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Los Angeles School Board Passes Policy Limiting Charter Co-Locations

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2024 //
9

By a vote of 4-3, the Los Angeles Unified Schiol District Board adopted a policy barring charter schools from co-locating in public schools with high-needs students. The charter lobby immediately threatened to sue the district. Currently one of every five students in the LAUSD district attends a charter school. For years, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Bill Bloomfield, the Walton family, and Michael Bloomberg have poured millions into school board races on behalf of privatization. But for the moment, the anti-privatization supporters of public schools have a slim majority.

The seats of two of the four-person majority—Scott Schmerelson and George McKenna—are up for election next month. Both are veteran educators and pro-public schools. Schmerelson is running for re-election; McKenna is retiring and has endorsed veteran educator Sherlett Hendy Newbill. I endorsed both Scott Schmerelson and Sherlett Hendy Newbill.

The new policy could be ditched by pro-charter replacements or by a legal challenge from the charter lobby.

Howard Blume wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

The struggle between traditional and charter schools intensified Tuesday when a narrow Los Angeles school board majority passed a sweeping policy that will limit when charters can operate on district-owned campuses. 

Access to public school campuses for charter schools is guaranteed under state law — and charter advocates immediately threatened to sue over the new restrictions.

The policy, passed 4 to 3, prohibits the new location of charters at an unspecified number of campuses with special space needs or programs. One early staff estimate put the number close to 350, but there’s uncertainty over how the policy will be interpreted. The school system has about 850 campuses, but advocates are concerned that charters could be pushed out of areas where they currently operate, making it difficult for them to remain viable.

Under the policy, district-operated campuses are exempt from new space-sharing arrangements when a school has a designatedprogram to help Black students or when a school is among the most “fragile” because of low student achievement. Also exempt would be community schools — which incorporate services for the broader health, counseling and other needs of students and their families. 

The district argued these programs need space beyond the normal allotments for classrooms, counselors, health staff and administrators — for example, rooms for tutoring, enrichment or parent centers. Such spaces had frequently been tabulated as unused or underutilized — and then made available to charters…

In the current school year 52 independent charters operate on 50 campuses, according to L.A. Unified. The number is expected to be smaller for next year and down significantly from a peak of more than 100. But even 50 schools would make for one of the larger school systems in California.

In all, there are 221 district-authorized charters and 25 other local charters approved by the county or state, serving about 1 in 5 public school students within the boundaries of L.A. Unified — about 535,000 students total. Most charters operate in their own or leased private buildings.

The L.A. school system has more charters than any other district in the nation. Most were approved under charter-friendly school boards and under state laws — since changed — that made it difficult for school districts to reject charters.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections, Los Angeles

Ohio: Charters and Vouchers Defund the Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2024 //
3

This report was written by Tanisha Pruitt, Ph.D., for Policy Matters Ohio in April 2023. It provides a comprehensive review of the funding of K-12 education in the state. The state has 1.6 million students. The state Constitution says (Article 6, section 2):

The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.

The legislature and governor of Ohio apparently believe that the state Constitution does not mean what it says. The Republican leadership has steadily increased the funding of charter schools (which are not “common schools,” but are privately managed schools, some for-profit) and vouchers, which go primarily up religious schools.

The report was written before the legislature lifted income caps on vouchers, agreeing to subsidize the tuition of all students regardless of family income.

Please open the link to see the graphs.

The Policy Matters Ohio report begins:

School is a place where childhood happens. Ohio’s public educators teach children of all races and backgrounds basic skills, but also challenge and inspire them to follow their dreams. For many students, school is a safe place to learn, develop and grow.

Ohio currently educates 1.6 million children attending school in our cities, suburbs and small towns. For years, almost no one was happy about how the state of Ohio funded public schools. The system pitted communities against each other and private and charter schools against public schools. We were living in the K-12 version of the “Hunger Games”: The wealthier your district, the stronger your chances of success.

Most state lawmakers signed off on a system that relied too heavily on local property taxes,[1] so communities where many residents have low incomes struggled to pay for the basics like updated resources and teaching materials. The state capped the funding it sent to some districts, often leaving those districts feeling cheated. In others, state funding failed to keep up with changing costs and student needs. Since 2005, lawmakers have been systematically sending more resources to the wealthiest Ohioans by cutting the state income tax, which accounts for nearly one-third of the state’s spending on schools. Meanwhile, lawmakers have diverted almost $1 billion a year from local levies to private and charter schools.[2]

These policy choices have taken a toll on Ohio’s educational outcomes. Education Week ranks Ohio 46th in the nation for equitable distribution of funding.[3] The performance metrics included: (1) state spending by examining per-pupil expenditures adjusted for regional cost differences, the percent of students in districts with per-pupil spending at or above the national average, spending index, and percent of total taxable resources spent on education and (2) Equity, by examining the degree to which education funding is equitably distributed across the districts within the state.[4]

The pandemic has contributed to a decline in test scores, which could have an impact on our overall ranking, if we do not get students caught up.[5] Over nearly two decades, we can draw a straight line between the racial and economic achievement gaps and the lack of funding to provide Black, brown, economically disadvantaged students[6] and students with disabilities what they need to succeed in school.

Ohio’s schools are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse; the Hispanic[7]population (a close proxy for Latinx) alone has more than doubled over the last 10 years.[8] Student poverty is also on the rise with 51% of students considered economically disadvantaged and the homeless student population doubling over the last decade.[9]

COVID-19 created unstable and even chaotic learning environments across Ohio. The elevated stress and social isolation caused by the move to virtual learning[10]exacerbated students’ need for mental health services.[11] The pandemic continues to take a toll on educators as well. COVID and other outbreaks are making educators sick. Moreover, increased stress and low pay cause many educators to leave the profession. Districts across the state have grappled with unprecedented staff shortages. For example, Columbus City Schools (CCS) had 800 employees absent every day during the height of the pandemic.[12] Hamilton City School officials were forced to cancel classes when 170 staff members were out due to illness.[13]

COVID has especially hammered school districts in communities that can’t raise enough money through local property taxes — especially in big cities, where Black, brown and economically disadvantaged students are more likely to live.[14] Schools in these communities often have fewer resources for COVID mitigation efforts like improving ventilation.[15]

Long before COVID, many policymakers neglected public schools, siphoning away their funding for tax giveaways[16] to corporations and undercutting them with schemes that send public money to charters and private schools. Combined with the effects of COVID, Ohio’s legacy of inadequate and inequitable funding has weakened the role school plays as a foundational public service for families and communities. For our state to be a vibrant place where people want to live, we need fully and fairly funded schools in all districts, no matter what students look like, or how much money their families have.

This report describes how the state funds public K-12 education and some key investments proposed in the 2024-25 Executive Budget, the legacy of unconstitutional funding, the role private school vouchers play in harming public schools, and how the Fair School Funding Plan — when fully funded and fully implemented, including weights and cost corrections — can provide districts with more resources to prepare Ohio’s children to succeed.

A brief history of Ohio school funding

The framers of Ohio’s constitution obligated the state to provide a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” for all students.[17] In 1991, the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, representing more than 500 school districts in Ohio, filed suit in the Perry County courts against the State of Ohio for failing to uphold this constitutional requirement.[18] In DeRolph vs. The State of Ohio — named for Perry County school district student Nathan DeRolph — plaintiffs argued the state was failing to live up to its obligation due to over-reliance on local property taxes for school funding: In wealthy communities, high property values generated revenues needed to provide students with more resources for cutting-edge technology, advanced classes, and extracurricular activities; the opposite was true in poor communities. This left schools in cities, rural areas and many low-income communities severely under-resourced, significantly harming outcomes for their students.

The litigation dragged on until 1994 when Perry County Court Judge Linton Lewis, Jr. ruled that “public education is a fundamental right in the state of Ohio” and that the state legislature must provide a better and more equitable means of financing education.

The DeRolph case was the start of a foundational shift in the school funding system in Ohio, but the fight for constitutional and equitable funding continued for decades following the ruling. By failing to keep up with inflation and by diverting public funds to charter schools[19] and vouchers (i.e., scholarships to private schools), lawmakers in fact cut state aid to traditional public schools over time.[20] As a result, public schools have increasingly relied even more on local resources, which exacerbates the problem of unequal funding and quality across districts,[21] a problem that persists today….

Public dollars, private benefits

Two smaller education systems run alongside Ohio’s traditional public schools: charters and private schools. When legislators redirect funding from traditional public schools to pay for charters and vouchers (which pass public dollars through parents and into private schools), the vast majority of Ohio students who attend traditional public schools have to make do with less.

In Ohio charter schools have been branded “community schools” and are considered “public” because they cannot charge tuition and they are supposed to accept all students. However, charter schools do not necessarily serve the public good. Charter school sponsors may contract with for-profit companies to operate the schools. In 2020, Ohio had 313 charter schools serving 102,645 students and 178 (57%) of them were operated by for-profit entities.[48]These “operators” have been the source of much scandal in Ohio. Simply put: The charter system in Ohio has lots of loopholes for private, profit-seeking companies to siphon off public dollars.

In FY 2022 the state sent $1.45 billion to charter schools — up from nearly $620 million in 2007.[49] During that time, Ohio’s legislators earned our state a reputation as “the wild west of charter schools” by failing to hold charters and their operators accountable.[50] Problems with Ohio’s charter school system came to a head with the ECOT scandal: A for-profit online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow squandered millions in public money by inflating enrollment numbers.[51] Other charter scandals have prompted rounds of legislative reform to reduce self-dealing, prevent the state from paying for students who were not actually attending school, and stop attempts at double-dipping by selling state-purchased materials back to the state for even more public dollars.[52]

The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, a joint effort of the Ohio Education Association (OEA) and Innovation Ohio, using data primarily from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), created a tool to help Ohioans know the state of publicly funded charters and private schools that accept public vouchers, and how they compare to traditional school districts. Analysis includes state report card rankings, classroom expenditures, and state aid deductions to charter schools. This system is intended to provide transparency so that parents, teachers, students and advocates can hold charter schools accountable.[53]

Based on the recent Annual Community Schools report conducted by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE),[54]community schools in Ohio are receiving more funding through the Quality Community School Support Grant (QCSS). Eligibility requirements for these grants are based on performance standards and overall academic achievement. In the current budget lawmakers increased funding to QCSS to $54 million for FY 2022, a $24 million increase from 2021. This increase includes a per-pupil increase of $1,750 for economically disadvantaged students and a $1,000 per-pupil increase for all other students.[55]

Vouchers eat up state funding for K-12 schools

As problematic as under-regulated charter schools can be, the proliferation of private school vouchers has had the most serious consequences for public schools and the vast majority of Ohio students who attend them. Since the Cleveland Voucher Program for low-income students in Cleveland City Schools launched in 1996, policymakers have expanded voucher programs across the state. Ohio currently has four main school voucher programs: the Educational Choice (EdChoice) Scholarship Program, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), the Autism Scholarship Program, and the Jon Peterson Special Needs (JPSN) Scholarship Program. The EdChoice program is split into two types: the Traditional EdChoice Scholarship, also known as performance-based EdChoice, and the EdChoice Expansion Scholarship, also known as income-based EdChoice.

Policymakers introduced the Traditional EdChoice scholarship program in 2005 and continue to expand it. The EdChoice Expansion program was introduced in 2014 and has also expanded in scope. The performance-based EdChoice program is available to students in underperforming school districts, while the income-based EdChoice program is available to low-income students. The Cleveland Scholarship is for all K-12 students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The other two scholarships, Autism and JPSN, are for autistic students and students with any disability, respectively.

What started as a program to provide alternative education options for students in what the state perceived to be underachieving schools has now expanded to include students from public schools with high achievement grades. According to a brief by the Northwest Local School District, 47.7% of the buildings on the current list of Ohio schools eligible for vouchers have overall grades of “A,” “B,” or “C” under the state’s report card system. The number of eligible schools has also grown rapidly. During the 2018-19 school year Ohio had fewer than 300 school buildings that were considered eligible; by 2020-21, 1,200 school buildings were eligible: a 300% increase in just two years.[56] Similarly, income-based vouchers are now being proposed for families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level. This expansion would be a costly and needless expansion, subsidizing private education for families that need no help. A family of four could earn up to $120,000 and be considered income eligible. This expansion will make vouchers nearly universal, by providing an additional handout to upper-middle-class families at the expense of public schools.

Vouchers in the state budget

After years of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations that have drained resources from public schools, and as COVID has created new pressures, the state further undercuts public schools by pumping hundreds of millions of public dollars into private schools.[57]

The 2022-23 biennial budget expanded funding of private schools, especially through EdChoice and other voucher programs. Traditional, performance-based EdChoice received $212.5 million, and the income-based EdChoice Expansion program received close to $103 million, a combined 61.4% of voucher payments statewide in FY 2022. The Autism and JPSN scholarships received $116.5 million and $76.6 million, respectively, making up 17% and 12.4% of distributed scholarship funds. The Cleveland Scholarship program received $46 million and only makes up 9.1% of distributed scholarship funds.[58]

Legislators have increased voucher payments from state funds since 2014, as illustrated in Figure 6.[59]

Figure 6
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7sKMh/2/

The FSFP funds vouchers directly instead of allowing them siphon away districts’ state funding. Lawmakers increased total voucher allocations from $395.4 million in FY 2020 to $635.1 million in FY 2022.[60]They also increased direct state aid to private schools, though not as dramatically. Policymakers increased funding for “auxiliary services” to private schools from $149.9 million in FY 2021 to $154.1 in FY 2022 and just under $156 million in FY 2023. Meanwhile, “nonpublic administrative cost reimbursement” aid — which reimburses charter schools for the cost of mandated administrative and clerical activities such as preparation, filing and records keeping[61] — increased from $68.9 in FY 2021 to $70.8 in FY 2022 and $71.6 in FY 2023.[62]

Lawmakers have increased spending on vouchers by increasing the amount families can receive. For income-based EdChoice Expansion vouchers for FY 2022-23 the state now awards qualifying K-8 students $5,500 per year and high school students $7,500 per year for tuition at non-public schools, up from previous award amounts in FY 2020-21 which provided $4,650 for K-8 students and $6,000 for students grades 9-12.[63]….

Voucher expansion threatens our public schools

Because of the General Assembly’s continued expansion of voucher programs, more Ohio families are enrolling in them — up from 52,000 in 2019 to 69,991 in 2021. Even accounting for this growth, most voucher students were already attending private school before receiving vouchers.[64] Further, the number of vouchers is a fraction of the number of students served in public schools. When students use state-funded vouchers to attend private schools, even if they were never enrolled in traditional school districts, it means less money in the state budget that could otherwise be spent creating great public schools, which must serve all students.

The Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, a coalition of over 100 school district and 20 education and community groups, took the state of Ohio to court, claiming that EdChoice Expansion violates the constitutional requirement that the state provide a “thorough and efficient system of common schools.” Coalition advocates believe that state lawmakers’ growing investment in vouchers could lead to a school funding system that privileges private education even more in years to come.[65]

Many proponents of voucher expansion have painted it as the state simply supporting parents’ right to choose where their child will be educated, but choice is not the problem, priorities are. The state has not fulfilled its constitutionally mandated responsibility to fairly fund public schools. Key components of the FSFP are still outstanding. Allocating close to $1 billion in public funds for students to take vouchers to private schools is a huge disservice to the 90% of students who attend our public schools.

Ultimately, the way the executive budget proposes to distribute foundation aid over FY 2024-25 will further erode the share going to traditional public schools by allocating a greater share to charters. The proposed budget would send 77.9% of foundation funds to traditional schools, compared to 79.1% in the last budget. Charters would take 10.8%, up from 9.9%. Voucher programs stay at 7.1%, and joint vocational school districts increase to 4.2% from 3.8%.

Recommendations & conclusion

Ohio has underfunded public schools and other essential public services for years.[66] Ohio lawmakers have cut state income taxes since 2005, reducing our ability to provide an equitable education system for all our students, and giving huge windfalls to the wealthiest Ohioans and little or no benefit to people with middle or low incomes.

Policymakers have a constitutional duty to protect public schools. Ensuring a thorough and efficient system of common schools means correcting disparities generated from over-reliance on property taxes by fully implementing the FSFP, with accurate estimates of how much it really costs to educate our kids.

Lawmakers in Ohio need to invest in developing an educator workforce of qualified teachers who are paid fairly for their essential work and strongly supported while doing it. Other pressing issues include a bussing crisis,[67] fewer 5-year-olds prepared for kindergarten,[68]lowered reading and math proficiency scores,[69] chronic absenteeism,[70] and a persistent digital divide.[71]

The state has sufficient revenue to meet these challenges, so long as legislators make public schools and kids a priority. Ohio has the money to fully commit to the FSFP in this budget. Instead of phasing in funding piece by piece, year after year, lawmakers should fully fund it right now. Ohioans must come together to demand lawmakers live up to the promise of the FSFP in the next biennium and beyond.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

North Carolina: State Orders Charter School to Repay $162,597

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
2

Several weeks ago, the Charlotte News-Observer in North Carolina, reported that a charter school —Children’s Village Academy—was under investigation because a member of its board was paid more than $140,000 in interest on a loan to the school of $180,000. The member in question is a high-level federal official, Dr. Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a federal agency that oversees data collection, issues reports, and supervises the NAEP assessment program.

The state ordered the school to repay money it is accused of spending inappropriately. The charter itself is under review as to whether it will lose its charter. As a side note, NCES tweeted a congratulatory note about School Choice Week, an unusual move for a statistical agency.

The latest update:

A North Carolina charter school tied to a high-ranking federal official has been ordered by the state to repay $162,597 it’s accused of inappropriately spending.

The state Department of Public Instruction presented reports in December alleging conflict of interest violations and misspending of state and federal dollars at Children’s Village Academy in Kinston. On Monday, DPI sent the school a letter ordering it to repay $162,597 in “unallowable costs” in the next 10 days.

The letter comes as the state Office of Charter Schools has recommended that both Children’s Village Academy and Ridgeview Charter School in Gastonia lose their charters when they expire in June. The Charter Schools Review Board will vote in March whether to renew the schools.

On Monday, Children’s Village leaders told the Review Board that it’s addressing the concerns, including investigating questioned financial transactions and improving its internal control policies….

Many of the questions have revolved around the school’s dealings with Peggy Carr, the vice chair of Children’s Village’s board of directors…

Carr is commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education. The center oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly called NAEP, which is a series of national tests given to assess the state of education.

Carr’s family founded Children’s Village Academy in Lenoir County in 1997. In 2008, Carr gave the school a loan of $188,000 to help it get through a financial crisis.

DPI questioned the documentation of the loan and how Carr has received more than $140,000 in interest payments so far.

“Although the reports do not say so expressly, they implicitly allege that the board should not have taken out the loan, or that it paid too much interest,” Matthew Tilley, Carr’s lawyer, wrote in a letter to the Review Board.

“Those allegations, however, are unfounded and would require DPI or the CSRB to second-guess the board’s business judgment.”

Tilley said that the amount repaid in interest was reasonable for a 15-year loan. But Tilley said that both his client and the school agree that the loan could have been “better documented.”

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article285086937.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, North Carolina

Gary Rubinstein: Why Don’t Success Academy High School Students Take Advanced Regents Exams?

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
12

Gary Rubinstein has been following the ups and downs of New York’s highest scoring charter school chain: Success Academy. Every year, the grades 3-8 test scores at the chain are through the roof. But Gary noticed that the high school students at Success Academy do not take Advsnced a regents exams as they do at the New York City’s highest performing high schools.

Gary examines this question:

Success Academy is a charter network with about 40 schools in the New York City area. They are known for their high standardized 3-8 test scores. Though it has been proved that their test scores are somewhat inflated by their practices of shedding their low performing students over the year and also by, at some schools, focusing exclusively on test prep in the months leading up to the tests, they still have these test scores to show their funders and the various charter school cheerleaders.

In June there was an article on the website of something called Albany Strategic Advisors, some kind of consulting firm about how well middle school students at Success Academy performed on four of the New York State Regents exams: Algebra I, Living Environment, Global History, and English. The last sentence of the second to last paragraph explains that these results are important because “Taking the exams in middle school allows students to take more advanced college preparatory courses in high school.”

These ‘more advanced college preparatory courses in high school’ include 10 other courses that have Regents exams including Geometry, Algebra II, Chemistry, Physics, US History, and Spanish. The minimum requirements for getting what is called ‘a Regents diploma’ in New York is one math Regents, one science Regents, one Social Studies Regents, and the English Regents. But to get an ‘Advanced Regents diploma’ you need all three maths and all three sciences and one foreign language Regents. Most competitive high school have their students take these other Regents which are known to be fairly straight forward tests with very generous curves.

About 8 years ago I noticed that there were no Regents scores for any of the other 10 exams in the Success Academy high school. Then 6 years ago I found that some of their students actually were taking some of the more difficult Regents but they were doing very poorly on them. And now, 6 years later, I checked up on them again to find that in the three Success Academy high schools which enroll a total of about 1,100 students from grades 9 to 12, they again do not have any scores for any of the Regents that are typically taken at competitive schools.

So why does this matter?

Well, Success Academy has spent eighteen years carefully cultivating their image. They want families to think that they have the highest expectations and that families should trust them to educate their children because those higher expectations will lead to those students learning the most. And we all know about their 3-8 state tests in Math and ELA. But it is pretty ‘odd’ that their students don’t take the more difficult Regents. The most likely reason for this is that Success Academy only wants information public that makes them look good and avoids any action that could reveal public data that reveals that they do not live up to their reputation. So I believe that they don’t allow their students to take the Regents because they believe that the scores on those Regents won’t be as impressive as their 3-8 state test scores compared to other schools. If I am right then this is an example of Success Academy choosing to preserve their inflated reputation over giving their students the opportunity to challenge themselves on these competitive exams.

Please open the link to finish the article. Nobody does this kind of close review better than Gary Rubinstein.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York, New York City, Standardized Testing

Correction: Los Angeles Charter Story Was Inaccurate, for Now

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2024 //
5

Yesterday I posted a story from the Los Angeles Daily News about a new charter policy that barred charter schools from co-locating in certain public schools.

The headline in the Daily News story, I learned from a well-informed source in L.A., was premature and thus inaccurate.

My informant wrote:

Hi, the headline of the Daily News story was inaccurate. The policy was not adopted. It could not have been adopted because the meeting was a committee meeting, not a board meeting where action items are approved. The policy will be adopted — probably mostly as written — but it hasn’t been adopted yet.

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Charter Schools Barred from Nearly Half of LA’s Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2024 //
12

The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted a new policy last week that will bar charter schools from “co-locating” in schools that enroll the most vulnerable students. This policy will provide stability to public schools that have been forced to give up classrooms and other facilities to privately-managed charters. Los Angeles and New York City both guarantee free public space to charter schools, which compels the host school to give up classrooms and other space that are not used 100% of the time.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported:

Charter schools will be barred from hundreds of Los Angeles Unified District school campuses under a new policy that is among the most restrictive of its kind.

The new rules, presented at a school board meeting Tuesday, Jan. 30, prevent charters from being sited in campuses that have been identified as serving vulnerable students, accounting for roughly 350 of about 770 school buildings in the district. Charter schools would still be offered space to operate in other LAUSD district school buildings.

The regulations prevent co-locations in low-performing schools, community schools that provide social services, and schools in the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan — immediately impacting about 21 charter schools — now co-located in those buildings — enrolling thousands of students who may need to move to new L.A. Unified campuses in the fall.

“This is one of those situations that, no matter what, we’re going to have some people dissatisfied on either side,” said L.A. school superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who created the new regulations at the direction of the district school board, an effort led by board president Jackie Goldberg and board member Rocio Rivas.

Carvalho said the new regulations are within the bounds of a 2000 state law compelling California districts to provide classroom space for charter schools. There are currently 50 charter schools co-located in 52 LAUSD school campuses, serving roughly 11,000 students. Thirteen additional charters have requested space for the upcoming school year.

“I believe that what has been presented may in many ways alleviate some of the issues,” he added. “However, we need to be vigilant and honest about unintended consequences of well intentioned policies.”

The new rules are a reversal for a city that historically has been friendly to charter schools and was immediately opposed by charter advocates, who threatened legal action in a letter to the school board as soon as the new policy was announced….

The long-simmering conflict over charter schools in Los Angeles reached a flashpoint in September when the board issued a resolution compelling Carvalho to create the policy and spelled out many of the specific components it should contain.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Los Angeles

New Hampshire: Another Day, Another Charter School Scandal

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
6

New Hampshire reluctantly accepted federal money to open new charters. The reluctance occurred when Democrats were in charge of the legislature. Once Republicans captured control of the legislature, the reluctance disappeared. Governor Sununu selected a home-schooling parent as state commissioner of education, and New Hampshire is now all in for vouchers and charters.

But New Hampshire can’t escape certain inevitable problems that accompany school choice:

First, sending public money to private schools does not improve education; in fact, it weakens the public schools, attended by the vast majority.

Second, vouchers always cost more than was predicted.

Third, most vouchers will be used by kids already attending private schools.

Fourth, many charter operators are more interested in money than in the hard work of education.

New Hampshire is now going through the throes of a charter school closure. Four other new charter schools in the state have closed.

New Hampshire Public Radio reported:

A charter school in Exeter is closing less than two years after it opened, as former school officials face an ongoing investigation for alleged embezzlement and fraud.

“We tried everything that we could to save the school but sadly, the obstacles were insurmountable,” Jennifer Roopenian, the current chair of the Coastal Waters Chartered Public School board of trustees, told NHPR via email on Sunday.

Roopenian said the board learned of another “financial discrepancy” last week, and “despite our attempts to find a solution, the board had to make the heartbreaking decision to close the school.”

The development comes as the Exeter Police Department is pursuing two investigations into former officials associated with the school, which served students from kindergarten through 12th grade. One investigation involves alleged tampering with a public record; the other involves alleged embezzlement. State agencies, including the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office and New Hampshire Department of Education, say they are also communicating with the police about the allegations but declined to give more details.

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School opened in 2022 with a mission inspired by Waldorf teaching, which focuses on arts, nature and creativity. But some parents say there were red flags that the school was in trouble early on, and no one — the state, or the school board of trustees — was providing proper oversight to ensure its success.

By this winter, the school had lost more than half its student population since its opening year.

“They sold a really good story about the Waldorf method, about how kids would be learning in traditional ways as well as Waldorf ways,” says Stephanie Carr Thomas, a former Coastal Waters parent who pulled her children out of the school in 2022. “But that’s not what happened.”

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School is one of a handful of charters that have opened in New Hampshire amid increased funding and a growing interest in school choice. Charter schools are approved by the State Board of Education and receive funding directly from the state, about $9,000 per student. In 2022, Coastal Waters also won a $1.36 million federal grant as part of the New Hampshire Department of Education’s charter school expansion initiative.

Nicole Mazur, a former Coastal Waters parent and board member, said the school’s alternative vision drew families who couldn’t afford private school but wanted more personalized, outdoor-based education for their kids. And at the beginning, she said, many parents tried to help the school succeed.

“There were people wanting to help and volunteer, and helping to work out whatever kinks there were, just saying: ‘Tell me where to be and I’ll be there, and we’ll help,’’’ Mazur recalled. “There was a lot of excitement and positivity.”

But she said that excitement quickly gave way to concerns about the school’s facilities and finances…

In late 2022, Mazur and several other parents quit the board of trustees and pulled their kids out of the school, citing concerns about their children’s well-being and lack of financial transparency by the board chairman and treasurer, William Libby. Libby did not respond to NHPR’s request for comment.

Reports from both the state and the school show that enrollment continued to shrink over the last year, from 128 students in 2022 to 47 students as of last week…

Some Coastal Waters families say it’s unclear what power the education department has in its own investigation. The department’s misconduct investigations typically involve licensed individuals who have violated the educator code of conduct or code of ethics. But some former Coastal Waters officials didn’t have New Hampshire educator licenses to begin with.

The state requires charter schools to ensure at least half of its teaching staff either hold state certification or have three years of teaching experience. Roopenian, the current Coastal Waters board chair, said the school’s most recent teaching staff met those requirements.

Jesse Peloski, who withdrew his children from Coastal Waters in late 2022, said he worries the mechanisms for reporting and monitoring concerns about charter schools are “potentially very broken.”

“There is a huge desire for alternatives to public schooling,” he said. “But there’s also a huge opportunity for exploitation there.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, Fraud, New Hampshire, Scandals, School Choice

Jeff Bryant: Two Federal Education Programs with Opposite Purposes

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2024 //
15

Jeff Bryant, independent education journalist, writes here about two federal education programs with disparate goals. One is the relatively small Community Schols Program, which aims to build and strengthen communities, and the other is the Charter Schools Program, which is wildly overfunded and which divides communities. His article appears on the website of the Independent Media Institute; it was originally published by The Progressive.

Bryant writes:

The Department of Education has separate grant programs for funding either charter or community schools; the latter provides money for what schools and families really need, the former, not so much.

[This article was produced by the Progressive. Read the full article here.]

Two education-related grant programs operated by the U.S. Department of Education—both of which dole out millions in federal tax dollars for educating K-12 children every year—present two opposing truths about government spending on public education: that it can be wasteful and misguided, or innovative and informed.

The first program enjoys the significant backing of industry lobbyists and wealthy foundations, and allows private education operators—some that operate for-profit—to skim public money off the top. It also adds to racial segregation in public schools, and squanders millions of dollars on education providers that come and quickly go, or simply fail to provide any education services at all.

The second program helps schools expand learning time and opportunities for students, especially in high-poverty and rural communities; promote parent engagement; encourage collaboration with local businesses and nonprofits; and become hubs for child- and family-related services that contribute to students’ health and well-being.

These strikingly different outcomes result from two different intentions: the first program’s goal to promote a type of school that is vaguely defined versus the second’s goal to expand a way of doing school that is supported by research and anecdotal evidence.

The first grant program is the Charter Schools Program (CSP), which funds privately operated charter schools and their developers and advocacy organizations. The program, started during the Clinton Administration and greatly expanded during the Obama years, gives money directly to charter schools and to state education agencies and charter school-related organizations to distribute to new, existing, or proposed charters.

In October, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the nation’s top lobbyist for the charter school industry, hailed the federal government’s release of $572 million in taxpayer dollars from the CSP, calling the money “the most essential funding to enable the existence of public charter schools.”

In New Mexico, local press outlets reported that a $52 million CSP grant went to a charter industry advocacy group called the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico, which in turn would award subgrants to individual charter schools. One reporter quoted the group’s leader who said, “There was a large application with several requirements in there. And we were scored based on, you know, how well we met the requirements and a peer review process.”

In Idaho, Idaho Ed News reported about the $24.8 million CSP grant going to Bluum, which the reporter called “a nonprofit charter support organization.” The grant is to be used “to grow and strengthen Idaho’s charter school network,” the article said.

Maryland’s top charter school industry booster, the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools, celebrated its $28.7 million CSP saying it would provide “subgrants to open new charter schools and/or replicate and expand charter schools.”

Not all CSP grants went to advocacy groups. The largest—totaling $109,740,731—went to the Indiana Department of Education. According to Chalkbeat, one out of three charter schools in Indiana have closed since 2001.

A 2019 analysis conducted by the Network for Public Education, a pro-public schools advocacy group, found that over its lifespan CSP has wasted as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and quickly closed.

Another CSP grant of $37,579,122 went to the Minnesota Department of Education. In Minnesota, courts have grappled for years with the question of whether racial imbalances in public schools, caused to a great extent by the expansion of racially segregated charter schools, violate the constitutional right of students of color to receive an adequate education.

Other CSP grants went to credit enhancement for charter school facilities, essentially giving public money to real estate development firms and investment companies that finance and build new charter schools.

[…]

Read the rest of this article on the Progressive.

Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Competition, Disruption, Education Reform, Funding, U.S. Department of Education

Indiana: Operators of Virtual Charter Schools Indicted on Multiple Counts of Fraud

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2024 //
19

Guess what? Another massive scandal involving virtual charter schools. Not ho-hum because the money skimmed off is a lot: $44 million. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana said it was the biggest fraud case he had handled.

If you recall, the biggest virtual charter school fraud case ever happened in California, where the A3 charter chain skimmed off hundreds of millions of dollars. In Pennsylvania, Nick Trombetta, founder of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, was sent to prison in 2018 for 20 months for fraud. Steven Ingersoll, the optometrist who founded four virtual charter schools in Bay City, Michigan, received a prison sentence of 40 months. And who can forget Ohio’s ECOT Man (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow), who collected $1 billion from the state over 20 years, gave lots of campaign donations, but declared bankruptcy when the state auditor asked him to refund millions for phantom students?

We know all this. We know that students in virtual charter schools get low scores, have low graduation rates, collect generous public funding, but the money keeps flowing. Why?

New story: Indiana.

A federal grand jury returned indictments against the operators of two online charter schools in Indiana, the Indiana Virtual School (IVS) and the Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy (IVPA). The operators inflated their enrollments to collect state monies. Each defendant faces 10-20 years in federal prison for each count if convicted. The charges are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The group received over $44 million from the state. Most of the students either never attended the schools or left but remained on the rolls.

FOX 59 in Indianapolis reported:

INDIANAPOLIS — Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana released more information about a recent indictment brought forward in a multi-million dollar education-related fraud scheme.

According to the office, three men were officially indicted in relation to the scheme, including:

  • Tom Stoughton, 74, a Carmel resident who was indicted on 16 counts of wire fraud, 57 counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
  • Phillip Holden, 62, a Middletown resident who was indicted on 16 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
  • Percy Clark, 81, a Carmel resident and the former superintendent of Lawrence Township schools, who was indicted on 16 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

In addition, officials said that 61-year-old Christopher King, a Green Fork resident, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to previous reports, officials allege that the individuals named in the indictment received more than $44 million in funding from the Indiana Department of Education to operate two online charter schools: the Indiana Virtual School and the Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy.

Officials said that IVPA was an offshoot of IVS that was created in 2017 so IVS could avoid losing its charter with Daleville Community Schools. This comes after IVS reportedly received an F grade from the Indiana Department of Education.

The individuals listed in the indictment reportedly used fraudulent enrollment reporting methods to receive funding from the state that they were not owed nor supposed to be eligible for.

Between 2016 through 2019, the defendants submitted false numbers for more than 4,500 students they knew were not attending either school in order to receive state tuition reimbursement.

”The members of the conspiracy falsely claimed thousands of students were enrolled even though those students were not attending classes or receiving services,” Zachary Myers, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said.

The court documents state that the school did not unenroll students even if they were inactive, and reportedly pushed incomplete student applications through the enrollment process, both of which increased the enrollment numbers. This included students who had dropped out or those who never completed their application process, as well as students who never logged in for classes. It also included students who never knew they were reenrolled….

The two schools reportedly paid the state funds to fraudulent for-profit companies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana claims. The companies were reportedly controlled and/or operated by Stoughton and the money was funneled through the companies to pay millions of dollars to Stoughton, Clark, King and others.

Myers said the defendants used the funds to purchase vehicles and boats, as well as pay for private school tuition. 

Herbert Stapleton, a special agent in charge with the FBI in Indianapolis, said that the cooperation with other agencies, including the State Board of Accounts in Indiana, was integral in starting this investigation and uncovering the potential fraud. 

Stapleton said that this case was “extremely complex,” including hundreds of thousands of records potentially relevant to the case that were analyzed and categorized. This included hundreds of interviews with fraudulently enrolled students and their parents, including an interview with parents whose student died but was still fraudulently enrolled at the school.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Fraud, Indiana, Virtual Charter Schools

Amplifying Democracy’s Voice: BustEDpencils, a Daily Rally Cry for Public Education!

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2024 //
3

Tim Slekar has been active in the fight against privatization of public education for more than a decade. He has created videos, written articles, posted on blogs, and recently he has run a regular radio show. He’s always fighting for public schools, teachers, and students against the long and ugly arm of corporate reform.

He writes:

Dear Advocates for Democracy and Education,

As BustEDpencils expands to a daily radio show on Civic Media, we’re not just talking about education; we’re championing the cornerstone of a healthy democracy—robust public schools. Our show is a clarion call to defend and rejuvenate public education, the bedrock of informed citizenship and democratic engagement.

By tuning in daily, you’re not just listening; you’re actively participating in safeguarding our public schools. Each episode is a step towards a more informed, democratic society, where public education is celebrated and protected as a vital public good.

And we’re not stopping at the airwaves. We’re planning to bring the heart of our message into your communities with live appearances. These events will be more than just talks; they’ll be rallies for public education, celebrating its critical role in maintaining a thriving democracy.

Join this urgent mission. Tune in, engage, and prepare to welcome us into your community. Together, let’s ensure that public education remains a pillar of our democratic society.

In Solidarity for Public Education and Democracy,

Tim and Johnny

P.S. Every listener, every conversation, every community we visit is crucial in our fight to preserve and enhance public education. This journey is about more than just a radio show; it’s about nurturing the very roots of our democracy.

Timothy D. Slekar PhD
412-735-9720
timslekar@gmail.com
https://civicmedia.us/shows/busted-pencils

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Media, Resistance, Students, Teachers and Teaching
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