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Arizona: The Charter School Scam of the Month, Perhaps the Year

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2018 //
1

I previously reported that Arizona legislator Eddie Farnsworth was making a bundle by selling his for-profit charter chain to a nonprofit charter chain for millions of dollars, and that he had selected the members of the board of the new nonprofit and would get a contract from that board to manage the charter schools. All in all, a triumph of self-dealing.

Now new details have emerged about what a sweet deal this is for Mr. Farnsworth.

An Arizona legislator selling his state-funded charter school business will receive money from consulting work, rent and a loan to the chain beyond pocketing $13.9 million from the $56.9 million transaction itself.

The Arizona Republic reports that Gilbert Republican Rep. Eddie Farnsworth will make $78,000 of interest by loaning the Benjamin Franklin school chain $2.8 million for operating cash and be paid $79,600 in rent and an unspecified amount for consulting work.

Farnsworth declined to discuss the deal’s financial particulars but said he’s run Benjamin Franklin for 24 years and that he’s entitled to benefit from the transaction.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman says Farnsworth is legally pocketing the money but that it’s not right.

A nonprofit whose directors Farnsworth recruited is acquiring Benjamin Franklin.

What’s new? Well, the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction was just elected, and she thinks this whole deal stinks. The previous state superintendent, Republican Diane Douglas, didn’t seem to care, didn’t raise any objection.

Kathy Hoffman, an educator, was swept into office with the blue mini-wave in Arizona a few weeks ago.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Arizona, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Privatization

Jan Resseger: School Choice Promotes Injustice and Inequity

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2018 //
14

Jan Resseger explains how School Choice Promotes socially undesirable outcomes.

She quotes civil rights leader Jitu Brown on the illusion of choice:

Equity and Liberty Conflict When It Comes to the Education Market

The Journey4Justice Alliance’s executive director, Jitu Brown understands that an equitable system of public schools—regulated by law to protect students’ rights and the public interest— is likely to be more adequate, stable, and equitable than what a competitive charter school market provides. In his Forward to a report, Failing “Brown v Board,” published in May 2018, Brown addresses Bruce Baker’s concern that in education, the charter school marketplace undermines equity even as it expands freedom of choice: “In education, America does everything but equity. Alternative schools, charter schools, contract schools, online schools, credit recovery—schools run by private operators in the basement of churches, abandoned warehouses, storefronts; everything but ensuring that every child has a quality Pre-K through 12th grade system of education within safe walking distance of their homes.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Michigan: Lame-Duck GOP Power Grab Over Education

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2018 //
22

The Democrats won the Governorship in Michigan, so the lame-duck Legislature is hustling to assert control over the state’s education system.

GOP free-market policies have severely damaged education. The state’s NAEP standing has plummeted over the past decade. But they can’t let go. The DeVos Republicans want to stay in power after losing the election.

Republican bills would snatch power over Michigan schools from Democrats

“Republicans are working to rein in power over Michigan’s public schools from an incoming Democrat governor and before a Democrat majority is seated on the State Board of Education.

“Bills now being considered in the Michigan House of Representatives during the frantic lame-duck legislative session would create a commission largely appointed by Republicans that would have broad authority over schools. In essence, it would serve as a shadow State Board of Education that would not be accountable to the incoming governor, the elected State Board of Education or the state Department of Education.

“And, apparently, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is all in on stacking the commission with his appointees before his Democratic successor takes office.

“The bills have flown under the radar in Lansing, with much of the media attention focused on Republican bills aimed at gutting minimum wage and paid sick leave laws and diluting the authority of incoming Democrats Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State-elect Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel.

“If passed, the new commission would almost certainly have a huge impact on K-12 education in Michigan ‒ from which schools are closed, to which would get extra money and how much classroom instruction students receive.

“These bills basically strip the next governor of the ability to reform education,” said a person intimately involved in negotiations over the bills who asked not to be identified because he works with both parties. “That’s why we’re jumping up and down over this. It’s such a complete power steal from Whitmer that no one should be participating in this.”

“The sponsor of the bills, term-limited Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw, doesn’t shy away from the power-grabbing implications of the legislation. Michigan schools are flailing, as measured by standardized tests, and the State Board of Education and the Department of Education haven’t succeeded in turning the state’s K-12 system around.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Education Law Center Calls for End to State Takeovers in New Jersey

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2018 //
8

State Takeovers of districts with low scores have been a disaster. The reason for low scores is always high poverty, and the state takeover doesn’t change that fact. State after state has adopted this strategy and failed. Turns out that the folks in the State Education Department are not magicians.

The Education Law Center, a civil rights group, calls for an end to the charade in New Jersey.

TIME TO END STATE DISTRICT TAKEOVER IN NEW JERSEY

In testimony before the Joint Committee on the Public Schools, Education Law Center reissued its call for the New Jersey Legislature to move quickly to repeal the provisions in the district monitoring law – the Quality Single Accountability Continuum or “QSAC” – authorizing State takeover of the operation of local school districts. ELC presented the testimony at a December 4 hearing of the Joint Committee soliciting input from the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) and other stakeholders on recommendations for making implementation of the QSAC law more effective.

“State takeover has proven to be a failed strategy for improving the performance of districts identified as needing assistance through QSAC, New Jersey’s school district monitoring mechanism,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. “It also disenfranchises communities from crucial decisions affecting their schools and has been misused by prior administrations to promote so-called ‘education reform.’ It’s time to bring this sad chapter to an end.”

Before the Joint Committee, ELC noted that the district takeover provisions were incorporated into the QSAC monitoring law in 2005 to facilitate withdrawal of State-operation of the Newark, Paterson and Jersey City districts as quickly as possible. However, instead of exiting these districts as the Legislature intended, the State, under former Governor Chris Christie, refused to return them to local control and engineered the takeover of a fourth high poverty, racially isolated district – Camden. Under Governor Christie’s direction, the State then moved aggressively to close and replace district schools in the State-operated districts through the rapid expansion of charter schools.

In addition to ending State district takeover, ELC also recommended removing the curriculum and instruction component from the QSAC monitoring regime. ELC emphasized to the Joint Committee that QSAC is a mechanism to monitor compliance with basic district functions, such as fiscal, budget, governance and personnel. However, QSAC has proven ineffective as a strategy to support improvements in curriculum and instruction in schools designated as low performing.

ELC further noted that the identification of under-performing schools and requirements for State intervention to improve curriculum, instruction, professional development, student supports and other crucial issues are mandated separately under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). To implement ESSA, the NJDOE has separate rules for intervention in low performing schools, along with regulations mandating targeted resources and initiatives in districts classified as “high need.”

“The curriculum and instruction component of QSAC monitoring layers on top of federal school improvement requirements unattainable, test-based, performance benchmarks for districts, without any accompanying assistance,” said Mr. Sciarra. “From over a decade of experience, it’s now clear that QSAC monitoring does not support, but instead impedes, the intense focus required to bring about improvement and positive change in low performing schools in need of assistance from the NJDOE.”

ELC also recommended that the Joint Committee thoroughly examine the NJDOE’s role in improving curriculum and instruction in low performing schools and the Department’s capacity to bring strong leadership and quality technical assistance and support to these schools. Past efforts to provide such assistance, including the now defunct NJDOE Regional Achievement Centers (RACs), showed the Department lacks sufficient funding, resources and personnel to work collaboratively with principals, teachers and parents in sustained school improvement efforts.

QSAC is useful as a monitoring tool to periodically gauge district compliance with basic fiscal, governance and personnel requirements. But it does little to help districts improve curriculum, instruction and outcomes for students in their schools. ELC is calling for lawmakers to streamline the QSAC monitoring framework and shift its oversight responsibilities to ensure the NJDOE has the capacity to deliver high quality and timely assistance to schools in need of support.

Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Privatization

Florida: Charter School Closes Without Notice to Parents or Students or Teachers

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
25

The Unity Charter School suddenly closed, without any advance notice to parents, students, or teachers.

Parents at Unity Charter School are having to look for new arrangements for their children after the school suddenly closed Thursday and is being foreclosed on. Parents received an automated message Wednesday evening reporting that there would be no school Thursday, due to circumstances beyond their control. Calls and emails to the school on Thursday received no response.

A bank foreclosed on the property for nonpayment on the mortgage. The property will be auctioned off in a few weeks.

School leaders had some personal financial issues involving misuse of school funds that turned up in an audit last year, but none rose to the level of criminal acts.

Isn’t “School Choice” wonderful (not)?

Charter schools open and close like day lilies. The entrepreneurs lobby legislators to get money and tax breaks. They pay teachers as little as they have to. They siphon money away from public schools, which are stable fixtures in their community.

And the Florida Legislature, controlled by choice zealots and by people who have a direct financial interest in charters, are diverting more money away from real public schools to benefit charters. Nearly half the charters in the state are now run by for-profit operators.

Real public schools don’t close without a struggle to keep them open. Real public schools are the heart of their community. Real public schools don’t close on a whim of their corporate owner, because they are public schools, not charter schools.

Make no mistake: the growth of the charter sector in Florida is driven by greed, not by the needs of children.

#GreedNotNeed

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Florida, Privatization

Florida: Leadership Changes Put For-Profit Charter Allies in Charge

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
16

Sue Legg, who chaired the education division of the Florida League of Women Voters, describes the leadership shake up in the state.

The new chair of the Florida House Education Committee, as I reported yesterday, is a woman who was home-schooled and dropped out of college. She has no education experience.

The likely state commissioner is Richard Corcoran, whose wife runs a charter school.

Legg reports that the fabulously wealthy for-profit charter chain Academica has scored a big win.

She writes:

“Manny Diaz will head the Senate Education Policy committee. Vice Chair is Senator Bill Montford D Tallahassee. Diaz was appointed in 2013 by Academica to head Doral College. This is the college that the Miami Herald skewered. It had no students and was created to provide online dual enrollment credit taught by Academica high school teachers. Remember that former Representative Erik Fresen, the brother-in-law of Academica’s CEO and a consultant to Academica, was convicted of tax evasion in 2018 for the eight years he served in the Florida House. We really do not need to have Academica lead educational policy for the state of Florida.”

She further notes that with DeSantis as governor and a choice-friendly State Board That is bostile to the public schools that enroll most students, Florida will follow the Jeb Bush-ALEC party line of privatization.

This is an agenda guaranteed to keep Florida anchored in mediocrity, perhaps falling like Michigan to the bottom 10 on NAEP.

Florida casts a vote for mediocrity!

Categories Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud

Chicago: Mike Klonsky Reviews Rahm’s Bragging about His Education Accomplishments

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
21

I sat in the Green Room at the Washington Post and watched Rahm Emanuel boast about his education accomplishments as his chancellor Janice Jackson smiled and agreed that he was the best mayor ever.

I had a hard time watching because I was sick to my stomach thinking about Rahm’s decision to close 50 public schools in one day, which I considered to be a major tragedy.

Jonathan Capehart, the moderator, asked about that decision, but Rahm spun it into a personal triumph.

Nothing was said about the dramatic decline of Chicago’s black population since 2000. About 200,000 people of color left Chicago The city blew up public housing, closed public schools, all in the segregated black community. Was this a policy of ethnic cleansing?

It worked!

Mike Klonsky reviewed Rahm’s lies here, at least it’s his part one.

Eve Ewing wrote the human and inhuman cost of school closings in her book, “Ghosts in the Schoolyard.” She taught in one of the schools he closed.

A Chicago station tallied the number of schools closed:

Chicago has closed or fired staff at 200 public schools since 2002, nearly 1/3 of entire district, affecting 70,160 children. Many new schools opened as replacements have already closed. https://interactive.wbez.org/generation-school-closings

This is nothing to boast about. This is disruption on a grand scale, treating black children and families like tissue paper.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Cruelty, Disruption, Education Industry, Fraud

National Education Policy Center: How School Choice Paves the Way for Discrimination

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
3

The National Education Policy Center released a report showing how school choice facilitates discrimination that is prohibited in public schools. There should be a basic principle for all publicly-funded schools, whether they are public schools, charter schools, or voucher schools: Where public money goes, public accountability must follow. Public money should not tolerate bigotry against students or staff of any kind.

When Publicly Funded Schools Exclude Segments of the Public

Key Takeaway: Policy brief analyzes discriminatory practices and possible legal protections in an era of education privatization.

NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/privatization

Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net Julie F. Mead: (608) 263-3405, jmead@education.wisc.edu

In Indiana, a private religious school receiving over $6.5 million in public funds via the state’s voucher program placed an LGBT counselor on leave because she had married her same-sex partner.

In Milwaukee, where students with disabilities constitute 12-20% of public school enrollments, they constitute only 2% of enrollments in private schools participating in the city’s voucher program. Similarly, charter schools enroll a lower percentage of students with disabilities (particularly more severe disabilities) when compared to traditional public schools. In response to these and other issues of access and discrimination, some defenders of these schools have argued that the schools have broken no laws—and they are often
correct. How can this be?

To answer that question, professors Julie F. Mead of the University of Wisconsin and Suzanne E. Eckes of Indiana University authored a policy brief, titled How School Privatization Opens the Door for Discrimination, which analyzes discrimination in an era of education privatization.

The brief’s review of relevant laws reveals that voucher and charter school programs open the
door to discrimination because of three phenomena.

First, federal law defines discrimination differently in public and private spaces.

Second, state legislatures have largely neglected issues of discrimination while constructing voucher laws; charter laws are better, but they fail to comprehensively address these issues.

Third, because private and charter schools are free to determine what programs to offer, they can attract some populations while excluding others.

After briefly examining the history of discrimination in schools, the brief analyzes each of these
three enabling factors and then outlines recent developments.

Finally, based on its analyses, the brief offers the following recommendations to help address the issue of publicly funded programs currently failing to serve all segments of the public:

1. Congress should amend federal anti-discrimination laws to clarify that states supporting charter schools and states directly or indirectly channeling public funds to private schools must ensure that those programs operate in non-discriminatory ways.

2. Federal agencies should explore whether governmental benefits should be withheld from private schools failing to meet non-discrimination standards.

3. State legislatures should include explicit anti-discrimination language in their state voucher laws to ensure that participating private schools do not discriminate against students and staff on the basis of race, color, sex, race, class, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, national origin, or primary language.

4. State legislatures should adopt or amend charter school laws to ensure that policies and practices are reviewed throughout the process of approval and renewal. Schools failing to attract and retain reasonably heterogeneous student populations should be directed to address the problem and should be considered for non-renewal if the problem is not corrected.

Find How School Privatization Opens the Door for Discrimination, by Julie F. Mead and Suzanne E. Eckes, at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/privatization

This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

Categories Accountability, Bias, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Petition Addressed to Gavin Newsom and Tony Thurmond

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
9

The Color of Change, an online civil rights group, posted this online petition addressed to the newly elected leaders of California.

Congratulations on your victories! Many of us campaigned for you, donated to you, and voted for you. Now we write to ask you to represent us – the public school students, families, teachers and taxpayers of the great state of California.

Given that a mere ten percent of California’s public school students attend charter schools, we sincerely request you make the following changes immediately upon taking office:

1. Ninety percent (or 10 out of 11) of your nominees to the State Board of Education (SBE) ought to come from traditional public schools and districts, not charters or pro-privatization groups. Current SBE Members disproportionately represent charters, or have financially benefitted from their relationships to charters.

2. Similarly, staff the California Department of Education’s (CDE) Advisory Commission on Charter Schools (ACCS) with seasoned educators from traditional public schools, and those who have “unwound” failed charters. Again, current members disproportionately represent the charter school industry, and pro-privatization groups.

3. Staff the CDE’s Charter Schools Division with a staff which will oversee and regulate the charter sector and individual schools, rather than enable and coddle them. Charge them with protecting kids, families, teachers and taxpayers from faulty education practices, fraud, waste and abuse.

4. Commit to participating in a conversation with the public school community about increasing funding for our schools and reforming existing charter law, including the appeals process and Proposition 39.

Why is this important?

It’s time to put our resources and support behind the educators and schools which continue to teach the overwhelming majority of California’s school children.

As you make staffing and personnel choices, we urge you to get the foxes out of the henhouse at the California Department of Education (CDE). The current configuration of the CDE devotes a disproportionate amount of staff and resources to a movement and agenda funded largely by billionaires which is underperforming, unaccountable, segregationist, rife with financial waste, and undemocratic.

Please consider adding your name.

If you want to learn more about the lack of supervision or oversight or accountability in California’s charter industry, read this report from the Network for Public Education.

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

Laura Chapman: Who and What is “School Board Partners”?

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
32

Our indefatigable reader and researcher Laura Chapman reports here on the organization called “School Board Partners,” which we first learned about yesterday. It is another astroturf group, funded by the usual billionaire dilettantes and designed to promote privatization and profit.

She writes:

I have been poking around the “School Board Partners” initiative.
Beware the word “partners” in this initiative. It is charter school, Teach for America, and take over as many school boards as you can so charters can thrive and supply high quality seats in a system free of elected school boards.

So far, there are only two staff, both from Education Cities and four members of a board of directors.

STAFF:

CARRIE MCPHERSON DOUGLASS worked for Education Cities for five years. In May 2017, Carrie was elected to the School Board for Bend-La Pine Schools in Oregon – a district with nearly 20,000 students. She has a BA in education from the University of Portland and holds an MBA from Boston University. She is an alumnus of the Broad Residency and Education Pioneers Fellowship programs. Among other jobs, she led the HR and talent departments at Aspire Public Schools for five years. She is on the board of EdFuel, talent management for education, based in D.C. See also a financial problem with her “relay” activities.

https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/6440691-151/bend-mayoral-candidate-accuses-family-members-of-fraud

KEVIN LESLIE has several jobs in finance and operations for Education Cities and its two new initiatives: Community Engagement Partners and School Board Partners. He holds a with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. He lives in Memphis, TN.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

NATHANIEL EASLEY Ph.D., is Founding Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners, a 501(c)(3) public charity “focused on increasing the availability of high quality public schools in Denver through quarterback investments in educator/leader talent, high performing schools, and a supportive policy environment.” Prior to joining Blue School Partners, He served as President and Secretary of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education from 2009 to 2013. He is a current member of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s Education Compact, the National College Access Network Board, the Colorado Education Initiative Board, and co-chairs the Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He has served on the board of several charter school in Denver in addition to other activities cited at the website.

CARRIE IRVIN is the CEO and Co-Founder of Charter Board Partners (CBP)a national organization helping public charter schools build ” strategic” boards. She has delivered a TEDx talk about CBP’s work. Carrie chaired the Board of Trustees of the National Child Research Center and currently serves on the Georgetown University Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advisory Council. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Brown University, and is a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area .

THERESA PENA has twice been elected as an at-large representative on the Denver Board of Education. She also served as the Executive Director of the Denver Education Compact, a cradle-to-career initiative launched by Mayor Michael Hancock. She is a board member of the Denver Preschool Program, the Denver Community Health Services and the Colorado Community College System. She has a B.A. in sociology from Pomona College in California and MBA from Cornell University.

CARL ZARAGOZA is Senior Director of Elected Leadership at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) LEE prepares and supports Teach for America corps members and alumni as political candidates at every level of government. Carl was elected twice to the Creighton Elementary School District Governing Board in Phoenix and had two terms as President. He is U.S. Army veteran. he taught middle school civics in a Title 1 school in Phoenix. He has BA in Political Science and is studying for an Executive MBA at Arizona State University. He is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

There is a strategy for School Board Partners. It is described in a paper titled FROM TOKENISM TO PARTNERSHIP by Charles McDonald. This short publication includes one chart that shows the intended strategy for privatizing the governance of schools in the manner of Mind Trust’s operation in Indianapolis..

Click to access 1cjmq5paf_935717.pdf

The author of this paper, Charles McDonald, is Executive Director for Community Engagement Partners (an initiative of Education Cities). His bio says that he “served as Senior Managing Director, External Affairs for Teach For America – South Carolina for four years. He also served as Program Manager for Education Pioneers’ Greater Boston Analyst and Graduate School Fellowship programs for two years….. He is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He lives in Columbus, OH.

McDonald credits help on the paper to” leaders at Donnell-Kay Foundation, Leadership For Educational Equity, Memphis Education Fund, MN Comeback, The Mind Trust, SchoolSmartKC, and United Parents and Students.

The new organizayion builds on the failures of education in Memphis, in Indianapolis, in Minnesota and many more cities enticed into faux partnerships with existing public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America
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