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Inside Philanthropy: Charters Lose Their Luster in the Philanthropic World

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
31

 

Caitlin Reilly of “Inside Philanthropy” writes that philanthropies no longer see charter schools as the means to transform American education. Although a few have doggedly doubled down on their commitment to charters, there seems to be a broad shift underway. Reilly calls it an “inflection point,” a point where change is undeniable.

She writes:

“Though charter schools have acquired a powerful ally on the national level in the form of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, local backlash and scaling challenges have led to questions about the future of the publicly funded, privately run schools.

“Philanthropic enthusiasm for the charter movement is at a similar inflection point. For now, support for charters seems to be holding. However, the schools have had trouble reaching scale and have yet to catalyze the system-wide transformation many backers hoped for.

“Some of the field’s champions take that as a sign of the work left to do. Those foundations are doubling down on their support for the schools.

“Other funders, including former stalwart backers of charters, see the failure of this model to scale and spread as a reason to pause and consider their future investments. Those foundations tend to see charter schools as an important part of the education landscape, but not as a means to transform the system.

“Meanwhile, major new donors arriving on the education scene from the business world haven’t gravitated to charters in the same way that many such philanthropists did a decade ago. While these schools remain a growing sector within K-12, drawing political support and philanthropic dollars, the momentum around charters among funders has palpably slowed in recent years.”

The bottom line is that charters have become politically toxic, and its hard to paint them as “progressive” when Betsy DeVos is their most potent champion and striking teachers demand a moratorium on them. What’s “progressive” about schools that are highly segregated, overwhelmingly non-union, and have a record of excluding the neediest children?

It’s no accident that the foundation most deeply invested in creating new charters is the archconservative, anti-union Walton Family Foundation, which claims credit for opening 2,000 charters, more than one of every four in the nation. Why is this family, whose net worth exceeds $150 billion, devoted to charters? Charters kill unions. That works for Walmart.

We learn here that Eli Broad seems to losing his once-passionate commitment to charters. Eli  Broad!

“There does seem to be a faction of the charter movement that is stepping back to consider what comes next, and are open to charters playing a smaller role in future efforts.

“One of those people is Andy Stern, a board member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and board chair of the Broad Center.

Stern started out as an unlikely ally of the charter movement. He is the president emeritus of the Service Employees International Union, which grew by 1.2 million workers under his leadership. Given the antagonism many felt charter schools held toward unions, some were surprised by Stern’s decision to get involved with Eli Broad, an early and ardent supporter of the charter movement.

“Stern didn’t see charter schools as antithetical to his work on behalf of workers and unions, though.

“I got involved in charters because of the members’ of my union’s kids,” he said. “To me, giving janitors’ kids a chance to get the best education possible was everything they wanted from coming to this country. In Los Angeles, where we started, that was not their experience.”

“Now, Stern’s enthusiasm for the schools is waning, and it sounds like Broad’s may be, as well.

“So I would say Eli [Broad], absent any of the recent strikes and activities, has been rethinking what he wants to do in education, as he has been thinking about what he wants to do in the arts and science, as well,” Stern said. “As he thinks about his age and what he wants to see happen in a transition, I’d say there is a natural rethinking and reprioritizing going on.”

Reilly did not speak to any critics of charter schools, other than Randi Weingarten, whose union operates a charter school in New York City. She did not speak to Carol Burris or me or Jeff Bryant or Peter Greene or Anthony Cody or Leonie Haimson or Julian Vasquez Heilig or Mercedes Schneider or Tom Ultican or any of the many others who have warned about the rise of charters and the danger they present to public education.

Nor did she examine the many scandals that have brought down the repute of charters, like UNO in Chicago or ECOT in Ohio.

The good news is that many philanthropists are disenchanted with school choice.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation

California: Who Gave the Charter Reform Task Force to the Charter Industry? Mystery Solved!

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
68

 

Sometimes it helps to solve a mystery when you put it out there for public review. Like posting photos of the “Ten Most Wanted Criminals” in every postoffice. Tips come in.

An hour ago, I learned the identity of the person who named the members of the Task Force that is supposed to propose reforms to the state’s notoriously weak charter law. Seven of the 11 members of the Task Force are connected to the charter industry. The choices are so brazen that the chair of the board of the charter lobbying group (California Charter School Association) was named to the Task Force, along with another CCSA employee.

A tip came in. It makes perfect sense.

Governor Newsom’s chief of staff Ann O’Leary selected the Task Force.

O’Leary served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which is unflinchingly pro-charter school.

She was education advisor to Hillary Clinton during her campaign in 2016. Early in the campaign, Carol Burris and I met with her at the Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn. We tried to persuade her that Clinton should oppose charter schools because they are the first step towards privatization. We mustered all our evidence about the dangers to public schools, the risks of deregulation of public money, persistent corruption, suspicious real estate deals, profiteering, etc. She was unmoved. She was insistent that Hillary would not oppose charters. We came back for a second meeting, and the best we could get was that Hillary would oppose for-profit charters. Hillary would not oppose charters.

During the campaign, while in South Carolina, Hillary was asked about charters, and she spontaneously spoke critically about charter schools, saying that they don’t accept everyone. O’Leary must have gotten loud complaints from some funders, because she quickly wrote an article for “Medium” walking back Hillary’s mild critique and reassuring readers that yes, indeed, Hillary supports charter schools, just like Arne Duncan.

Don’t worry, California charter lobbyists and billionaires, corporate charter chains, and entrepreneurs! Ann O’Leary will protect your charters!

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Fraud, Hillary Clinton, Privatization

Los Angeles: Enrollment in Charter Schools Declines While Executive Salaries Soar

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
14

 

Blogger Red Queen in LA (Sara Roos) has combed through tax filings to reveal the exorbitant salaries paid to charter school execitives, demonstrating that the ban of for-profit charter corporations has not limited the raid on taxpayers’ dollarsby charter profiteers. At the same time that charters executives are pulling down hefty salaries, charter enrollments are declining.

She writes:

“Overall, enrollment in LAUSD’s 37 CMO/Gs dropped 16.5% between 2016-17 and 2017-18, from a total of 93,842 to 78,315.”

But executive salaries are staggeringly high.

Dan Katzir, formerly Eli Broad’s Foundation Leader, now brings in more than half a million dollars a year in salary, although he was never a teacher or principal.

The CEO of Green Dot rakes in a tidy $386,000 per annum.

These are private-sector salaries, yet charters have the gall to dub themselves “public schools.”

If they really want to be considered public schools, they should be paid the same as their counterparts in the public sector.

But that might lead to executive flight that exceeded the declines in pupils choosing charter schools.

Next time you hear about those fabled “wait lists” for charter schools, recall that 80% of charters in Los Angeles have vacancies, a fact released to the public by LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

California: How Did Charters Gain Control Of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force to Reform Charter Law?

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
28

 

Bill Raden of Capital & Main presents us with this puzzle: how did it happen that seven of the 11 members of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force in charter school reform are part of the charter industry? 

The Fox is in charge of the henhouse.

Since the Task Force is supposed to examine the fiscal impact of charters on public schools, why is the industry judging itself?

Shouldn’t the Task Force have been composed of public finance experts and others who are not tied to the industry?

Or, if the Task Force was supposed to be representative, shouldn’t the majority represent the almost 90% of families whose children attend public schools, not the 10% in charters?

Why are two members drawn directly from the lobby for the charter industry?

This Task Force is a blatant example of “capture” by the industry. It is akin to the tobacco industry taking control of a commission charged with examining the link between smoking and cancer.

it is an insult to public school parents and teachers, who wrongly assumed that Governor Newsom was not indebted to billionaires like Reed Hastings.

Who did the dirty deed? After talking to Tony Thurmond, I’m convinced he did not give the Task Force to the charter industry.

I’m betting that Gavin Newsom did it to placate the billionaires who love charters.

Does he need them for future campaigns?

The teachers and public school parents of California should be outraged.

If Tony Thurmond manages to get consensus from this Task Force That leads to reform, he deserves credit.

As the series published this past week in the Los Angeles Times showed, the Charter law enables corruption, prevents reasonable regulation, and encourages small districts to poach resources from other districts. The charter industry has fought any genuine accountability and transparency. It heedlessly collapses the efforts of a district like Oakland to recover a sound financial footing. Under the current law, charters in California are parasites, crippling their host.

The answer is not to remove the ability of local districts to control charter growth inside their boundaries but to empower them to make decisions about whether charters should open or close. The role of the state should be to police the fidelity and integrity of districts and charters, not to overrule districts when they reject a charter.

 

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

New Jersey Expose, Part 4: Cashing in on Real Estate Deals in the Charter Market

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
13

 

This post is part 4 of a series published by northjersey.com and USA Today New Jersey. Written by Jean Rimbach and Abbott Koloff, it is called “Cashing in on Charter Schools.” It explores the many ways that charter operators exploit taxpayers.

This post describes how charter operators and real estate developers are cashing in. 

“Interest-only mortgages with rates that grow each year. Multimillion dollar fees for paying off loans early. Property that quickly doubles in price. And buildings sold with markups as high as 70 percent.

“Deals like these inked by New Jersey charter schools — or the private groups that support them — highlight how tax dollars meant for public education can reap profits for investors.

“But they also illustrate the lack of options some charter schools face when trying to find and finance facilities — and an absence of state oversight in the process.

“State education officials say they have no authority to review financing or lease agreements struck by charter schools before they are signed. And they don’t police the private organizations, often called “Friends of” groups, that are created to support charter schools by owning or financing their real estate and, in many cases, enter into contracts on a school’s behalf.

“That includes groups like the Friends of Marion P. Thomas Charter School, which agreed to buy two former Newark public school buildings and paid a deposit but said they couldn’t get financing to complete the purchase. So the group struck a deal with a developer who bought the buildings, which documents show needed “limited” work, and sold them to the Friends at a $10 million markup.

“Other schools, such as the International Academy of Trenton, turned to a Kansas City-based real estate investment trust, or REIT, for financing. The charter school, which the state shut down in June, signed a lease that didn’t allow it to buy its building for five years. At that point, after spending near $8.4 million in rent, it would have been required to pay 120 percent of the total development cost.”

Open the link and read the whole article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization

Garn Press Publishes a Collection of My Most Important Essays

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
16

 

Garn Press, one of the nation’s valuable independent publishers, has compiled a collection of my most important essays. I am grateful for their hard work and dedication in bringing the book to fruition.

The book is titled “The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch.”

It contains selected essays published on this blog, the New York Review of Books, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

I am grateful for the prodigious research that went into this effort by publisher and literary scholar Denny Taylor and her team, as well as the elegant design.

Yohuru Williams, the great scholar of African-American history and my colleague on the board of the Network for Public Education, wrote the introduction.

Should there be any royalties, I have asked that they be given to the Network for Public Education.

To learn more about the book, open any of these links:

Visual Press Release – Enhanced
Best Retail Link Amazon
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Testing

Anthony Cody Fact-Checks Betsy DeVos on Class Size, and Jeanne Allen Scoffs At Cody

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2019 //
22

 

In this post, veteran teacher Anthony Cody explains how he happened to have a seat directly behind Betsy DeVos at the Congressional budget hearings, and he fact-checks DeVos’ preposterous claim that large classes may be preferable to small ones. No one asked her why wealthy parents who send their children to elite private schools expect and demand small classes. If they listen to our Secretary of Education, they should insist on large classes.

He begins:

“A video of Betsy DeVos responding to questions from Lucille Roybal-Allard of the House Appropriations Committee hearing has gone viral, and has been watched now by many thousands of people. I appear in the background, shaking my head as DeVos asserts that larger class sizes might actually be beneficial since they allow students to collaborate with more classmates, and might allow the best teachers to be paid more. So in this post, I will take a look at the actual research on the subject, and a bit of the history of the idea.”

Rightwing Activist Jeanne Allen slammed Cody on Twitter and advised him to spend his time helping needy students. 

Apparently she did not know that he spent 18 years teaching middle school science in Oakland. Cody asked her whether she had ever been a teacher, but she did not respond. She runs an advocacy group-the Center for Education Reform- that supports vouchers, charters, home schooling, and for-profit schooling. She opposes public schools and teachers unions. She works closely with DFER and other anti-public school organizations. That’s her idea of “helping needy students”: not actually teaching them but closing their public schools. Her salary: $217,000.

Read the other comments on this exchange: Mitchell Robinson says that Anthony Cody has “forgotten more about teaching than anyone in your group [the Center for Education Reform] has ever known.” I doubt that there are any teachers on the CER board.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Class size, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

New Jersey Expose, Part 3: How Charter Operators Collected Hundreds of Millions from a Federal Fund for Building Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2019 //
5

 

 

Northjersey.com and USA Today New Jersey are publishing a five-part series of the abuse of taxpayer funds by charter operators. This is part 3 of an investigation called “Cashing In on Charter Schools,” written by Abbott Koloff and Jean Rimbach.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid was steered to New Jersey’s largest charter school management companies over the last decade, helping them to create a network of school buildings that are privately owned.

“In other parts of the country, the same aid programs provided interest-free loans to both traditional public schools and charters to construct and renovate buildings. But a much different model emerged in New Jersey as Gov. Chris Christie’s administration gave the state’s entire share of the federal aid — bonds worth more than a half-billion dollars — to charters and other non-traditional public schools.

“More than three-quarters of that money was awarded to the state’s two largest charter school operators, KIPP New Jersey and Uncommon Schools, which used it in ways that strayed far from the intent of the aid programs.

“The companies fashioned complex financial structures that allow them to exploit the bonds by tapping into the aid as a steady stream of income over decades, using methods that in some cases have drawn the scrutiny of federal investigators.

“The result is a string of school buildings that were built with taxpayer money but remain in private hands. The companies that own them were created to purchase real estate and renovate buildings for charter schools, but they are kept legally separate from the charter schools that send millions of dollars their way each year in rent.

“Charter schools rent these buildings indefinitely. Leases do not contemplate a time when rent payments would end or when the buildings would be turned over to the public charter schools, even after the debt is paid.

“The deals involve related companies that are created to lend money to one another — an arrangement that is not uncommon in the world of private finance. But in this case the arrangements steer tax dollars — federal aid that subsidizes the projects by covering the interest on the loans — to private groups that don’t have to share details with the public or the state about how they use the cash.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization

California: The Charter Law is Broken and Adversaries Don’t Agree on How to Fix It

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2019 //
32

 

 

This is part 3 of the Los Angeles Times’ series about charter school dysfunction in California, written by Anna Phillips. 

Phillips traces many of the problems, especially lack of oversight, to state law.

She explains that the billionaires who fund the rapid expansion of charter schools have squared off against the powerful California Teachers Association, andthe two never agree.

The resultis That a badly flawed lawremains in place.

Phillips quotes several charter school advocates who want to eliminate the role of local school boardsin authorizing charter schools and transfer that power to a single state charter board.

What the advocates never mention is that the school boards have been rendered toothless by the law, which allows charters to appeal their rejection at the local level to the county board. If the county board rejects them, they can appeal to the state board, which has been extremely friendly to charters due to appointments by Governors Schwarzenegger and Brown, both very charter-friendly.

Phillips quotes one charter advocate who points to New York as a model. New York hastwo charter authorizing Boards: the State Board of Regents and the SUNY Charter Institute. Neither supervises the charters they authorize. The SUNY committee consists of appointees of Governor Cuomo, who loves charters and receives big campaign contributions from the charter billionaires and Wall Street charter lobby. When billionaire Merryl Tisch was chair of the Board of Regents, it too was an ally of charters. She is now on the SUNY board. Even now, the Regents continue to endorse charter expansion,despite local objections.

The Network for Public Education, which is not funded by teachers unions, believes that charters should be authorized ONLY by local school districts to meet their needs, not because an entrepreneur wants a school of his own or because a corporate chain sees a chance to grow.

The irony is that the charter billionaires seem already to have captured Governor Gavin Newsom, even though they supported another candidate. Newsom promised charter reform, and he signed a bill requiring accountability and transparency and forbidding conflicts of interest and nepotism. But he may have shackled the charter reform agenda by appointing charter allies to a majority of places on the new state task force to recommend changes to the charter law. Phillips ends her article by mentioning the task force but fails to mention that charter allies were given seven of 11 seats, surely by Newsom.

So this otherwise great series ends for me on a disappointing note. It is far easier for billionaires to capture a single state board or two state boards than to deal with hundreds of local school districts. There is a limit to the number of elections and seats they can buy, even with their deep pockets. One thing has become clear about “Reformers.” They don’t like democracy. They like mayoral control and state control. Local school boards get in their way.

 

 

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

Beto O’Rourke’s Wife Works for an Organization that Brings Charter Schools to El Paso

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2019 //
154

 

I was an enthusiastic supporter of Beto O’Rourke when he ran against Ted Cruz. I regularly sent him checks of $50, $100. I would have loved to see Beto beat Cruz. I heard that Beto’s wife Amy was connected to the charter school movement but decided that was less important than beating Cruz.

Now that Beto is running for President, it matters more. I don’t want another Democratic President pushing privatization of public schools and public money.

i won’t support any candidate who supports charters and/or vouchers. I also feel that he, like some other candidates, lacks the experience to be president.

Beto’s wife, Amy O’Rourke, is part of CREEED, an economic development agency that recruits charters to El Paso as part of an economic development plan (gentrification).

Amy runs the “Choose to Excel” Program, which recruits IDEA and Harmony charters to El Paso. Harmony is part of the Gulen Turkish network. IDEA bolsters its graduation rates by not allowing students to graduate until they have been accepted into a four-year college.

The Hunt Family Foundation gave $12 million to CREEED specifically to recruit more charters to El Paso. The local public school teachers were not happy. 

“Norma De La Rosa, president of the El Paso Teachers Association, said the donation is a slap in the face to public schools and teachers.

“De La Rosa added that charter schools don’t work as closely with special needs and limited English-speaking students.

“Public school is here to provide that education, that support, and prepare our students for the future,” De La Rosa said. “Charter schools do not have the interest of all students at heart.”

“However, Woody Hunt, chairman of the Hunt Family Foundation and vice chairman of CREEED’s board of directors, said he hopes the donation will show large charter school backers, like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that the education community in El Paso is committed to school choice.

“This is a journey, and I think the reason for us to go public at this time is the opportunity we have with some external funders that are potential investors, and we wanted to send the message that the local community is financially supportive of the endeavor,” Hunt said. “

The Washington Post said that Beto and Amy had worked closely with local Republican businessmen on economic development, which some saw as gentrification.

“Before Beto O’Rourke became the darling of liberal online donors, his top financial backers hailed from a different set entirely — wealthy businessmen who have sought political influence by collectively donating millions of dollars to Republicans.

“Several of El Paso’s richest business moguls donated to and raised money for O’Rourke’ s city council campaigns, drawn to his support for a plan to redevelop El Paso’s poorer neighborhoods. Some later backed a super PAC that would play a key role in helping him defeat an incumbent Democratic congressman.

“For his part, O’Rourke worked on issues that had the potential to make money for some of his benefactors. His support as a council member for the redevelopment plan, which sparked controversy at the time because it involved relocating low-income residents, many of them Hispanic, coincided with property investments by some  of his benefactors.https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-32/html/container.htmlAs a congressman he supported a $2 billion military funding increase that benefited a company controlled by another major donor. That donor, real estate developer Woody Hunt, was friends with O’Rourke’s late father. Hunt also co-founded and funds an El Paso nonprofit organization that has employed O’Rourke’s wife since 2016.

“We shared a common goal,” said Ted Houghton, a local financial adviser and longtime O’Rourke donor who raised money for former Texas governor Rick Perry, a Republican, and helped steer millions in state transportation funding to the city. “The common goal was we needed to move El Paso in a different direction.”…

”In contrast to the aspirational image he has fostered in recent years, however, O’Rourke’s political career traced a more traditional path for a Texas politician — winning support from a typically pro-GOP business establishment interested in swaying public policy. Born into one politically potent family and married into another, he benefited repeatedly from his relationships with El Paso’s most powerful residents, including several nationally known Republican moneymen….

“Once O’Rourke got to Congress, he made cleaning up corruption in government a priority. He stopped taking money from political action committees after his first term, promised to support term limits for members of Congress, and sponsored bills to provide partial public financing for campaigns and limit donations to national party committees.

“At the same time, O’Rourke continued to receive large amounts of money from employees of companies run by major donors. Employees of one of his father-in-law’s former companies, Strategic Growth Bank, including Sanders himself, gave $57,400 during O’Rourke’s 2014 and 2016 House campaigns. Employees of El Paso-based Western Refining, including its chairman, Foster, gave $10,600 in 2014.

“Hunt Companies’ employees, including Hunt, gave $60,300 to O’Rourke in the 2014 and 2016 cycles, more than the employees of any other business, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“O’Rourke worked in Congress to promote a military funding issue that directly affected Hunt’s business. Hunt Companies boasts of being the nation’s largest builder and manager of privatized military housing in the country. In 2015, the Obama administration persuaded Congress to cut troop stipends for those units.

“Until then, troops who lived in the privatized units on bases would receive a monthly stipend equal to their projected rent. But when the cuts became law in 2014, the stipend was to be gradually reduced. As a result, providers of base housing were faced with either reducing their rents and losing revenue or risking the loss of tenants by asking soldiers to pay out of pocket.

“In response, Hunt Companies’ lobbyists billed $380,000 in 2017 and 2018 for work that included contact with Congress on military housing and defense appropriations issues. During this period, O’Rourke’s office listed restoring the money for privatized housing as the 13th of 15 priorities in an internal database shared with Republican leaders, according to a person familiar with the work of O’Rourke’s congressional office.

“With the support of Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee, who had opposed the initial housing stipend cuts, the defense spending bill that passed in 2018 included an increase in funding for privatized housing that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cost taxpayers an additional $2 billion between 2019 and 2023. O’Rourke voted for the bill, which President Trump signed.

“O’Rourke’s spokesman said Hunt played no role in O’Rourke’s support for the measure.”

Forbes took up the question of whether Amy Sanders O’Rourke is a billionaire heiress. It disputed that characterization and concluded that her father was worth “only” $500 million. 

Whatever her father is worth is irrelevant.

What bothers me is that she is deeply tied to the charter ideology, with charters used as a tool to transform the economy while drawing funds from the local public schools.

The Intercept wrote here about Beto’s charter school problem. Frankly, I hope that every Democratic candidate realizes that charter schools are an albatross and that real Democrats support public schools. Charter schools are part of the Republican ideology of consumer choice andthe superiority of free markets. Charter schools and vouchers are points on the same spectrum.

That’s why I won’t support Beto in the primaries.

If he is the candidate, I will support him against Trump.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools
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