Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Jeff Bryant: Voters Reject the Rightwing Push for School Privatization

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2018 //
13

Jeff Bryant reviews the victories for public education in the last elections.

The big victories were the overwhelming defeat of voucher legislation in Arizona and the Tony Thurmond’s election over the charter lobby’s candidate Marshall Tuck in the Califotnia race for state school superintendent, despite Tuck’s more than 2-1 funding advantage.

And there were many more victories, especially in governors’ races.

In gubernatorial races across the Midwest, Democrats ran and won with strong oppositional messages against school privatization.

In Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer won a governor’s seat formerly occupied by Rick Snyder after campaigning to “end the [Betsy] DeVos agenda in Michigan,” close for-profit charter schools in the state, and propose additional oversights for charters.

In Minnesota, Democratic challenger for an open governor’s seat Tim Walz, a former public high school geography teacher and football coach, pledged to block any proposed voucher programs. He won decisively.

In Illinois, Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker defeated incumbent Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, while pledging to end the state’s education tax credit voucher program, which already diverts public tax dollars to pay for private school tuition for 5,600 students….

In what is perhaps the most startling of charter school turnarounds, midterm elections in New York took down a longstanding coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the state Senate who colluded with charter advocate Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo to expand these schools and keep them relatively regulation-free.

As New York City public school art teacher and citizen journalist Jake Jacobs reports for the Progressive, a faction of eight Democratic state senators calling themselves the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) had for years shared power and donors with Senate Republicans to work with Governor Cuomo in maintaining a “favored status” for charter schools in the state.

In September primaries, six grassroots-backed Democratic candidates ousted IDC members, and then, in turn, handily beat their Republican opponents in November. Despite being vastly outspent by the Republicans, the insurgent Democrats pressed their cases to stop charter schools from taking over space in public school buildings and to block attempts to lift the cap on the numbers of charters that can operate in the state. Most supported a moratorium on new charter schools proposed by the NAACP.

Because of victories by these insurgent Democrats, who will insist on more scrutiny of charter schools, Jacobs foresees “a new landscape” in the state legislature “where evidence and research matter more than Albany’s rampant ‘pay-for-play’ arrangements” that have given charters the upper hand.

Similarly, in red states where teacher rebellions have begun to turn the tables on the school privatization industry, public school advocates are seeing a transformed political landscape where resistance is not only possible but winnable.

After midterm elections in Arizona, “we will have the most balanced state legislature since the 1980s,” says Beth Lewis, “with roughly half of the legislators having declared full support for fully funded public schools.”

Categories Arizona, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Michigan, New York, Privatization, Resistance

Thrive Charter Schools in San Diego: Where the Founders Thrive, But Not Students

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2018 //
9

Tom Ultican has written several articles about the Destroy Public Education Movement; this installment examines a failing charter chain in San Diego that continues to rake in big bucks.

The Thrive charter chain, he says, is a masterpiece of marketing, but a failure at education.

When the chain was launched, the San Diego Unified School District staff said it was not ready to open; the founders appealed and were rejected by the staff of the County Board of Education. The founders appealed to the State Board of Education, where its defective application was rubberstamped by Governor Jerry Brown’s pro-Charter State Board.

Ultican says that charter schools are supposed to perform at least as well as similar public schools or show improvement over time.

Thrive charter schools did not meet either benchmark. But that did not deter funders or founders.

They were shameless and kept growing their failing charter chain. And the money kept rolling in, to expand the failure to more children.

“Once she obtained the charter authorization from the SBE, money came. The known list of 2014 donations: Buzz Woolley’s Girard Foundation granted her $108,000; Gate’s Educause sent $254,500; Charter School Growth Fund kicked in $175,000 and the Broad Foundation delivered $150,000 for a total of $688,000. The next year, Broad gave another $50,000 and the New Schools Venture Fund pitched in $100,000. There is another $144,000 promised from Educause.

“Destroy public education (DPE) careers pay well. Tax records reveal that Nicole’s start up “non-profit” has been lucrative. Her pay: year one $122,301; year two $133,747 and year three $142,541. Her husband holds a senior management position at the CCSA which means DPE money flows his way as well.”

In 2017, the charter chain added another school, this one paid for by taxpayers, but with this addendum. The property belongs not to taxpayer who paid for it, but TO THE CHARTER OWNERS! How cool is that!

You will not be surprised to learn that the pro-privatization website “The 74,” is wild about Thrive. Nor will you be be surprised to discover that Thrive loves putting kids on computers and that one of its cheerleaders is Tom Vanderbilt Ark, a leading salesman for edtech.

Ultican reminds us that the Thrive charter chain calls itself “public schools,” but it is a private contractor that runs lucrative but failing schools. All that keeps them going is this formula:

“Bad schools like TPS survive because they are good at marketing; have deep pocketed benefactors and political allies.”

Thrive is not thriving.

Ultican says Thrive is evidence that California needs a moratorium on charter schools until lawmakers systematically root out fraud, self-dealing, waste, and abuse. That’ll be the day.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Privatization, San Diego

Opioid Crisis: Sackler Family Members Are Targets of Mass Litigation and Criminal Investigations

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
14

The Sacklers of Connecticut are one of the richest families in America. Forbes recently put their collective wealth at $14 billion. That money was created by Purdue Pharma, which created and marketed OxyContin. That drug has been responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths. The Sackler Family name is emblazoned on major museums and universities. Jonathan Sackler is a major funder ipof the Charter School Movement. He founded ConnCAN and 50CAN. His daughter Madeline Sackler made a movie about the miraculous Eva Moskowitz.

But now legal authorities are targeting the Sacklers for their role in the opioid crisis.

The Guardian has the story here.

Members of the multibillionaire philanthropic Sackler family that owns the maker of prescription painkiller OxyContin are facing mass litigation and likely criminal investigation over the opioids crisis still ravaging America.

Some of the Sacklers wholly own Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, the company that created and sells the legal narcotic OxyContin, a drug at the center of the opioid epidemic that now kills almost 200 people a day across the US.

Suffolk county on Long Island, New York, recently sued several family members personally over the overdose deaths and painkiller addiction blighting local communities. Now lawyers warn that action will be a catalyst for hundreds of other US cities, counties and states to follow suit.

At the same time, prosecutors in Connecticut and New York are understood to be considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against leading family members over the way OxyContin has allegedly been dangerously overprescribed and deceptively marketed to doctors and the public over the years, legal sources told the Guardian last week.

“This is essentially a crime family … drug dealers in nice suits and dresses,” said Paul Hanly, a New York city lawyer who represents Suffolk county and is also a lead attorney in a huge civil action playing out in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio, involving opioid manufacturers and distributors.

“Dopesick” by Beth Macy tells the story of the opioid epidemic, the company that created it, and the toll it has taken on America. At least 200,000 people have died.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools

Arizona: Online Charter Operator Pays Himself Another $1.3 Million, Gives Teachers a 1% Raise

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
8

The Primavera online charter school in Arizona is rewarding himself handsomely with taxpayers’ money. Will Governor Doug Ducey or the legislature care or will regulate this self-dealing?

The CEO of Primavera, whose multimillion-dollar payments to himself spurred calls for more oversight of Arizona charter schools, received another $1.3 million from the online charter this past school year, records show.

Damian Creamer, the sole owner of the for-profit Primavera, also paid $27.6 million from the school’s state education funding to another company he owns, Strongmind. The payment was for curriculum, enrollment, technical support and other services.

Meanwhile, the school, which reported it had the third-worst dropout rate in Arizona, gave its 95 teachers a 1 percent pay raise last school year.

Primavera disclosed its spending for the period from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, in an independent audit required by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.

Creamer did not respond to requests for comment.

The audits provide a snapshot of how lightly regulated charter operators use tax dollars. Charter schools are not subject to the same financial or governance oversight as traditional district public schools, and The Republic has found that some operators, like Creamer, have become charter school millionaires by operating the public schools.

After The Republic reported this year that Creamer had paid himself $8.8 million despite operating a school with the state’s third-highest dropout rate, Attorney General Mark Brnovich called for the law to be changed to allow his office to investigate charter schools more broadly.

Creamer has said the $8.8 million payment was for tax purposes but has not provided documents to support that claim.

“When you see public money go to line the pockets of someone who is supposed to help students become a millionaire, I can’t believe it’s not a crime,” Brnovich said at the time.

Since then, a Republican state senator and Gov. Doug Ducey have said they, too, will push to overhaul Arizona’s charter-school laws to require more transparency and compliance with the same procurement and conflict-of-interest laws that govern district schools.

Brnovich has criticized Creamer because the online charter school owner uses education funds to buy services from related businesses he owns or controls. A related-party transaction or self-dealing is illegal for school districts but common among Arizona charter schools.

Basis Charter Schools Inc., for example, pays about $10 million as an annual, no-bid management fee to a company controlled by its founders. American Leadership Academy founder Glenn Way made at least $18.4 million building schools for ALA through no-bid contracts. And state lawmaker Eddie Farnsworth is poised to make at least $11 million by selling his Benjamin Franklin schools to a non-profit company he created.

Brnovich’s office recently obtained a fraud conviction against Daniel K. Hughes, president and CEO of Discovery Creemos Academy in Goodyear, after he abruptly shuttered his charter school in January and defrauding taxpayers of at least $2.5 million by inflating the school’s enrollment.

Primavera still amassing cash

Primavera has accumulated so much money that it has set aside $8.5 million for Creamer in stockholder’s equity, records show. Creamer can take the money anytime.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Jake Jacobs: Voters in New York Oust Charter Supporters from State Senate

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
8

Jake Jacobs describes the dramatic ouster of fake Democrats from the State Senate and a changed landscape in New York.

Until the last election, Governor Andrew Cuomo worked closely with an odd coalition of Tepublicans and fake Democrats in the State Senate to give charter schools whatever they wanted. Cuomo collected millions of dollars from hedge fund managers and Wall Street who love charter schools.

The so-called Independent Democratic Conference caucused with Republicans to assure Republican Control of the State Senate.

The new State Senators are anti-charter and anti-standardized testing.

Perhaps just as significant as the Ocasio-Cortez “earthquake” was the September 13th aftershock, where six other insurgent, grassroots-backed New York candidates won primaries in State Senate races against members of the former Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a controversial group of eight breakaway lawmakers who shared power, perks—and donors—with senate Republicans for over seven years.

All six “No IDC” challengers handily beat their Republican opponents in the general election November 6, including Alessandra Biaggi, a former legal counsel in the Governor Andrew Cuomo administration who ran on the promise to “stop siphoning money to privately run charter schools” and a call to prevent charters from expanding in New York.

Despite being outspent, Biaggi defeated Jeff Klein, the ringleader of the IDC, who funneled upwards of $700,000 in charter industry PAC money to IDC members. Working with Republicans, Klein repeatedly blocked funding for needy public schools while dramatically increasing per-pupil spending for charters. A thirteen year incumbent, Klein lost 54-46 percent, out-hustled by Biaggi who attended public schools in Pelham before hitting the Ivy league, and at thirty-two years old still owes over $180,000 in student debt.

Defeating another IDC member awash in charter PAC money was progressive Robert Jackson, a longtime New York City Councilman who was an original lead plaintiff in the original 1993 Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit seeking increased funding for impoverished schools.

A fierce critic of school privatization, Jackson is eager to take on “groups such as StudentsFirst who push a non-transparent, corporate agenda that makes money off of children’s backs, strips schools and districts of resources, and undermines public education,” his chief of staff Johanna Garcia tells me in an email. In 2011, Jackson sued the city to stop charter school co-locations, or the takeover of space in public school buildings. He has also been a staunch supporter of the opt-out movement, championing legislation in the New York City Council to reduce standardized testing.

Likely to have a profound impact in Albany, Senator-elect Jackson’s position on standardized testing is resolute: “The sooner and farther away we move from standardized testing, the quicker we can focus on supporting learning environments that are responsive and include teaching critical thinking skills, small class sizes, arts and science programs, recess, and funding for resources, social services and enrichment opportunities.”

In Queens, another progressive Democrat to unseat a pro-charter IDC member is Jessica Ramos, a former aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio with a background as a labor organizer and immigration activist. Also a public school product, Ramos is a mom of two who “cannot wait to opt-out” when her oldest son enters third grade next year. Seeing the stress and waste of the testing regime, she “absolutely” backs legislation to eliminate state testing mandates.

Ramos opposes diverting funding from public schools to charters who she sees pushing out high need students in order to preserve their “brand.” Like Robert Jackson, Ramos supports the NAACP moratorium on new charter schools as well as the longtime fight for equitable public school funding.

Also in Queens, former New York City Comptroller John Liu defeated former IDC state senator Tony Avella, who in 2009, claimed to be adamantly anti-charter. But in 2014, Avella joined the IDC and voted for budgets that increased funding for charter co-locations and school choice. Senator-elect Liu wants to prevent the growth of charters and make them pay rent to the city, while also reducing the emphasis on standardized testing.

Cuomo won’t be able to squash progressive legislation anymore. There’s a new posse in Albany.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York, Privatization, Standardized Testing

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2018 //
18

John Thompson here writes about his reaction to the annual conference of the Network for Public Education, where the implicit theme was that David is beating Goliath, but Goliath just keeps stumbling forward, crushing public schools and advancing privatization, with no evidence of success. I argued, in the opening address of the conference, that the Reformers are akin to Goliath, and that Goliath has failed and failed again but is so powerful that he continues to wreak destruction on communities. He is among the Walking Dead. He is, in fact, a zombie.

Thompson was a teacher in Oklahoma; he recently retired. He lives in the belly of the beast, a state where Goliathians control the legislature and the governorship. At least they don’t pretend to be “progressives.” They are DeVos-Trump extremists, with links to ALEC and the Koch brothers.

Thompson admits that he was slow in realizing that the Reformers are intent on undermining public schools and that they were acting in concert. But he is convinced now, not only that they are doing so, but that their promises have not been kept and that, in fact, they have failed wherever they set their sights.

He ends with this:

Knowing that Indianapolis is at the heart of the dying, but still dangerous corporate reform movement, I expected that Chalkbeat would choose its words carefully and make sure that its reporting didn’t threaten its donations from Goliath. Chalkbeat Indianapolis didn’t cover the NPE conference but Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat New York has been covering Indiana’s Mind Trust and its successor, the City Fund. (Chalkbeat Indiana has since linked to WFYI Indianapolis’s report on one of the city’s 20 “innovation schools” which is receiving $1.3 million in management fees.)

This leads to the biggest question that I brought to the NPE. We Oklahomans have failed to communicate with our state’s edu-philanthropists on how their science-based, holistic early education and trauma-informed instruction programs and the Indianapolis Goliath are inherently incompatible. We know that the City Fund seems to have its eye on Deborah Gist’s Tulsa Public schools. We could use some help from NPE conference participants in explaining to Tulsa philanthropists why their “portfolio model” is likely to undermine their contributions to high quality pre-k, just like it did in New Orleans.

As a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood and a board member for the ACLU/OK, I developed great respect for the Kaiser and Schusterman foundations and other Tulsa philanthropists. I still struggle to understand how those leaders could not see how their humane, evidence-based programs are threatened by Goliath’s data-driven, reward and punish corporate reforms. But one of the first people I saw in Indianapolis was Tom Ultican, and he gave me information on the $200,000 Schusterman donated to California privatizers such as Antonio Villaraigosa and Marshall Tuck. If nothing else, I would like to explain to the philanthropists why educators can’t lower our guard and stop defending ourselves against their scorched earth tactics. I’d appreciate any help the NPE can provide in explaining why we will fight Goliath to the end.

Imagine that. Chalkbeat has an outpost in Indianapolis, but did not think it was worth its time to send a reporter to cover a conference of 500 educators from across the country that took place in Indianapolis! Is that media bias? Would their funders (Walton, Gates, etc.) have objected if they sent a reporter to write about a major event in their city?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Indianapolis, Lies, Privatization

D.C.: Parents Fight Bureaucracy to Try to Get a Public School in Their Neighborhood

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2018 //
16

Just in case you thought that Eve Ewing was writing about a one-off event in Chicago, when Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked board closed 50 public schools in one day, ignoring the pleas of parents, think again.

A similar battle is going on in the District of Columbia, where parents are pleading with the D.C. school officials to open a public school (doors open to all) where they closed a public school.

Valerie Jablow, a D.C. parent, writes about this struggle and pins down the shifty tactics of school officials, who offer dodges, double-talk, and shifting explanations to parents who want a public school.

The outcome, she suspects, is pre-determined.

The District of Columbia is still locked into the Michelle Rhee mindset and remains committed to replacing public schools with charter schools. After all, they have received millions from the Walton Foundation and other malanthropists NOT to change course and listen to residents.

This is what democracy does not look like, she writes, as officialdom finds myriad ways to evade public testimony by parents.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Parents, Privatization, Walton Foundation

New Orleans: Five Charters Closed, Other Charters Approved, Parents Outraged

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2018 //
7

If you should read Eve Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard, you will have the context for understanding the incessant disruption imposed on the students and parents of New Orleans. Parents were fearful that the superintendent planned to close schools and scatter their children.
At a recent meeting, the superintendent announced that he was closing five low-performing charter schools and approving a new group of charters. The superintendent, Henderson Lewis Jr., stressed how difficult these decisions were.

“This month has been a test for myself, my staff, this board and our system as a whole,” Lewis said. “It tested our courage, our consistency, and it tested humility.”

Parents were furious. They did not praise the superintendent and his staff for their courage and humility.

Because these were action items, the public was finally allowed to speak, and the meeting became heated at times. However, when speakers veered off topic — to school closures, for example — they were asked to leave the podium.

At one point, as the board asked a woman to stop talking the crowd reacted in a chant: “Let her talk! Let her talk! Let her talk!”

At another moment, organizer Ashana Bigard spoke from the audience.

“You represent us, when did you ask us?” Bigard asked. “Did anybody sit in a meeting where we discussed these changes?”

A collective “no” was the response.

Several speakers and people in the audience called for the district to directly run its schools.

One woman specifically criticized the nearly all-charter district. “Y’all are passing out charters like you’re Oprah or something. You get a charter. You get a charter. You get a charter.”

Another speaker pleaded with the board: “After tonight, please don’t close or charter any other school. If you’ve got a problem with administration, run the school don’t close the school.”

After the meeting, Bigard said she planned to help parents organize.

“We are organizing parents that want to come together to get real democracy and real choice,” she said. “We’re going to start our recall campaign tomorrow.”

She said she was particularly concerned with the trauma students experience when they’re moved from school to school.

“They’re picking on special needs children and black and brown children,” she said. “They get the least when they’re supposed to get the most.”

Forty percent of the charter schools in New Orleans are rated D or F. All of them are overwhelmingly black.

The superintendent thinks that he can make all of them excellent schools if he keeps closing those with low grades.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, New Orleans, Parents, Privatization

Jan Resseger: Is the Charter School Romance Winding Down?

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2018 //
27

Jan Resseger notes a few straws in the wind that suggest a lessening of enthusiasm for charter schools.

First, she says, is the close race between Tony Thurmond and Marshall Tuck in California. The usual charter-loving billionaires poured millions into Tuck’s campaign, who had twice as much money to spend as Thurmond. The polls predicted a romp for Tuck, given his name recognition (he ran for the same position four years ago, but especially his money in hand. Early returns showed Tuck winning. But then the results reversed, and Thurmond has been leading. Are Californians waking up to the threat posed by charter schools, where accountability is minimal?

Then there was the legislative elections in New York State. Governor Cuomo had a $35 million campaign chest, largely from the Wall Street-Hedge Fund crowd who want to privatize everything. Cuomo rewards his donors. But woe to the charter industry, Republicans and fake Democrats were booted out of the State Senate, and the New Democrats want to improve public schools, not charter schools.

Important straws in the wind.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools

Utah: Why the Secrecy Around This Lucrative Charter Chain?

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2018 //
8

The largest charter chain in Utah is American Prepartory Academy. It is operated by a for-profit entity. The schools are very profitable. The owners keep their operations secret, as they probably assume that the public would not be happy to learn how much tax dollars go into their bank accounts, not the schools.

One of its founders and its Executive Director, Carolyn Sharette, is also the registered agent of a for-profit management company, American Preparatory Schools, Inc., which will charge the school $5,805,200 for the 2018-2019 school year. That’s a bump up from the $4.6 million the company got last year.

Where’s the money going?

State funding, your taxpayer dollars, comprise 88 percent of American Prep’s budget. But what do the students get with that money?

Sharette isn’t telling – and she doesn’t have to. The State Charter School Board does not demand accountability from contracted companies working for the school.
The Board told KUTV’s Beyond the Books that it monitors a charter school’s student performance and adherence to its charter and state and federal rules. But Sharette’s for-profit company is beyond its reach.

It’s also a family affair. Two of Sharette’s siblings, brother Howard Headlee and sister Laura Campbell, are co-founders of American Prep.

Sharette and Campbell sit on its executive board. Headlee registered three 501(c)3 companies that own the school’s property and buildings and lease them back to the schools. And at least two of Sharette’s children have been employed by the for-profit management company, American Preparatory Schools, Inc.

Where’s your tax money going, Utah citizens?

None of your business!

Once it goes to this charter chain, there is no accountability.

Satisfied?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization
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