Archives for category: Charter Schools
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How Walton Money Influences Charter School Debate

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2019 //
11

 

This article was published in the Detroit Free Press on a day when not many people were paying attention, December 25, 2018, but it should have been national news.

The Waltons, heirs to the anti-union Walmart empire, have been investing in black organizations to spread their views about charter schools.

The fact that the NAACP and Black Lives Matter have stood up to the bully billionaire behemoth and demanded a moratorium on charters is astounding and a great credit to their integrity.

It begins:

Amid fierce debate over whether charter schools are good for black students, the heirs to the Walmart company fortune have been working to make inroads with advocates and influential leaders in the black community.

The Walton family, as one of the leading supporters of America’s charter school movement, is spreading its financial support to prominent and like-minded black leaders, from grassroots groups focused on education to mainstream national organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, according to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings and nonprofit grants data.

Here is the most astonishingly hypocritical statement in the article:

“Those closest to the challenge often have the best solution,” Marc Sternberg, who leads the Walton Family Foundation’s education efforts, said in a prepared statement.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Chester E. Finn, Jr.: The Persistent Failure of Big Shiny Ideas to “Reinvent” Schools

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2019 //
37

 

Checker Finn and I used to be best buddies back in the days when I was on the other side (the wrong side) of big education issues. We became friends in the early 1980s. We created something called the Educational Excellence Network, which circulated a monthly newsletter on events and issues back in the pre-Internet days. I was a member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which was created and chaired by his father and led by Checker. Checker had worked for Lamar Alexander when Lamar was Governor of Tennessee, and he recommended me to Lamar when Lamar became George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Education. I accepted the job of Assistant Secretary of Education for Research and Counselor to the Secretary, the same job Checker had held during the Reagan administration, when Bill Bennett was Secretary of Education. We both served as members of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution. As a member of Checker’s board, I opposed accepting funding from the Gates Foundation, since I thought that as a think tank, we should protect our independence and we had plenty of money. I opposed TBF becoming an authorizer of charters in Ohio, where TBF was theoretically based even though its main office was in DC. I was outvoted on both issues. As a member of the Koret Task Force, I was in regular conversation and discussion with the best conservative thinkers. Over time, however, I lost the conservative faith. I changed my mind, as I described in my book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. 

I became and remain a deeply skeptical critic of all the grand plans to reinvent American education, especially those that emanate from billionaires and from people who are hostile to the very concept of public education.

To my surprise, I read an article recently by Checker that captured my skepticism about the Big Ideas imposed on schools and teachers. This one was called the New American Schools Development Corporation. It was spun off during the brief time that Lamar Alexander was Secretary. It was David Kearns’ pet project. David was a former CEO of Xerox who agreed to serve as Lamar’s Deputy Secretary. He was a wonderful man and I enjoyed getting to know him. He thought like a CEO and he thought that the best way to spur innovation was to hold a contest with a big prize. (Race to the Top did the same thing and flopped.)

Checker relies on the work of a wonderful scholar named Jeff Mirel of the University of Michigan. Jeff, a dear friend of mine, died earlier this year, far too young. He was a strong supporter of public schools and a first-rate historian. I miss him.

As Checker show, the NewAmerican Schools project failed. But the $50 Million that Kearns raised from private sources was eagerly snapped up.

My reaction to Checker’s article was this: Twenty or thirty years from now, someone will write a similar article about charter schools and ask, “How could people have been so dumb as to believe that you could ‘reform’ American education by letting anyone get public money to open any kind of school? Why did they think it was a good idea to let entrepreneurs and for-profit entities open schools? Why did they allow corporate chains to take over community public schools? Why did they allow religious zealots to get public money intended for public schools? They must have lost all common sense or any sense of history!”

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, History, Innovation, Personal, Privatization

Carol Burris: Federal Charter School Program is a Slush Fund

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2019 //
12

 

Back in March 2019, Carol Burris and Jeff Bryant released a study of the federal Charter Schools Program on behalf of the Network for Public Education.. That study, “Asleep at the Wheel,” found that about a third of the charters that received federal grants in the $440 million program either never opened or closed soon after opening. The amount of money wasted was about $1 billion over several years. The Department of Education failed to monitor wherevthe Money was going and how it was spent.

Burris has been analyzing states that received federal charter money and has concluded that the initial estimates were understated. In the states she has reviewed, 40% of the charters were failures. Some had no name. Some were not even charters.

The extent of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal CSP is appalling, as is the ED department’s failure to pay attention to where the money goes.

The initial impulse for the CSP, created during the Clinton administration, was to jumpstart innovation. Now, it is a slush fund for Friends of Betsy and a ready supplier of millions to big corporate charter chains like KIPP (which recently got a federal check for $86 million) and IDEA (which has collected $225 million in two years). Neither of these corporate behemoths are start-ups. Neither is needy.

Congress should eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program. It feels no need, other than greed.

Next time you meet a candidate at a town hall, ask him or her if they will pledge to eliminate this wasteful slush fund.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Beto O’Rourke Adds High-Ranking Obama ED Official to His Campaign Staff

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2019 //
24

Beto O’Rourke has beefed up his campaign staff with the addition of Carmel Martin, who was Assistant Secretary for Budget and Policy in the Department of Education during the Obama administration.

Martin is a supporter of high-stakes testing and charter schools.

When my book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, was published, she joined me on a panel at the Economic Policy Institute, where she defended Race to the Top.

It will be interesting to hear what Beto’s education policy is, if he moves above 5% in the polls.

Categories Charter Schools, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

EdSource: Why California Charter Schools Have Little or No Oversight

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2019 //
12

 

Louis Freedberg of EdSource explains here why California charter schools are largely unsupervised, leading to a drumbeat of scandals like the recent indictment of 11 people charged with a theft of $80 million.

He writes:

As charter school conflicts intensify in California, increasing attention is being focused not only on the schools themselves but on the school boards and other entities that grant them permission to operate in the first place.

They’re called charter authorizers, and unlike many states, California has hundreds of them: 294 local school districts, 41 county offices of education, along with the State Board of Education.

In fact, California, with over 1300 charters schools, has more authorizers than any other state. That’s not only because of California’s size but also because it has an extremely decentralized approach to charter school authorization.

Someone wishing to start a charter school, or to renew a charter, must apply to a local school district to get the green light to do so. If a petition is turned down by the district, applicants can appeal to county boards of education, and if they are denied there, they can go to the State Board of Education as a last resort.

An emerging question is whether California’s authorizers have the skills, capacity and guidance to adequately oversee the charter schools under their jurisdiction.

Under the state’s extremely lax law, a tiny rural district may authorize a charter to open for business in an urban district hundreds of miles away. The rural district collects a commission, the charter has no supervision.

A win-win for the charter and the authorizer, a lose-lose for taxpayers and students.

The California problem is not that authorizers need training, but that any district can authorize charters in other districts.

The law should be changed so that districts control whether charters open inside their boundaries. The current law encourages scavengers to prey on other districts. This must stop. Give districts control and responsibility for the schools inside their geographic area. Stop the charter vandals whose only goal is profiteering without oversight.

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

Mercedes Schneider: 49% of NOLA Charter “Graduates” Lacked Credits to Graduate

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2019 //
6

Mercedes Schneider Reports the story of the New Orleans charter school that awarded diplomas to its seniors, but had to revoke 49% of them after a whistleblower pointed out that these students lacked the credits needed to graduate. 

She writes:

Just shy of half of the Class of 2019 at John F. Kennedy High School at Lake Area did not meet graduation requirements and are therefore not eligible to receive the diplomas that they may have expected to receive when they participated in a graduation ceremony on May 17, 2019. (I write “may have expected” because at the time of the ceremony, both students and the general public knew the school was under investigation for grade fixing.)

That’s 87 out of 177 graduates, or 49 percent (which, by the way, indicates a four-year graduation rate that is at best 51 percent.)

Scandals like this do not begin and end in a single year. And this scandal was not uncovered by state or district oversight. Like too many charter school scandals nationwide, revelation of what you will see described by the board president of the charter organization (New Beginnings Schools Foundation) as “malfeasance and negligence that had for years gone undetected” depended for its detection upon a whistleblower.

How sad for the students that no one warned them. Some will make up their credits in summer school. Others are so far behind that they will have to repeat the year.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, New Orleans

Ann Cronin: What Do We Mean by “Student Achievement”?

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2019 //
16

Ann Cronin is an educator in Connecticut.

In this post, she explains what real achievement is, and it has nothing to do with test scores.

There are all kinds of suggestions for improving student achievement – privatize public schools, increase the number of standardized tests that students take, implement national standards, and enforce no-excuses classroom discipline. None of these practices, however, have made a bit of difference. That is for two reasons. One reason is that the underlying causes of poverty and racial injustice have gone unaddressed, and the other reason is that standardized test scores can never measure achievement and, instead, reliably indicate only one thing: the income of the parents of the test taker.

So the first step in increasing student achievement is to redefine what we mean by achievement.  I recently witnessed something that crystallized for me what real achievement is.

She recently attended a ceremony in her community where high school seniors and adults were honored for community service.

When it was time for the second adult recipient, Roseanne Sapula, to give her speech, she spoke about how honored she was to receive the award she regarded as prestigious and how she had tried to write a speech but gave up. It was clear that she gave up because her volunteer work with the Monday Night Social Group, a group comprised of 40 special needs individuals of high school age and older, was so close to her heart that it was hard for her to explain her interactions with those in the group in a short speech. She did tell the audience that thinking up new adventures for those young adults and new ways for them to be part of the larger community was her “calling”.

As Roseanne was talking, she looked out in the audience and spotted one of the members of the Monday Night Social Group, Jacob, Fialkoff, a 20 year-old whom I later learned has cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. She called out to him and asked him a favor. She explained to the audience that Jacob is scheduled to sing the National Anthem at the opening of the Connecticut Special Olympics and that he has a beautiful voice. She asked Jacob if he would sing it right there for all of us.

Jacob hesitated, probably feeling unprepared and that it was too much of a challenge at that moment. Roseanne, aware of his hesitation, asked him again, telling him that she would not be at the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics and would love to hear him sing the National Anthem. He still hesitated. Roseanne then asked him if he could do it just for her. He softly said OK.

He sang beautifully.

Jacob’s singing the National Anthem, unrehearsed and on the spot out of love for the person who asked him, is what is missing in the conversation about increasing student achievement, which has been the illusive national goal since the passing of “No Child Left Behind” in 2001. We have tested and prepared kids for tests. And achievement doesn’t budge. We have declared that urban schools are “failing schools” and opened charter schools.  And achievement doesn’t budge. We have put in place Common Core standards.  And achievement doesn’t budge. We suspend and expel students at high rates, particularly in charter schools. And achievement doesn’t budge. That’s because we have been looking in the wrong places for achievement. We have been looking at standardized tests.

What a narrow definition of achievement has ruled our nation since 2001, and even earlier.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Love, Testing

Ohio: More Charter Scandals Running on STEAM

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2019 //
4

Bill Phillis writes about Ohio’s connection to the biggest charter school heist in history (so far):

 

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More about the STEAM charters that have connections with the individuals indicted in California for an $80 million charter fraud
Five STEAM charters were “licensed” to operate in Ohio. Two of them, sponsored by Ohio Council of Community Schools, closed after a short period (2 years for one and 4 years for the other.)
Three STEAM charters are still in business as follows:
·       STEAM Academy of Warrensville Heights sponsored by Ohio Council of Community Schools
·       STEAM Academy of Akron sponsored by the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation
·       STEAM Academy of Warren sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education
Three of 11 individuals indicted in California for an $80 million charter fraud case have direct connections to the STEAM charter business enterprise in Ohio.
Other Ohio charter operations have been connected to charter operators indicted in other states. Several months ago some charter operators indicted for charter fraud in Florida had Ohio charter connections. The deregulated charter environment attracts people that relish the possibility of a quick buck.
The Ohio Department of Education and the two other sponsors should initiate an investigation into the operation of STEAM charters in Ohio.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
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Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

David Osborne: Of Course, Charter Schools Are Private, That’s Why They Are So Great! (NOT!)

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2019 //
11

Haha, the charter industry keeps intoning over and over that charter schools are not public schools, but of course they are not. They are private schools that receive public funding and want more of it every year.

David Osborne, one of the loudest cheerleaders for charters, wrote in the Washington Post that charter schools are indeed private schools, and that is what makes them so fabulous.

It seems that the public sector mucks up everything, and the private sector really knows how to make things go well.

Kind of like those brilliant guys in California who figured out how to work the funding stream so they could siphon off $80 million for themselves and their allies.

And like the entrepreneurs who have figured out how to milk government funds by buying the real estate, then leasing it to their charter at exorbitant rates.

And like the legislators in Florida who direct public funding to the for-profit charters owned by their family.

It is refreshing to see a charter advocate admitting what everyone knows: charter schools are private, deregulated schools. Numerous studies have shown that they don’t get better results than public schools unless they cherrypick their students.

Now if someone can explain the rationale for government funding two sets of schools at the same time–one free to choose its students and set its own admissions rules, the other required to accept all students, including those kicked out by the private charters–then we might make sense of this mess.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

EdWeek: Do Children of Color Need Harsh Discipline to Succeed in School?

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2019 //
15

 

This article in Education Week by two researchers—Joanne Golann and Mira Debs—ask why leaders of “no-excuses” charter schools think that children of color need harsh discipline. They interview parents and discover what they really want:

As researchers who have taught in and studied these schools, we found that parents’ attitudes were not that simple. The Black and Latino parents we interviewed in a no-excuses middle school valued discipline, but viewed it as more than rule following. They wanted demanding academic expectations alongside a caring and structured environment that would help their children develop the self-discipline to make good choices.

Recognizing the peer pressures their children faced, these parents told us that they did not want their children to become “robots” or “little mindless minion[s], just going by what somebody says.” Their concerns echo an earlier study that one of us (Joanne Golann) published in 2015, questioning whether the no-excuses model’s emphasis on obedience adequately prepares students for the self-directed learning skills they need to be successful in college.

What their children actually get is boot-camp discipline, where parents are called for the smallest infraction, like laughing during a fire drill.

No-excuses students are typically required to wear uniforms, sit straight, with their hands folded on the table, and their eyes continuously on the teacher. At breaks, they walk silently through the halls in single-file lines. Students who follow these stringent expectations are rewarded with privileges, while violators are punished with demerits, detentions, and suspensions.

The researchers say that Montessori schools get good results without harsh discipline in a climate that encourages creativity and collaboration.

I have always wondered where the no-excuses charters found bright young college graduates willing to enforce their harsh rules. Many of them presumably studied in progressive schools and colleges. How did they learn to enforce harsh rules? This “special” and harsh treatment of children of color smacks of colonialism.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, KIPP Charter Schools, Parents, Teachers
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