion.

A. Partnership for the Future of Learning. Previously called the New Models Working Group. This working group dates to 2009. It was launched by Bill Gates to push the Common Core and aligned tests. The working group of participating foundations had quarterly meetings in DC). The current version funds organizations that offer “a forward-looking vision and policy framework for a 21st century public school system” (more and deeper learning, grounded in the core values of equity, democracy, and shared responsibility to ensure all children are prepared for college, career, and citizenship). Progress over the year: launched a STORYTELLING and NARRATIVE CHANGE effort with a microsite and about 50 partner organizations; publication of a community schools playbook and toolkit; and expanded participation to over 100 partners across dozens of education organizations.

B. We sponsor Education Justice Network. With six national education nonprofits advocating for greater education equity and opportunity with “alignment among the partners to amplify their work on policy, research, and advocacy.” Over the past year, members have created a governance structure for the network and its activities (e.g., working groups on community schools, school finance, redesigning districts, narrative shift, and democratizing knowledge).

C. Education Funder Strategy Group. Includes more than 30 leading foundations focused on “education policy and systems change from early childhood to college and career readiness and success.” Four quarterly meetings were held on the topics of FRAMING THE NARRATIVE on public education, resource equity, systems change…8 monthly calls were held on a variety of topics.” “A special dinner was held with leaders from the OECD focused on expanding access to high quality early learning. Working groups continued to self-organize around issues including “racial equity, using research evidence for change, and social-emotional learning.” (This as the current version of the New Models Working Group started by Bill Gates.)

D. Grantmakers for Thriving Youth: We are the fiscal sponsor for foundations/funders who are investing in “non-academic youth outcomes” such as “social and emotional learning and character development.” A majority of the funders “decided to continue this collaboration over the next two years.”

There is more. The 2017 Form 990 form identifies the Alliance for Excellent Education (all4ed.org) as a related organization whose work advances …”the goal of remodeling US public education.”

Indeed. all4ed is supported by many foundations known to support public funding of privately managed schools. These are named: Anonymous, AT&T Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, GE Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Kern Family Foundation, National Public Education Support Fund, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, State Farm, Stuart Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.

If you want a deep dive into the policies favored and promoted by all of these interrelated projects and organizations, look at the “issues” section of the all4ed website. These are the topics for which there are recommendations.
Accountability, Adolescent Literacy, Assessments, Brown vs. Board, Career & Technical Education, College- and Career-Ready Standards, Deeper Learning, Digital Learning and Future Ready Schools, Economic Impacts, Every Student Succeeds Act, High School Reform, International Comparisons, Linked Learning, Personalized Learning, Science of Adolescent Learning, Teachers and School Leaders.

Dintersmith’s article is an example of the relatively new strategy for selling ideas, marketed by Frameworks Institute.org with a focus on inventing stories, and forwarding narratives calculated to distract attention and elicit favorable responses to hidden-from-view power players. Many of the same “philanthropies” who have promoted failed policies for schools in the last two decades are still at it with Dintersmith trying out a refreshed story line.

This is indeed revelatory of the funding behind this “vision.”

My personal view, based on the rigorous research of the Network for Public Education into the federal Charter Schools Program, is that this program should be completely abolished. The NPE report, Asleep at the Wheel:How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride, found that at least one-third of the charter schools funded by CSP had either never opened or closed soon after opening, for a loss of about $1 billion in federal funds. The CSP is currently funded at $440 million. Betsy DeVos asked for $500 million. She is using that money to underwrite the expansion of national charter chains like KIPP and IDEA and to flood states like New Hampshire, Alabama, and Texas. Given the massive funding of charter schools by foundations, no federal funding is needed. Ongoing research by NPE shows that in some states, as many as 40% of charters were failures. Every presidential candidate should be asked if they will eliminate federal funding for new charter schools and direct the funding to Title I or other programs that meet genuine needs, not satisfy billionaires’ egos. 

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

Los Altos, California, Fights Elite Charter School

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
11

 

Los Altos has a problem. Wealthy residents opened a charter school for their children, drawing money from the public schools to support their charter. The Bullis School is a private school that calls itself a “public” school and is funded by public dollars.

Vladimir Ivanovic wrote the following update on the community’s efforts to compel the Bullis School to act like a public school, not a private academy. Vladimir is a member of the elected Los Altos school board. He is also earning his doctorate in education policy at San Jose State University and has been a member of the Network for Public Education since 2013.

He writes:

This week, the Los Altos School District (LASD) in Santa Clara County’s Silicon Valley formally asked its County Board and Office of Education to take action against the discriminatory enrollment practices at Bullis Charter School (BCS).  The charter school began its enrollment marketing for the 2020-21 school year by announcing the reinstatement of a geographic enrollment preference for children who live in one of the most expensive zip codes in the nation, the exact opposite of the stated purpose of charter school law. This is an example of how charter law can be used to exacerbate inequities in education.  (BCS was in the news before for its exclusive enrollment practices: “Taxpayers Get Billed for Kids of Millionaires at Charter School.”)

BCS was authorized by the county 15 years ago over the objections of LASD, and so the District must appeal to the charter’s authorizer for changes that will ensure equal access to education for all students at all public schools. The District’s letter to the Santa Clara County Board of Education and its Superintendent cites data from the State of California regarding the charter’s demographics that clearly show it is underserving students with special needs, English Language Learners, and socioeconomically disadvantaged children and asks for the same kind of remedy that California’s Attorney General obtained from the Sausalito Marin School District: a timely and effective desegregation plan.

Here is LASD’s press release: https://www.lasdschools.org/District/News/10840-Press-Release-September-10-2019.html

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

Julian Vasquez Heilig on Our Segregated Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
6

This is an interview with Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig, the scholar who was recently named dean of the University of Kentucky School of Education. JVH’s scholarship focuses on equity. He has written about charter schools and Teach for America.

https://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/segregation-worse-charter-schools-vasquez-heilig-miller-190909/

From the Progressive:

Vasquez-Heilig and his co-authors, T. Jameson Brewer of the University of North Georgia College of Education, and Yohuru Williams of the University of St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences, analyzed publicly available data to confirm what public school advocates have said for years: Nationally, higher percentages of charter students of every race attend “intensely segregated” schools.

I had an opportunity to speak with Vasquez-Heilig about his study and the urgency to address the hard truth of his findings.

Q: What questions were you were looking to answer with this study?

Vasquez-Heilig: So what we really wanted to know is, are charter schools more segregated, when you look at the state-level data, the national level data, and the local level data. We wanted to determine if the one reason why charter schools are more segregated is because they sit in segregated communities, as is often discussed.

We found that across all levels, charter schools are more segregated where African American and Latinx students are in the majority. We found geography didn’t explain that away, and that it’s growing worse.

Q: Did your research find any variation with respect to segregated charter schools from state to state?

Vasquez-Heilig: That’s a good question. There are a couple of states—and cities—where neighborhood public schools are slightly more segregated—Los Angeles, and Hawaii, for example. But those are the exceptions. In the vast majority of states and the vast majority of cities, African American and Latinx students were more segregated in charter schools.

Categories Charter Schools
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