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Carol Burris: Another Religious Charter School Applies for Public Funding in Oklahoma, Backed by For-Profit Corporation

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2025 //
13

In this post, Carol Burris reviews the latest challenge to separation of church and state. A religious school has applied for public funding as an online charter school. But that’s not all: the religious school is a tentacle in the vast for-profit empire of the Florida-based Academia charter chain.

Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education (NPE). She was a teacher and principal in New York State and was designated as Principal of the Year. She is an expert on the charter school sector. She follows the money, studying federal records, state records, and financial reports. She has posted numerous reports, which can be found on the website of NPE.

Burris writes:

After the first bid for an online religious charter failed in Oklahoma, we were told it would not be the last. True to that promise, the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter Foundation has informed Oklahoma’s statewide charter board that it plans to seek public funding for an online high school serving roughly 40 students to start. According to Peter Deutch, who filed the letter of intent, a complete application is expected to be submitted before the end of the year. While owning a residence in Florida, Deutsch has lived in Israel for more than a decade.  

Ben Gamla Charter Schools were founded in 2007 by Deutsch under the nonprofit umbrella of the National Ben Gamla Charterschool Foundation Inc. Students receive instruction in Hebrew language and learn about Israeli culture and Jewish history during school hours. Religious teachings (such as prayers or Torah study) are offered as optional programs after school hours. According to this 2013 article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA),

About 150 students mill around for a few minutes before heading back to the classrooms. They are followed by Orthodox rabbis with dangling tzitzit fringes and black-velvet yarmulkes pushing carts laden with prayer books and snacks.

Within a few minutes, the kids are chanting morning prayers — even though it’s afternoon and until a few minutes earlier, the classrooms had belonged to a taxpayer-funded public school.

That’s because Ben Gamla’s lease on the building lapses at about 2:15 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. For the next two hours, the classrooms are taken over by a religious Jewish after-school program.

From the beginning, it was widely understood that Peter Deutsch’s goal in launching Ben Gamla was to create a publicly funded alternative to Jewish day schools, which charge tuition and are often financially out of reach for many families. Deutch is not shy about using his charters to promote Jewish communal purposes. He made it clear to the Times of Israel that, “He wants to give Jewish kids who otherwise would attend public school an opportunity to be in a Jewish environment and develop a Jewish identity — at taxpayer expense. The Hebrew curriculum includes Israel education and Jewish history, and most of the schools are located on Jewish community campuses. Some 85 percent of the students are Jewish. Supplementary after-school religious programs take place onsite or nearby.”

Now, Deutsch appears to be abandoning even the pretense of maintaining a secular framework, creating a new nonprofit that includes “Jewish” in the foundation name. His new vision would effectively erase the boundary between public education and religious instruction, pushing the model well beyond the constitutional line that Ben Gamla once claimed to walk carefully around.

But Ben Gamla’s story is even more complicated than above. Since its beginning, Ben Gamla charter schools have been run by a for-profit corporation—the largest for-profit charter management corporation in the United States—Academica.

Ben Gamla and the For-Profit Academica

To understand how deeply Academica’s involvement with Ben Gamla reaches, one need only examine the network’s earliest tax filings. The first available IRS Form 990—filed in 2009 for the 2008 school year, when the original Hollywood, Florida campus was the only Ben Gamla school open—lists the organization’s address as 6361 Sunset Drive in Miami, the location of Academica’s offices at the time. By the 2011 submission, Academica had moved to 6340 Sunset Drive, Miami. That address then appears as the Ben Gamla address on the Foundation’s subsequent 990s.

The overlap goes beyond shared office space. Those early tax forms were signed and submitted by Academica’s longtime Chief Financial Officer, underscoring that from the very beginning, Academica was not merely a vendor or service provider—it functioned as the operational and administrative engine behind the Ben Gamla charter school network.

The Ben Gamla Foundation’s address at 6340 Sunset Drive is still listed on the latest public 990.According to the latest Foundation audit, Academica provides both “academic and administrative services, including, but not limited to, facility design, staffing recommendations, human resource coordination, regulatory compliance, legal and corporate upkeep, maintenance of the books and records, bookkeeping, budgeting, financial reporting, and virtual education services.” Personnel in the school work for another for-profit ADP, which appears as the personnel vendor for many Academica-run schools. 

But that is not all. The audit lists the following Academica-related corporations as having received finance lease agreements and lease liability payments for its Hollywood and North campuses in 2023: North Miami Lakes Campus, LLC, Van Buren Facility, LLC, and Hollywood Educational Annex, LLC. These corporations, located at the same address as Ben Gamla and Academica companies and affiliated charter chains, are three of scores of real estate arms of the for-profit. 

During the 2023-24 school year alone, the Ben Gamla Charterschool Foundation, Inc. paid Academica and what the audit terms as “its affiliates” $3,413,317.00.

The relationship between the for-profit Academica and charter schools is repeated across the nation: Academica’s “brands” are nonprofits that hold charters and get taxpayer funds, including federal CSP grants, while Academica, for all intents and purposes, runs the schools. 

Other Academica-affiliated charter brands beyond Ben Gamla include:

• Somerset Academy, Inc. – A large charter school network (founded 1997) that partners with Academica. It encompasses roughly 80 schools across Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Arizona, with a small international presence inSpain.

• Mater Academy, Inc. – A Florida-based chain (founded 1998) supported by Academica, and started by Academica’s owner, Francisco Zulueta. Mater Academy has grown to 44 charter schools in 3 states (primarily Florida and Nevada, with recent expansion to Texas). 

• Doral Academy, Inc. – A charter school network (founded 1999) affiliated with Academica and originating in Doral, FL. It operates 16 schools across six states – Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, North Carolina, and Texas. 

• Pinecrest Academy, Inc. – A charter network under Academica’s umbrella, founded in 2000. Pinecrest Academy operates 26 schools in Florida, Nevada, and Idaho.

• Sports Leadership & Management (SLAM) – A specialized charter school network focusing on sports-themed academics, co-founded by artist Pitbull in partnership with Academica. Since the first SLAM opened in Miami (2013), the network has expanded to multiple campuses. SLAM schools are located in Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas. 

• CIVICA – A newer Academica-affiliated charter network focused on career and civic leadership academies. It began with the City of Hialeah Educational Academy (COHEA) in Florida and has grown into the CIVICA Network operating schools in Florida, Nevada, and Colorado.

• International Studies Charter Schools, Inc. – A boutique network of multilingual college-prep charters in South Florida supported by Academica in Florida. 

• Independence Classical Academy: Academica’s latest brand of classical virtuous charter schools, with schools opening in Colorado and Nevada.

Nearly all of these chains have an Academica-supported online school. In addition, Academica provides both national and international for-profit virtual education. And it operates colleges associated with its charter chains in Florida. All of this is tied together neatly by the for-profit here.

Implications for Religious Charter Schools

To believe that Peter Deutsch—who resides in Israel—and the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter Foundation, which he created, are seeking approval to open a virtual religious charter school in Oklahoma without the quiet support and coordination of Academica is simply naïve. Fewer than 0.1% of Oklahomans identify as Jewish. No one launches a niche virtual religious charter in that context unless a far more powerful operator is standing behind it. 

And Academica is nothing if not opportunistic. When CTE schools became trendy, Academica created the Civica chain. When “classical education” surged in conservative states, it launched the Independence charter network. Whenever a new market emerges—no matter how small, remote, or ideologically charged—Academica is there to plant a flag.

Academica likely brings in billions each year through its vast ecosystem of charter schools, real-estate deals, management fees, and related-party businesses. But for Academica, enough is never enough. The possibility of religious charter schools—publicly funded, lightly regulated, and ideologically branded—is not just appealing. It’s a gold mine. 

Some will insist this new online religious charter will be “independent.” It will not be. The pattern is already documented. As far back as 2013, the Fordham Institute—itself a charter school authorizer—admitted as much. When a Ben Gamla governing board attempted to fulfill its legal duty to operate independently from the Foundation and Academica, it was swiftly shut down. The Institute’s candor in its commentary confirmed what insiders already knew: independence is tolerated only until it interferes with the chain and its operator’s control. From that report:

“But it seems this local board took its job too seriously. Peter Deutsch, the founder of the Ben Gamla network and a former Congressman from South Florida, told the Tampa Bay Times that the local board ended up making all the decisions about the school. The foundation, he said, wanted more control.”

If the Oklahoma Virtual Charter Board approves this application when filed and the case ultimately reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, the challengers won’t just be arguing before a bench that includes Amy Coney Barrett. They will also confront the power behind an established charter chain whose own governance and for-profit entanglements make the point more clearly than any brief could: charter schools—despite what their advocates claim—are not truly public schools in most states at all.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state

At the Root of Charter School Scandals: Lobbying for Money and Power

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2025 //
10

Ismael Loera writes in The Fulcrum about the recent scandal at Success Academy, the celebrated charter chain that regularly posts high test scores. Recordings leaked, showing that the leadership required teachers and all other staff to contact legislators on behalf of charter schools.

To a seasoned New Yorker who follows the shenanigans at charter schools, this is no scandal. It’s simply the charter school way of doing business. Both students and staff are props for their political and financial interests. Loera lives in Boston, so she might not be accustomed to Success Academy’s tactics.

Success Academy has been systematic about mobilizing its teachers and its students to demand legislation to protest any restrictions and to oppose accountability. This not a New York City phenomenon. It’s the way that charters get a firm foothold in state legislatures.

The fact that Loera finds this blatant political activity disturbing seems to reflect a certain naïveté. The charter lobbyists in every state have worked as other lobbyists do: they write the legislation; they build in privileges and protections; they attack the motives of anyone demanding accountability. Eva Moskowitz has been more eative than most charter leaders in using students to pack legislative hearings, to take buses to the state Capitol, and to engage in activities to protect the charters’ interests.

Loera wrote:

When I was running a school, I knew that every hour of my team’s day mattered. A well-prepared lesson, a timely phone call home to a parent, or a few extra minutes spent helping a struggling student were the kinds of investments that added up to better outcomes for kids. 

That is why the leaked recording of Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz pressuring staff to lobby elected officials hit me so hard. In an audio first reported by Gothamist, she tells employees, “Every single one of you must make calls,” assigning quotas to contact lawmakers. On September 18th, the network of 59 schools canceled classes for its roughly 22,000 students to bring them to a political rally during the school day. What should have been time for teaching and learning became a political operation.

This is not simply about one leader’s poor judgment. It exposes a structural reality in the charter model. Unlike traditional public schools, charters must continually secure their share of taxpayer dollars, which creates pressures that blur the line between education and politics. Public money intended for classrooms can easily be redirected toward political activity.

Success Academy has a history of doing this, having mobilized staff and families for rallies during the early days of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. More recently, charter leaders aimed pointed comments at Zohran Mamdani’s opposition to lifting the charter school cap in NYC beyond the current limit of 275, avoiding his name but making clear he was the target. That level of hostility toward an elected official’s policy stance edges close to electioneering and shows how charters use taxpayer resources and compromise public trust.

The pattern makes clear that this is not a one-time mistake but a recurring strategy. If a school cannot survive without turning its teachers and its students into a lobbying force, then it does not deserve to survive.

The costs of this pressure are real. Every hour assigned to calling legislators is an hour lost to lesson planning, supporting a struggling reader, or improving curriculum. Involving children in rallies goes even further, turning students into props for a cause they did not choose. Families send their children to school to learn, and taxpayers expect their dollars to fund classrooms, not political campaigns.

I know from personal experience how easily this kind of mission drift happens. As a charter school leader, I once sat through an anti-union presentation about blocking organizing. The tactic was different, but the impulse was the same: using institutional power to shape employees’ civic choices. Whether the issue is suppressing a union drive or directing staff to advocate for legislation, coercing political activity erodes trust and undermines the purpose of schools.

Charter networks have also invested heavily in professional lobbying. Families for Excellent Schools, a former NYC advocacy group for charters, once spent nearly $10 million on lobbying in a single year in New York. Success Academy itself reported $160,000 in federal lobbying in 2024. Those outlays are legal. But was Moskowitz trying to save money by conscripting educators and even students into the work that paid lobbyists usually do? That is legally questionable. The fact that someone on the inside took the risk to leak the recording shows some recognition of how inappropriate these practices were.

Lawmakers have already taken notice. State Senators John Liu and Shelley Mayer called the Moskowitz rally “an egregious misuse of instructional time and state funds” and urged a formal investigation. 

Publicly funded institutions should never compel political participation, and clear boundaries protect everyone. Leaders know their limits, employees know their rights, and families can trust that students will not be pulled into political theater.

Policy reforms can strengthen those boundaries. Oregon bars employers from disciplining workers who refuse to attend political or religious meetings, and Connecticut bans mandatory political meetings outright. New York should adopt similar protections and go further for publicly funded schools. Any requirement that employees engage in political lobbying during work hours or with public resources should be explicitly prohibited. Students should never be taken out of class to participate in political events.

Some will argue this is only one leader’s excess. That response ignores the incentives built into a model that ties school growth and charter renewal to political capital. Unless lawmakers act, the cycle will repeat. The safer and fairer path is to set boundaries that keep politics out of the school day, protect staff from coercion, and safeguard children’s learning.

When I left school leadership, a mentor told me, “The real test of a model is what it makes people do under pressure.” The Success Academy scandal is a test for the charter sector, and it’s failing. Institutions that rely on coerced speech to sustain themselves are not just bending rules; they are breaking faith with the families and taxpayers who fund them.

Ismael Loera is the Director of People and Culture at Room to Grow and a Paul and Daisy Soros and Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Scandals

What You Need to Know about New Orleans: The Stories Behind the Statistics

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2025 //
3

Kristen Buras lives in New Orleans and has written several notable books about the charter school takeover of the city’s schools. After two decades at Emory University and Georgia State University, she currently works in New Orleans as a scholar-activist. She is cofounder and director of the New Orleans-based Urban South Grassroots Research Collective, a coalition with Black educational and cultural groups that melds community-based research and organizing for racial justice. Buras has written multiple books on urban educational policy, including Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance and What We Stand to Lose: Black Teachers, the Culture They Created, and the Closure of a New Orleans High School.

Her latest report appears here:

The Stories Behind the Statistics: Why a Report on ‘Large Achievement Gains’ in Charter Schools Harms New Orleans’ Black Students

Buras’ latest report exposes how “Large Achievement Gains” in New Orleans’ charter schools mask persistent inequities

The National Center for Charter School Accountability (CCSA), a project of NPE, has released a new independent report, The Stories Behind the Statistics: Why a Report on ‘Large Achievement Gains’ in Charter Schools Harms New Orleans’ Black Students, authored by noted scholar Dr. Kristen Buras. The report delivers a penetrating critique of the widely circulated “success narrative” surrounding the charter-school takeover of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. It challenges the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans (ERA)’s claims of significant achievement gains. It reveals how shifting metrics, questionable data, and students’ lived experiences paint a far more complex—and troubling—picture.

The Stories Behind Statistics raises substantial concerns about the foundations of ERA’s conclusions. First, it details how Louisiana officials repeatedly modified the school performance metrics in ways that boosted the apparent success of charter schools, creating an illusion of dramatic improvement. Second, it questions the reliability of the data ERA relied upon, noting allegations, lawsuits, and documented violations—including grade-fixing, financial mismanagement, and other irregularities—that have occurred across the New Orleans charter sector. Third, the report underscores the longstanding lack of meaningful oversight and accountability for charter schools, which further undermines confidence in the performance data.

Finally, the report scrutinizes ERA’s surveys on teaching quality and school climate, demonstrating that the experiences of Black students—when examined at the school level—are far more negative than ERA’s brief suggests. To bring these realities into focus, Dr. Buras incorporates original qualitative research, including firsthand testimony from students and parents describing their experiences in New Orleans charter schools.

The Stories Behind the Statistics urges policymakers, researchers, and the public to look beyond celebratory headlines and examine the deeper structural issues that continue to shape the city’s all-charter experiment—issues that profoundly affect the educational experiences of Black youth and their families.

According to Network for Public Education President Diane Ravitch, “As cities and states across the nation look to New Orleans as a model of charter-school reform, this report cautions how important it is to dig deeper than surface metrics. Without transparency, accountability, and attention to student experience, reforms that appear successful on paper may in fact perpetuate inequities and undermine educational justice for students.” 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Hoax, Inequality, Louisiana, New Orleans

Stephen Dyer: How the Ohio Legislature Cheats the Majority of Students, Who Are Enrolled in PUBLIC Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2025 //
1

Stephen Dyer is a former legislator who keeps watch on the ways that Ohio Republicans have cheated public school students. Ohio Republicans love charters and vouchers, even though taxpayers have been ripped off repeatedly for years by grifters.

He writes on his blog Tenth Period:

Look, I like Greg Lawson as a guy. We’ve been on panels together and fought over things on the radio and in other places. 

But man, he really, really thinks y’all are stupid.

In an op-ed he had published in the Columbus Dispatch yesterday where he argued that public school districts whine too much about money, he made the following claim:

“State K-12 spending in 2023 was 39.5% higher than in 2010 — and school spending in 2024 and 2025 shows no sign of cooling off: “State funding for primary and secondary education totaled $11.64 billion in FY 23; was $13 billion in FY 24 (a $1.36 billion or 11.7% increase); and is estimated at $13.42 billion in FY 25, the second year of the state budget (a $415.8 million or 3.2% increase).”

See, Greg wants you to conclude something from these numbers: that public school districts are swimming in money and their griping over vouchers and his budget-sucking agenda is bullshit. It’s those greedy bastards in your local school districts that are causing your property taxes to skyrocket.

What he leaves out is that the numbers he’s using to make the districts-swimming-in-money claim include money for charter schools and vouchers. 

That’s right. 

He’s writing an entire article complaining that school districts whine too much about vouchers taking away money from public school kids by citing K-12 expenditure data that … includes money going to vouchers and charter schools.

Can’t make it up.

I’ll break down his ridiculous claim in two parts. 

Part I — Overall K-12 Funding

First, let’s look at the overall claim — massive increases to K-12 spending. Forget about the fact that the voucher and charter money need to be deducted out of that number. 

Let’s just look at Greg’s topline claim — the state’s spending tons more now than 15 years ago on K-12 education, so quit whining! 

Yes. Spending is up. But you know what else is up? 

Inflation. 

See, in the 2009-2010 school year, the state spent a total of $7.9 billion on K-12 education. In the 2024-2025 school year, that number was $11.5 billion. 

Big jump, right?

Well, if you adjust for 2025 dollars, that $7.9 billion spent on K-12 education in 2009-2010 is the equivalent of $11.9 billion, or about $400 million less than what the state spent on K-12 education last school year.

Let me repeat that.

The state is spending the equivalent of $400 million less on K-12 education than they did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation.

Funny Greg didn’t mention that.

Part II — Privatizers Force Property Tax Increases

Now let’s look at charters and vouchers. Let’s just set aside how poorly charters prepare kids, or how the EdChoice program is an unconstitutional scheme that provides not a single dollar to a parent or child and voucher test scores aren’t great either, compared with school district counterparts.

Let’s just look at the money.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Ohio sent $768 million to charter schools and vouchers. 

Last school year, that number was $2.3 billion. 

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a more than 100% increase in funding for these privatization efforts … above inflation!

So while in 2009-2010 the state spent about same percentage of their K-12 spend on the percentage of kids who attended public schools at the time, last year the state spent 77% of their K-12 spend on the 84% of kids who attended public schools.

This cut in the share of state funding going to public school students can be directly tied to the state more than doubling the inflationary increase on charter schools and vouchers over the last 15 years.

Bottom line: What has this meant in funding for Ohio’s public school kids?

Well, in 2009-2010, the state, after deducting charter school and voucher funding, provided $7.1 billion for Ohio’s public school students. 

Adjusted for inflation, that’s $10.7 billion in today’s dollars. 

(I would also like to add that the 2009-2010 school year was the first year of the Evidence Based model of school funding that I shaped as the Chairman of the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee on the Ohio House Finance Committee. We pulled off this investment — greater than last school year’s investment, adjusted for inflation — in the middle of the Great Recession. So it’s not like we had shit tons of money lying around the way lawmakers do now. Which should tell you about the priorities back then vs. today.)

I digress.

Last school year, Ohio’s public school students received $9.1 billion.

That means that Ohio’s public school students are receiving $1.6 billion less, adjusted for inflation, than they did 15 years ago.

Should I mention here that not a single penny of the more than $1 billion going to vouchers is publicly audited to ensure the money goes to educate kids rather than Lambos for Administrators?

Anyway.

Put another way: If Ohio lawmakers and governors had simply kept the same commitment to charter schools and vouchers that they did 15 years ago and kept pace with inflation on their K-12 spend, Ohio’s public school students would have received $1.6 billion more last year than they actually did. 

In other words, we’d have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan.

I’m not asking the legislature or Governor to do anything crazy here. No elimination of vouchers and charters. 

This is simply doing inflationary increases and making sure the percentage of state funding going to each sector (public, charter and voucher) matched the percentage of kids attending each sector. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if the state had actually let “money follow the child”, Ohio’s public school students would have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan and there would stillhave a $1.2 billion charter and voucher program!

Instead, state leaders have so overvalued private school vouchers and charter schools that now we have an unconstitutional EdChoice voucher program that doesn’t send a single dollar to a parent or student, charter schools that spend about double the amount per pupil on administration that public schools spend while tragically failing to graduate students, and a school funding formula that’s severely underfunded for the 84% of students who attend public school districts. 

While Greg might tell school districts, “Quit your bitching!”, I might humbly suggest that school districts haven’t bitched enough.

So when people complain about property taxes, directly point fingers at the Ohio legislature and Governor because they’re doing what they’ve always done — force you to fund the only thing — public schools — the Ohio Constitution requires them to fund. 

It’s governmental malpractice. And our kids are the ones who suffer.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Corporate Reformers Take Charge of National Governors Association, Undermine Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2025 //
9

The National Governors Association is led this year by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a cheerleader for charter schools who launched two of his own.

The NGA, at Polis’ instigation, chose K-12 education as its leading issue for the year, which is very bad news, considering his low opinion of public schools.

Mike DeGuire, former principal in Denver Public Schools and current public school activist, described the NGA meeting when Governor Polis invited Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, former wrestling entrepreneur, to discuss the needs and future of American education.

At the top of their concerns was the failure of public schools to prepare students for the workforce. Long ago, education leaders used to describe the purpose of education as preparation for citizenship in a democratic society. But that was then and this is now.

DeGuire described the cohort assembled by Governor Polis, all leaders of the corporate reform sector:

As the 2024-25 chair of the National Governors Association, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, selected K-12 education as the priority of the NGA’s yearlong initiative. Titled “Let’s Get Ready! Educating all Americans for Success,” the project defined its purpose in its call to action: Identify solutions to address the belief that schools are not preparing graduates adequately for the work force today. 

The initiative had support from philanthropic foundations and companies that promote technology-related solutions, school choice, data-driven accountability, and other neoliberal market-based reforms in public education. One of the supporters, Stand Together Trust, founded by Charles Koch, provided millions to groups that back charter schools and other “alternatives to public education.” 

Many of the “project team” members were involved with organizations that prioritized “redesigning” the public education system. Polis has been a longtime supporter of expanding charter schools and workforce training as ways to address deficits in student outcomes, and eight of his staff worked on this project. Project team member Jen Walmer was on Polis’ staff in his first administration, and she worked previously as the Colorado director of Democrats for Education reform, which continues to call for Democrats to support school choice and charters.

The project team also included representatives from Watershed Advisors, All4Ed, Savi Advising, and the Urban Institute. Watershed’s CEO, Kunjan Narechania, was the CEO of the all-charter Recovery School District in New Orleans. Several Watershedand All4Ed staff either worked or trained in the Chiefs for Change program, which Jeb Bush founded to promote charter school models. All4Ed promotes online learning in both charter and district schools. 

Savi Advising’s founder, Archana Patel, worked for KIPP charter schools and was the senior director at the Broad Academy, a training ground for school leaders to promote charter schools. The Urban Institute published research that downplayed the effects caused by charter schools in exacerbating school segregation. The Institute received $11 million from the Walton Family Foundation and other foundations to identify “measures of students’ skills and competencies in prekindergarten (PK) through 12th grade that drive economic mobility.”  

Polis chaired seven “convening” sessions to determine the project’s outcomes. Featured “experts” at the sessions included Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy Charter schools in New York; Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, a computer-based learning system; Geoffrey Canada, founder of Harlem Children’s Zone charter schools; John B. King, founder of the Uncommon schools charter chain; Angela Duckworth, co-founder with Dave Levin (KIPP charter school chain founder) of the now defunct Character Lab; and Steve Levitt, author of Freakonomics and a promoter of personalized AI tutoring. 

Secretary McMahon added her views about the needs of students today:

McMahon commented that a “return to shop classes” would serve some students better for their future job opportunities. She stated, “We have to rethink how we’re doing education … from beginning to end the goal is to get people into a productive job.” 

“Shop classes”? Really. That’s really turning the clock back!

At a time when major corporations are shedding tens of thousands of workers and executives, when AI poses a challenge to many current occupations, none of these neoliberal ideas seems relevant today.

DeGuire recommends a broader role for education today:

While workforce preparation is an important part of schooling, defining education primarily as a pipeline for economic productivity in the marketplace ignores the broader purposes of education. The Polis report neglects to focus on the essential role educators provide in developing positive relationships with students, and the benefits students gain through an emphasis on critical thinking, creativity, collaborative learning and exposure to the arts, social sciences and the humanities. Focusing primarily on charter schools as the answer to America’s problems in education negates the findings that 70% of parents are satisfied with their local public schools, as well as the research that charter schools have not proven to be the answer to America’s education problems. 

One of the defining characteristics of corporate reformers is that they cling to failed ideas. They have claimed for the past 35 years that school choice, high-stakes testing, competition, and incentives would drive school improvement. They refuse to admit that their ideas have been tried and didn’t work. NCLB, Race to the Top, and Common Core came and went. Of course, the “reformers” are dissatisfied because none of their promises was successful.

Rather than admit defeat, they keep repeating the same old same old.

Shop class indeed!

Categories Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, School Choice

Chalkbeat: Union-Backed Candidates Sweep Denver School Board, Beating Big-Money Charter Supporters

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2025 //
8

The big money promoting privatization in Denver tried to capture the Denver school board, but was defeated by candidates endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

Chalkbeat Colorado reported:

Denver school board candidates backed by the teachers union won all four open seats Tuesday, unofficial election returns show, making it likely the board’s current balance of power will hold.

Eleven candidates were vying for four seats on the seven-member Denver school board.

Union-backed candidates won by commanding leads in three of the races and a solid lead in the fourth, according to unofficial returns. Two of the three incumbents who ran for reelection, Michelle Quattlebaum and Scott Esserman, lost their seats.

Teachers union-backed board members have controlled the board of Colorado’s largest school district for the past six years. Members who support charter schools and other education reform strategies gained a bigger foothold in 2023 and had a chance to flip the board majority this year.

Now, the board will continue to be composed of four members who were endorsed by the teachers union and three who were backed by reform interests.

Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Rob Gould called the early returns on Tuesday a victory of “people over money.” Like in past elections, reform groups were on track to outspend the teachers union, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Colorado, Democrats for Education Reform, Denver, Education Reform, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Unions

Jan Resseger: Don’t Believe the Lies about State Control of Federal Funds

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2025 //
9

Jan Resseger recently read Arne Duncan’s cheerful hopes for the Trump education agenda and encouraged the public to look at the bright side. Then Jan remembered Arne’s disastrous Race to the Top, which even the U.S. Department of Education rated as a waste of money, and Jan looked elsewhere for advice. She found Kevin Welner’s sage thoughts.

My view is that Trump, his budget director Russell Vought, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon ultimately hope to turn all federal funding into block grants to the states, no strings attached. No money dedicated to students with disabilities, no money for schools enrolling large numbers of low-income students. Federal regulations drafted by hard-hearted zealots of the Trump administration will be directed to vouchers, charters, cyber schooling and home schooling.

Don’t be fooled: The Trump administration wants to destroy public schools.

Jan writes:

In a recent column in the Washington Post, Arne Duncan suggested that even Democrat-led states can opt into the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax credit school voucher program and redirect the funds into public schools or at least into programs that support achievement in public schools as a way to replace COVID American Rescue Plan funds that have run out. “This solution is a no-brainer,” he declares.

Here is Arne’s prescription: “The new federal tax credit scholarship program, passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allows taxpayers to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs. These SGOs can fund a range of services already embraced by blue-state leaders, such as tutoring, transportation, special education services and learning technology. For both current governors and gubernatorial candidates, it’s a chance to show voters that they’re willing to do what it takes to deliver for students and families, no matter where the ideas originate.  By opting in, a governor unlocks these resources for students in their state. Some Democratic leaders have hesitated, however, worried that the program could be seen as undermining public schools, since private scholarships are also eligible. But that misses the point.”

Remember that Arne Duncan launched Race to the Top, which brought No Child Left Behind’s test-and-punish regime into the Obama years by offering gigantic federal grants as a bribe for states to turn around their lowest scoring 5% of public schools with rigid improvement plans—with the schools that failed to improve being closed or charterized—and with the teachers being held accountable and punished if they couldn’t quickly raise test scores. Because none of Arne’s programs worked out, I am hesitant to take Arne Duncan’s advice.

It is wiser to heed Kevin Welner’s warning in a new policy memo: Governors Beware: The Voucher Advocates in DC Are Not Serious about Returning Education to the States.  Welner is a professor of education policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the director of the National Education Policy Center.

Welner explains that the One Big Beautiful Bill requires the governors of the states to opt into the federal tax credit vouchers (or choose to opt out).  As Welner lists how the money can be used, it is clear that the federal dollars can be spent on private education but that, in addition, some programs supporting public schools themselves or their students could qualify: “Under the OBBB, nonprofit Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) in states opting into the program are authorized to pool the donated money and then hand out “scholarships” for students’ ‘qualified elementary or secondary education expense[s].’ This is limited to the expenses allowed for Coverdell Savings Accounts,¹ which are tied to school-related needs, such as tuition, fees, and academic tutoring; special needs services in the case of a special needs beneficiary; books, supplies and other equipment; computer technology, equipment, and Internet access for the use of the beneficiary; and, in some cases, room and board, uniforms, transportation, and extended day (after-school) programs.”

Welner continues: “This idea of ensuring that each state could implement the program in ways that allow all flexibility is consistent with the Trump administration’s vociferous embrace of “returning education quite simply back to the states where it belongs.”  Welner, however, remains skeptical that the Trump administration really plans to return control of federal dollars back to the states:

“Unfortunately, the U.S. Treasury Department rulemaking is likely to deny states the promised flexibility, notwithstanding the administration’s rhetoric about ‘returning education to the states.’ While the law’s ardent supporters may want Democratic governors to participate, they don’t want to give them the flexibility permitted by the law itself… (T)he key issues for state leaders, particularly the governors who will make the opt-out or opt-in decision in most states, involve whether they can shape the program as it is implemented in their states.” Welner lists key concerns for governors and for those of us who have watched the damage done by the voucher programs now established by many state legislatures. “Governors will want to know… if they can:

  1. “Place requirements on SGOs involving reporting, governance, transparency, access, non-discrimination, profiteering, and prioritization of students with greater need;
  2. “Require that schools and other vendors… be accessible to students and not engage in discrimination against protected groups of students, including members of the LGBTQ+ community;
  3. “Put quality-control policies in place to weed out the lowest-quality of these vendors;
  4. “Limit the program to just one or two of the Coverdell categories, ideally research-based options such as high-impact tutoring and after-school programs.”

Welner warns, however, that powerful advocates at the federal level are “pushing hard for regulations that slam the door on any approach that does not further the growth of largely unregulated voucher programs.”

He recounts many of the problems with state level private school tuition vouchers:  Josh Cowen’s research documenting low academic achievement in voucher programs in Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio; the failure of voucher programs to protect students’ civil rights; “free-exercise” justification for public dollars diverted to religious schools; failure to provide programs for disabled students; diversion of massive state dollars to support private school tuition for wealthy students; and states’ failure to regulate teacher qualifications, curriculum, equal access, and oversight of tax dollars.

Welner thinks governors might do well to wait to make the decision about opting in until they can review the formal guidance which will eventually be provided by the U.S. Treasury Department. “(F)or state leaders who are tempted to opt in, that decision could be publicly announced as conditional on the Treasury regulations allowing the state the flexibility to include specified access, quality, and non-discrimination protections for the state’s students. “

He concludes: “In sum, the federal scholarship tax credit may look to some state leaders like an opportunity to secure additional resources for students, but the risks are profound. The structure of the law, coupled with the likely direction of Treasury rulemaking, points toward a program designed not to empower states but to constrain them—pushing states into a rigid, federally controlled voucher system that undermines educational equity and quality and presents long-run threats to the fiscal stability of public schools.”

¹https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/530   The term “Coverdell education savings account” means a trust created or organized in the United States exclusively for the purpose of paying the qualified education expenses of an individual who is the designated beneficiary of the trust (and designated as a Coverdell education savings account at the time created or organized), but only if the written governing instrument creating the trust meets the following requirements….”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Failure, Funding, Race to the Top, Shame, Trump, Vouchers

Florida: Imprisoned Charter School Owner Seeks to Reduce Repayments to District He Cheated

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
4

The owner of the Newpoint Charter School chain in Florida was convicted of racketeering and fraud in 2018, involving six different school districts. He pocketed millions of dollars that should have been spent on students and teachers. Ordered to pay back his ill-gotten gains, he now claims he can’t make the payments because his wife took most of his assets when they divorced.

Florida spends billions of dollars on charter schools and vouchers, with minimal oversight. Crooked charter operators and inadequate voucher schools are having great pay days.

The Pensacola News-Journal reported:

Escambia County’s Clerk of Court is taking Newpoint Charter School owner and convicted felon Marcus May back to court over claims he can’t afford to make the same monthly payments to repay nearly $7 million he owes in fines, interest and court costs.

May, 63, was convicted in 2018 in Pensacola for committing racketeering and fraud at six different school districts around Florida.

State prosecutors say he created shell companies to sell school property at outrageous markups and pocketed millions of dollars.

May has filed motions with the state saying his financial situation has changed due to his settlement agreement with his ex-wife, and he wants to cut back significantly on the monthly payments he makes.

“We’re going on seven years after the verdict, we’re still pursuing collections,” General Counsel at Escambia County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Cody Leigh said. “Justice extends beyond the verdict and that includes the clerk’s collection duties and obligations under the statute.”

May has been paying about $7,700 a month to the Escambia County Clerk of Court’s Office as part of his restitution payment plan, but he wants to drop that amount to about $1,500 a month.

To date, the clerk’s office says he has paid a total of about $270,000.

After his conviction in Pensacola in 2018,  the businessman was ordered to pay $5.5 million in fines and restitution as part of his sentencing, but that amount has ballooned to around $7 million due to interest charges.

May has been in a legal fight with the clerk’s office since April of 2020 over collection of payment, and he filed for bankruptcy in May 2021.

The county spent another six months in bankruptcy court with May until a payment plan was confirmed.

At that time, it was determined May was earning about $13,000 a month, in large part income from real estate rentals he owns across the state, among other assets.

Now May is telling his creditors, including Escambia County, that his wife is getting those real estate assets under their amended marital divorce settlement agreement and he only has $3,000 a month to divide between several creditors, leaving the county with a monthly payment of about $1,500.

“In July of this year, we got a letter from Marcus May’s attorneys that said the planned payments would be substantially reduced because his disposable income went down substantially,” Leigh said.

Unconvinced of his reasons for cutting his payments to the county by five grand a month, the clerk and legal staff pushed to have May’s federal bankruptcy case reopened to take a closer look at what has become of his assets, including the real estate he now says belongs to his ex-wife.

“We filed a motion to reopen the bankruptcy case claiming that that was an impermissible plan modification,” Leigh said, “and that’s a discretionary call by the judge. She doesn’t have to reopen it, but she did. That is the first win of round two of reopening the bankruptcy and figuring out what was sold.”

Escambia County Clerk and Comptroller Pam Childers believes the judge’s decision is a win for taxpayers and county residents who have a right to collect what the court ruled was owed due to fraud, even if it means a years long legal fight.

“It’s just amazing how they will continue to connive and protect those assets as if they are theirs when they just use the school money, the children’s money, for their benefit,” Childers said. “They just feel entitled. I mean, even sitting in prison, there’s no remorse.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Florida

Peter Greene Reviews “An Education” in His Inimitable Style

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
12

If you have been following this blog for a long time, you know that in my estimation one of the best (actually the best) education bloggers is Peter Greene. Peter taught high school students for 39 years in Pennsylvania. He knows more about teaching than all the experts at the elite universities.

Best of all, he has a keen eye for flimflammery and a great sense of humor. His is one of the few blogs that makes me laugh out loud. He pierces through BS and shysters with ease. And he’s more prolific than anyone I know. Some years back, I devoted every post on one day to Peter’s writings. I consider him to be one of my teachers.

So I was immensely grateful when I discovered that he reviewed my memoirs in both Forbes and, in a different voice, on his blog Curmudgacation.

Here is his blog review:

Over at Forbes.com, I’ve posted a piece about Diane Ravitch’s new memoir, An Education. That’s my grown-up fake journalist piece; but I have a few more blog-appropriate things to say. 

Most folks know the basic outline of the Ravitch career, that she was a recognized and successful part of the conservative ed reform establishment who then turned away from the Dark Side and joined the Resistance–hell, basically co-founded the Resistance. 

I have never heard her talk or write much about what that change cost her, and she doesn’t really talk about it in those terms in this book, but the early chapters show just how in that world she was. Connected to all the right people, welcome at all the right gatherings, in demand as a speaker, and the people–the names just keep coming. Ravitch was in the Room Where It Happens, and not just in it, but close friends with some of the folks in it with her. And she walked away from all that.

I don’t point to that to say we should feel sad for what she gave up, but as a sign of just how tough she is. She looked at the reality on the ground and concluded that she had to change some core beliefs, and having changed them, she had to act on them. If there was more of that kind of intellectual and ethical toughness in the world, the world would be a better place. It’s unusual enough that folks on the privatizer side have often assumed that someone must be paying her off, and a handful of people on the public school side were reluctant to fully trust her. 

There are other details in the book that attest to her guts and hard work. Her first book, The Great School Wars, was a history of the New York City public school system– a massive research project that Ravitch in her mid-thirties just assigned to herself, a project so thorough and well-constructed that she could use it as her PhD thesis. 

There are lots of fun details in the book– imagine the young Diane Ravitch swinging on a rope ladder outside a Wellesley dorm room where a formal dinner was in progress.

The book tells the story of how she got there, how she concluded that the policies that she had believed in were simply not so. And again– many another person would have at that point either kept going through the motions, or retreated to a quiet cave, but Diane instead became an outspoken critic of the very policies, organizations, and people who had been her professional world.

Back in the early 2010s, I was a high school English teacher in a quiet rural and small town corner of Pennsylvania. I knew things were happening in education that just felt really wrong, and I went searching for answers. What I found was Diane Ravitch’s blog, which was like a gathering place for many voices of advocacy for public school. It was where I found many writers who could help me make sense of things like Common Core and NCLB’s undermining of public education. 

There are several people who were responsible for my finding an audience (or the audience finding me) but it was Diane’s blog that got me my earliest connections to audiences. I didn’t know any of these folks, didn’t have any of the connections that hold together movements. At my first NPE conference, the most common question I got was some version of “Who the heck are you and where did you come from?” Diane’s network had made it possible for me to find my connections with a larger movement.

I’m just one example of how Diane’s extraordinary generosity in sharing her platform allowed all sorts of supporters of public education from all across the country to connect and support each other. It’s a notably different approach to leadership than, say, making a movement all about yourself in an attempt to collect personal power on the backs of followers instead of lifting everyone up to be a leader and activist in their own little corner of the world.

The book provides part of answer to where a person like Diane comes from, where that kind of intellectual and ethical courage and diligence come from. And it also provides a clear, compact explaining of where modern ed reform has gone wrong, from the toxic test-and-punish approach of NCLB to the billionaire-driven privatization push to the culture panic debates currently raging. If you want to hand someone a quick simple explainer of what has gone wrong, you can do worse than the last few chapters of this book.

At 223 pages, this is a brisk read but an illuminating one. I highly recommend it

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Carol Burris: Revisiting the New Orleans Hoax

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2025 //
8

The mainstream media never tires of printing stories about the “miracle” of charter schools. A few days ago, the Washington Post published an article by Eva Moskowitz, leader of the Success Academy charter chain, titled “These schools are the answer to unlocking every child’s potential: Children born into poverty should not be consigned to failing schools.” The article was shameless self-promotion, announcing that she was expanding her brand into Florida.

But much to my surprise, readers were not buying any of her pitch. The comments following the article overwhelmingly criticized charter schools, saying they chose their students, they kicked out those with low scores, they excluded kids with disabilities, they were no better than public schools.

If all those readers get it, why don’t the editors at the mainstream media?

They still cling to the myth of charter success in New Orleans. NOLA has not been great for the students and their parents. But it has been a public relations coup.

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, pulls back the curtain in The Progressive.

Her article: “The ‘Miracle’ of New Orleans School Reform Is Not What It Seems: The city’s all-charter school experiment is a cautionary tale about what happens when democracy is stripped from public education.”

After the hurricane, parents wanted well-resourced community-based public schools. Instead they got charters focused on testing and no/excuses discipline.

The entire “reform” project is based on the practice of “charter churn.” Of 125 charters that have opened since Hurricane Katrina, half have closed and been replaced.

Burris writes:

The truth is that the all-charter experiment in New Orleans was built on the displacement of Black educators, the silencing of parents, and the infusion of foundation dollars with strings attached. As a result, students and families have faced disruption, instability, and hardship as charter schools open and close. Two decades later, the “miracle” is not what it seems. It is instead a cautionary tale about what happens when democracy is stripped from public education and governance is handed over to markets and philanthropies.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Ethics, Extremism, Hoax, Louisiana, New Orleans, Parents
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