Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Jan Resseger: West Virginia Teachers Keep Fighting Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2019 //
3

 

Jan Resseger writes an in-depth account of the ongoing battle by teachers in West Virginia to keep charters and vouchers out of their state. 

They struck twice and they continue to fight.

The Republican majority in the legislature is determined to introduce privatization, despite the poor results in other states.

The Republican leadership have added provisions to the pending legislation to prevent walkouts in the future.

”We learned on Tuesday that a poison pill had been added to the Senate’s omnibus bill—to ban strikes by teachers: “Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Trump says an anti-strike provision was amended into an omnibus education bill….  The amendment also says no county superintendent may close school in anticipation of a strike.  And the amendment says that if a strike causes school to be closed then that school can’t participate in extracurricular activities… Democrats in the Senate argued that the provision was retaliatory for the strikes of the past two years.”

What happens next will be decided by the House and Governor Jim Justice.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance, Teachers, Vouchers, West Virginia

California Teachers Association on Thurmond’s Charter Task Force Report

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
3

 

Friends of public schools are pleased with the recommendations of Superintendent Thurmond Charter School Task Force.

Now it is up to the Legislature to act.

 

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

California: Hot Off the Presses: Charter School Task Force Report

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
10

 

The Charter School Policy Task Force Report was just released. 

The Task Force was charged with making recommendations to reform the state’s 1992 charter law. A large proportion of the 11 members of the Task Force (either 6 or 7) were connected to the charter industry, including two members who work directly for the California Charter School Association, the industry’s lobbying group.

Two issues were paramount:

Recognizing that the lack of funding in general for public schools in California is exacerbated by the competition for resources between traditional public schools and charter schools, Governor Gavin Newsom in early 2019 appointed the CTF and asked SSPI Tony Thurmond to convene the group to analyze two matters:

(1) the fiscal impact that charter schools have on traditional public schools;

and (2) inconsistencies in how charter schools are authorized throughout the state.

Some recommendations were unanimously approved.

Some were approved by a majority.

Some were defeated.

Please read the 10-page report carefully. Let me know what you think.

These are the recommendations that impress me because they would allow districts to have a greater say over whether charters open in their district; they would eliminate the State Board of Education from the charter authorization process; they would prevent small districts from authorizing charters in distant urban districts, for the sake of making money; they would permit consideration of fiscal impact on existing schools before granting a new charter; and they establish a one-year moratorium on new cyber charters.

E) Enact a one-year moratorium on the establishment of new virtual charter schools

• Supported by the majority


There has been growing concern that virtual charter schools are operated without appropriate academic rigor and oversight, providing a sub-par education for their students (for example, see California Virtual Academy – Bureau of State Audits review1). The temporary one-year freeze on new virtual charter schools will give advocates time to study issues related to the establishment of virtual charter schools, such as their operational practices and performance, and to make further recommendations to ensure students are receiving appropriate full-time instruction, supervised by a certified teacher. Virtual charter schools with a history of providing a demonstrated benefit to students will have the ability to continue to operate during the one-year moratorium.


F) Remove the California State Board of Education from hearing appeals of charter petition denials.

• Supported by the majority


The SBE is an authorizer for applicants whose charter petition was denied by a district or county board of education. Some CTF members expressed growing concern that applicants whose charter petitions were denied by a district and/or County Board of Education appeal to the SBE to grant their charter, thus giving a charter school three chances to be approved. Some believe that for local control and accountability to be preserved, charter schools should only be authorized locally. In addition, authorization at the state level is problematic due to geographic limitations. Almost 65% of the current SBE authorized charter schools are located in Los Angeles or San Diego, which makes it difficult for the Sacramento-based staff to provide the appropriate level of oversight at the local level. As CDE is staff to SBE, the oversight responsibilities fall to CDE; there are currently three staff at the state level to serve the 39 SBE authorized charter schools.


G) Limit the authorization of new charter schools to local districts with an appeals process that takes place at the County Board of Education only when there was an error by the district governing board.

• Supported by the majority


Current law allows for any County Board of Education, or the State Board of Education to
authorize charter petitions when a school district governing board has denied their approval. By only allowing school districts and limited appeals to the county offices to authorize, this proposal allows the local community to make a determination on whether the charter school meets the needs of their students. Applicants would be allowed limited appeals of the local district’s denial to the County Board of Education.


H) Prohibit districts from authorizing charter schools located outside district boundaries

. • Supported by the majority


Current law allows a charter school to open one site outside of the authorizing district only if the charter school has attempted to locate within the authorizer’s boundaries, but an appropriate site was unavailable or the location is temporarily needed during a construction or expansion. A 2017 state audit report found that in fiscal year 2016-2017, 165 charter schools used these exceptions to operate at least 495 locations outside of their authorizers’ boundaries2. Further, many of these charter schools had not provided evidence of the need to locate outside of the authorizing district. Prohibiting districts from authorizing charter schools located outside of district boundaries would allow for greater local control and oversight of charter schools. In addition, such a prohibition would limit the potential for the detrimental practice of using oversight fees as a revenue stream, while incurring only limited expenses associated with authorizing the charter school.3


I) Allow authorizers to consider fiscal impact as part of the authorization process

. • Supported by the majority

Presentations from Oakland Unified School Districts, Los Angeles Unified School Districts, and San Diego Unified School District to the CTF demonstrated significant fiscal impact to school districts due to the cost of charter schools located within district boundaries. In addition to the oft- cited loss of ADA funding, other costs may include, but are not limited to: inability to reduce expenses proportionally without direct harm to student programs and services (utilities, staff, daily maintenance, etc.); obligations to keep schools open and facilities available; increased liability and litigation; disproportionality of special education costs; competition for state, local, and other funds; thorough oversight; and marketing in a newly competitive environment. Allowing authorizers to consider fiscal impacts of a charter petition enables them to evaluate the impact on the entirety of their local educational system. As such, the majority of the CTF recommended that authorizers should be allowed to take fiscal impact into consideration when deciding whether to authorize a new charter school.


J) Establish clear guidelines for use by authorizers and by charter applicants for new charter petitions.


• Supported by the majority

Current law requires charter petitions to include a description of 16 elements. Beyond these elements, there are no standards that provide guidance on the level of detail an applicant should include. As such, applicants submit charter petitions of varying quality; some contain little description of the elements while others contain extensive detail. Clear guidelines, such as rubrics or handbooks, for applicants to follow would standardize the quality of new charter schools.

 

 

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

Carol Burris: A Message for Elizabeth Warren

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
78

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and a lifelong educator, has a message for Senator Elizabeth Warren:

 

There has been much discussion on this blog and elsewhere regarding Elizabeth Warren’s campaign’s choice of a former charter school teacher to introduce Ms. Warren in Oakland. She was a fellow at GO Oakland, an organization funded by billionaires such as the Walton Family, Arthur Rock and Michael Bloomberg–billionaires who are bound and determined to charterize American public schools. After leaving as a fellow, she continued her relationship by blogging for the organization in 2018, including in her blog links to get readers to sign up for GO emails.
Why does any of this matter? 
It matters because when a presidential campaign asks someone to introduce their candidate. It is a carefully vetted and deliberate choice.  It is naive to think the introducer is picked from the air in any competent campaign, and the Warren campaign is highly competent. 
When Bernie Sanders issued his bold platform calling for a charter moratorium, Elizabeth Warren responded by saying that she too was against for-profit charter schools with no response on Sanders’ call for a moratorium.
Warren said she does not want to fund for -profits. Well, the only funding program she could influence as President, the Charter Schools Program, already does not.
 
No bold, progressive stand there.
 
What progressives need to hear from Elizabeth Warren is the answer to these two simple questions.
1. Do you support the NAACP’s charter moratorium?
2. Do you support funding the federal Charter Schools Program–which funds the expansion of non-profit charter schools?
 
Sanders has made his position clear. When we hear from Warren, it will no longer matter who introduces her..
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Peter Greene: Why Does Anyone Listen to Jeb Bush’s Failed Ideas?

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
18

 

Peter Greene read an unusually annoying article in the Detroit News that showed just out of touch the authors are.

Michigan is a state that went overboard for school choice, thanks to former Governor John Engler and the billionaire DeVos family.

Michigan has dropped down to the bottom of NAEP, as scores have collapsed for every group.

Jeb Bush arrives to tell Michigan what they need to do is double down on their failed strategies. More choice. More testing. More accountability. More threats. More punishments.

Bush claimed that these strategies worked in Florida but they didn’t.As Greene notes, fourth grade score went up only because the state holds back third graders who don’t pass the third grade reading test. By eighth grade, students in Florida are at the national average.

Who aspires to be average?

Things are so bad in Michigan that average looks good. It is not.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, Fraud, Michigan, Privatization, School Choice, Testing

Bernie Sanders Vigorously Criticizes Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
27

 

Despite the outrage of the privatization movement, which attacked Bernie Sanders for his position on charters, Sanders doubled down by publishing an article in the San Jose Mercury News reiterating his views. 

Here is an excerpt, where he accurately cites the study by Gordon Lafer on how charters drain money from public schools and the NPE study showing the waste of federal money spent on charters that never opened or closed almost immediately.

My education plan calls for rescinding Donald Trump’s tax breaks and using those resources to triple funding for low-income school districts. We will also institute a national per-pupil funding standard, so that the quality of a child’s education is not contingent on her zip code. Education should be a human right, not a privilege.

In addition, my plan also calls for restrictions on charter school initiatives that siphon resources out of the public education system and resegregating schools.

When parents enroll their children in charter schools, the public funding allocated to those students goes with them. In the Oakland Unified School District, for example, charter schools were costing the district more than $57 million per year. This amount would easily cover the budget shortfall of $56 million over two years that Oakland officials have projected.

Charters are publicly-funded, but they are privately managed — meaning, they are not accountable to taxpayers. As a result, billionaires like Eli Broad, the DeVos family, and the Walton family are able to bankroll destructive charter school experiments to enrich investors and real-estate developers with taxpayer resources.

Between 2002-2017, California charter schools received more than $2.5 billion in tax dollars or taxpayer subsidized funds to lease, build, or buy school buildings. In one example, the Alliance Ready Public Schools network of charter schools used public funds to build a $200 million private real estate empire in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, a report from the Network for Public Education found 38 percent of California charter schools that received federal funds between 2006 and 2014 “had either never opened or shut their doors by 2019.”

Advocates argue that charters deliver good outcomes — but the overall results are mixed at best.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding

New Bedford, Mass: Parents Block Charter Money Grab,

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
32

 

Parents in New Bedford, Massachusetts, managed to stop an outrageous charter money-grab.

Here is a report from

Local activist Ricardo Rosa writes:

An unprecedented charter school model was introduced in the city of New Bedford, MA. Alma Del Mar charter school sought to expand by 1,188 seats, which would have meant the syphoning of $15 million dollars from the city’s public school system and likely a major hit to city’s budget more broadly. The school’s expansion was legal under the current charter cap. The school sought just about all of the seats undermining the very premise of the charter industry, namely, that competition is a positive value in educational reform. 
 
The state’s commissioner of education, the charter operator, the Mayor and the superintendent crafted a deal behind closed doors and attempted to implement it  very hurriedly to evade public scrutiny. The deal allowed the charter 450 seats, a closed public school and its land at no cost, and the crafting of a new public school zone allowing for a structure that bypasses the lottery system and where students in the zone would be automatically enrolled in the charter school instead of their local public schools as of fall 2019. Families could fill out a change of assignment form so as to stay in they public schools, but there was no guarantee that the superintendent (in consultation with the charter operator) would honor it.
Furthermore, the charter could, in three years time, seek additional seats if they so choose. Worse, the public school system had to agree to pay for a pre-determined enrollment figure regardless of how many of those seats are actually filled. Should the deal not work out, the commissioner structured a “Plan B” (an extortion plan really), which would allow the school to proceed with its lottery and expand to 594 seats. 
The state’s Board of Education applauded the deal as a model that could be implemented in other working class and low income cities in Massachusetts. The model was dangerous in that it could have circumvented the charter cap through a complex “home rule petition” that had to be signed off on my the local school committee, the city council, and then move on to the state legislature for the introduction of a bill.
Massachusetts voters voted, overwhelmingly, in 2016 to not expand the charter cap despite large amounts of corporate money that poured in to support the initiative. This was clearly not a deal that would have affected just the city, but the state. 
The New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools (NBCSOS), a grassroots organization of parents and grandparents of New Bedford Public School children, community activists, educators and youths, went to work at every stage of this proposal. The Coalition worked in solidarity with the local teachers union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and Citizens for Public Schools. 
Members spoke to residents in a door to door campaign, hosted forums and film screenings to educate the public, spoke to parents at pick up and drop lines in local public schools, wrote Op-Eds, organized rallies, spoke to local and state officials, and wrote a policy analysis report they circulated with state legislators. The Commissioner of Education was forced to pull the deal. There is some indication that legislators are making an attempt to have a hearing of the full body of the legislature, despite the deal being pulled and multiple news reports citing that the deal is dead.
Rosa provides more information in this article he wrote for Commonwealth magazine.
He explained there:
This is an effort to destabilize labor, capitalize on real estate wheeling and dealing in the city, and continue the pursuit of gentrification as an economic strategy. This property handover and automatic enrollment into the charter school is untested and unproven, contrary to the former state education secretary’s claim that it is “effective education policy and innovation.” This deal, however, really amounts to a form of corporate experimentation on New Bedford children that is immoral….
What is being introduced to families is a complex system and paperwork in the hope that parents and guardians will simply go with the flow. This approach is similar to filling out a mail-in rebate. Some will not fill it out due to various reasons. Others will fill it out incorrectly and will never receive the rebate. Even worse, the decision maker here can arbitrarily decide whether to honor the “rebate.”

This is a very dangerous proposal in the sense that it treats people as consumers rather than as citizens deserving all of the rights, information, and privileges of the common good.  Automatically extracting a student from the public school that she or he is entitled to attend is antithetical to the values of the community.

These “third way” approaches are not unique if we look across the United States. It’s very naïve to think that this is a “better way to do charter schools.” The charter industry has come under fire across this country. In our own state we voted against expansion in 2016.

The Alma del Mar proposal is a politically devious and opportunistic way to skirt citizen resistance to charter expansion and to seek a new approach to doing business so as to survive. The mayor, the majority of the school committee and city council, and some of the state legislators who have stated that this proposal is the “lesser of two evils” need to be reminded that “the lesser of two evils” is still evil. This “pragmatic” lesser of two evils tactic may work for the short term, but it will just embolden establishment politics and undermine future chances for real progressive change.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization, Resistance

California: About that $50 Million Charter School Heist

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
13

 

As reported earlier today, online charter operators in California with multiple shell corporations have been indicted for embezzling more than $50 million for their charters. 

Also indicted were the leaders of the tiny rural school districts that authorized their charters as a way to collect fat fees for doing nothing. This feature is a serious flaw in the state’s notoriously lax charter law.

A tiny district can authorize a charter in Los Angeles or San Diego, then sit back and collect commissions. Efforts are underway now to fix the law but the California Charter Schools Association has fought all efforts at accountability.

A3 Education recruited small public school districts to sponsor the charter schools in exchange for oversight fees. Prosecutors say A3 enrolled about 40,000 students throughout the state, none of whom received any services.

The company that operated a network of 19 online-only schools is accused of paying sports leagues as little as $25 a student for information used for enrollment. School districts are funded by the state based on the number of students.

The students didn’t know how their names were being used, said San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan, calling them victims…

The Dehesa Elementary School District, which has only about 150 students east of San Diego, authorized several charter schools with oversight for 20,000 students, Stephan said. The $2 million in oversight fees collected one year was more than the district’s annual payroll.

Nancy Hauer, Dehesa’s superintendent, was among 11 people charged in the case. Other defendants were employed by A3 and its charter schools.

The Dehesa school board said it couldn’t comment on the charges and vowed to fully cooperate with investigators. Hauer was not available to comment.

“The Board of Education was stunned to learn about the charges, and we have engaged legal counsel to review this matter and any possible implications for district operations,” the Dehesa district said.

The grand jury returned its indictment May 17 after hearing six weeks of testimony from more than 70 witnesses.

A spokesperson for the charter lobby insisted that it did not approve of “bad actors” but has used its vast resources to kill every legislative effort to amend the law.

The California Charter Schools Association said it raised concerns about A3 more than a year ago with the state education department and urged an investigation.

“To be clear, there is no room for bad actors and irresponsible authorizers in California’s charter public school movement,” said Myrna Castrejón, the group’s president.

As we say in Brooklyn, if you believe the lobbyists who have defeated all efforts to stop self-dealing, I have a bridge to sell you.

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

Closing! Delaware Charter that Won $10 Million XQ Award

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
46

 

Kevin Ohlandt has the story: The Design Thinking Academy, a charter school that won Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ competition to “reinvent” the high school, is closing.  

Ohlandt has documents demonstrating that the school was done in by adult mismanagement and greed.

The school received a five-year grant of $10 million in 2016. It was supposed to be a “school of the future,” but it experienced high teacher turnover, administrative churn, and consequently.  declining enrollments. 

One parent said she started “having doubts about the school earlier in the year, when she noticed mass teacher turnover.

“When you start seeing a lot of people leaving all at once, you know what’s happening,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s a business.”

As Ohlandt shows, the problems of the school were even more serious than portrayed.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Innovation, Privatization

California: Online Charter Scam Cost Taxpayers More Than $50 Million, Says Indictment

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
16

 

With the encouragement of the super lobbyists of the California CharterSchoolAssociation, the California Legislature continues to block any meaningful reform of its lax charter law, even as the news breaks that online charter operators were charged with scamming more than $50 million from taxpayers.

Peter Greene calls this one “a spectacular charter scam.” He is right. We have seen plenty of garden-variety scams and multi-Million dollar charter frauds, but this one is the biggest yet!

Morgan Cook and Kristin Taketa report in the San Diego Union-Tribune (a newspaper that supports charters):

Using in-depth knowledge of California education funding, charter school regulations and deceptive business disclosures, an Australian citizen and his partner in Long Beach orchestrated a multi-year conspiracy to fleece taxpayers out of more than $50 million, prosecutors say.

Sean McManus, 46, an Australian who operated charter schools in California, and another charter school operator, Jason Schrock, 44, and nine others were named as defendants in a 67-count indictment announced this past week by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say McManus, Schrock and others enrolled thousands of students into online charter schools, often without their knowledge, and collected millions in state funds using student information obtained from private schools and youth athletic groups.

This criminal enterprise funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into private bank accounts of the defendants,” said District Attorney Summer Stephan.

Eight of the 11 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations. Two more are expected to be arraigned June 6….McManus is at large, possibly in Australia, prosecutors said. A San Diego Superior Court judge issued a $5-million bench warrant for his arrest and froze the accounts of charter schools, related companies and individuals related to the alleged conspiracy.

A reader who calls himself “Francisco” has commented recently that there are just as many frauds in public schools as in charter schools. Hey, Francisco, can you top this?

Peter Greene responds:

The twitterverse rebuttal has been, “Oh, yeah. You’re just focusing on charters. I’ll bet we could public school scams just as bad.” Maybe. But the oversight provided by a locally-elected board and mandated transparency of financial dealings would make it pretty damn hard. To pull off a scam of this magnitude, you need to wide-open barely-regulated low-oversight world of charters.

As Greene points out, in what world is it possible to buy and sell schools like franchises other than Charter World?

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Virtual Charter Schools
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