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Inside Philanthropy: Billionaires Buying Political Support for Charter Schools, or, Democracy for Sale

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2018 //
6

The veil is beginning to fall away from the billionaire-funded charter activity. There are no grassroots in this billionaire-driven “movement.” It is all about money. Without the billionaires’ money, the demand and the supply would dry up.

Inside Philanthropy looks at the funding behind Marshall Tuck, and the article assumes he has won. But millions of votes remain uncounted in California and the contest is not yet decided. At last count, the candidates were less than one percentage point apart. We will have to wait to see who wins the contest between Big Money and teachers.

On the eve of the election, spending for this election had risen to $50 million. The total is likely to be even higher when final reporting is in.

The apparent winner of the contest, Marshall Tuck, is the former president of Green Dot, a charter school network. He wants to expand charters in a state that already leads the nation in the number of such schools. The other candidate, Tony Thurmond, argued for putting the brakes on charters to address issues of transparency and accountability.

Tuck ran unsuccessfully for the same office in 2014 in a race that cost $30 million. In both cases, Tuck outspent his opponent. This year, his campaign had raised $28.5 million by election day.

The money has come from a who’s who of charter school backers and K-12 philanthropists, including Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Lynn Schusterman, Julian Robertson, Laurene Powell Jobs, Laura and John Arnold, Dan Loeb, Michael Bloomberg and his daughter Emma, and three Waltons: Carrie Walton Penner, Alice Walton, and Jim Walton.

Among Tuck’s biggest backers was Helen Schwab, wife of the finance billionaire Charles Schwab, who gave $2 million to EdVoice for the Kids PAC, which managed independent campaign committees for Tuck; Arthur Rock, the venture capitalist, gave $3 million to EdVoice, while Doris Fisher gave over $3 million. Along with the Schwabs, Fisher has been a huge backer of charter schools as a philanthropist and a consistent mega-donor for political campaigns in this space.

A less familiar name on the list of top backers to EdVoice is businessman Bill Bloomfield. In fact, Bloomfield was the single biggest supporter of the PAC this year, with $5.3 million in donations.

What is crucial in this article is that it recognizes that the push for charters depends on billionaires who have no direct interest in public schools other than to destroy them.

Elected school boards are accountable to the people. To whom are the billionaires accountable?

The most important line in the article is the last one, which recognizes an obvious fact:

Regardless of what you think of charter schools, this seems like no way to make policy on public education, long regarded as among the most democratic institutions in America.

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

Ohio: Impoverished East Cleveland District Sues to Stop State Takeover

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
1

In 2012, I visited Cleveland and took a tour of the school districts in and around the city. I was escorted by Jan Resseger, a knowledgeable social justice advocate. She drove me through the plush suburban districts, then took me to East Cleveland, where there were numerous abandoned buildings and empty lots. East Cleveland had once been a prosperous suburban, but in the 1970s, the once affluent area began to lose jobs and population and its tax base, then fell into disrepair and decay. Because of its low test scores, the state of Ohio wants to takeover the district. This article about the district was written by Robert Brownlee, who grew up in East Cleveland, attended its public schools, and spent his career in its public schools. He hits the nail on the head: The state takeover will do nothing to address the root causes of low academic achievement.

East Cleveland schools are currently in the process of being taken over by the state of Ohio due to poor performance on various measures of student achievement. I grew up in East Cleveland and attended Rozelle Elementary School, the old Kirk Junior High School, and Shaw High School. I returned to East Cleveland as a curriculum specialist/administrator in 1990 and remained there until my retirement. As a resident and educator, I have witnessed substantial changes both in the city and the schools. Such changes, in an older suburban city, have been accompanied by rising poverty, deteriorating housing, and now a pending state takeover of its schools.

When we think in terms of the obvious differences between these East Cleveland neighborhoods and those where students perform well on state tests, it is clear that the neighborhoods and conditions in which students live have a direct impact on their learning in school. The research is available that highlights the effects of such living conditions on the brains of young people. In addition to the obvious physical conditions of the neighborhoods in which students live, they must also contend with the results of poverty itself that affect cognitive and emotional development, especially as young people experience poor nutrition, stressful living conditions, and urban blight.

Rather than resorting to a state takeover of districts such as East Cleveland, we must all take a closer look at the neighborhoods and the attendant poverty that impact the lives and learning of young people!

Bill Phillis reports on the latest community effort to block privatization in East Cleveland:


East Cleveland Schools HB 70 state takeover lawsuit transferred to Franklin County

The East Cleveland Board of Education sued the Ohio Department of Education in an attempt to stop the takeover of the District pursuant to HB 70 of the 131st General Assembly. The case has been transferred from Cuyahoga County to Franklin County. The Board claims the state’s takeover process is unconstitutional and has asked for a temporary restraining order.

HB 70 has wreaked havoc on Youngstown and Lorain Schools and their respective communities. Putting school districts in the hands of a czar appointed by an appointed board is just plain wrong. It is just another form of privatization.

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”
– John Adams, September 10, 1785

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 | ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://www.ohiocoalition.org

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

New York Times: After Long Romance, Democrats Turning Against Charter Schools: The Backlash

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
40

The New York Times spotted an important new trend: the new wave of Democratic elected officials are not in favor of charter schools. We knew this had to happen. Democrats could not be Democrats and remain in alliance with Wall Street, hedge fund managers, billionaires, the Walton family, the DeVos family, and the Koch brothers.

Eliza Shapiro writes:

Over the last decade, the charter school movement gained a significant foothold in New York, demonstrating along the way that it could build fruitful alliances with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other prominent Democrats. The movement hoped to set a national example — if charter schools could make it in a deep blue state like New York, they could make it anywhere.

But the election on Tuesday strongly suggested that the golden era of charter schools is over in New York. The insurgent Democrats who were at the forefront of the party’s successful effort to take over the State Senate have repeatedly expressed hostility to the movement.

John Liu, a newly elected Democratic state senator from Queens, has said New York City should “get rid of” large charter school networks. Robert Jackson, a Democrat who will represent a Manhattan district in the State Senate, promised during his campaign to support charter schools only if they have unionized teachers.

And another incoming Democratic state senator, Julia Salazar of Brooklyn, recently broadcast a simple message about charter schools: “I’m not interested in privatizing our public schools.”

No one is saying that existing charter schools will have to close. And in fact, New York City, which is the nation’s largest school system and home to the vast majority of the state’s charter schools, has many that are excelling.

Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city’s charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots. New York State has been mostly spared the scandals that have plagued states with weaker regulations.

But it seems highly likely that a New York Legislature entirely under Democratic control will restrict the number of new charter schools that can open, and tighten regulations on existing ones.

The defeat is magnified because Mr. Cuomo, a shrewd observer of national political trends with an eye toward a potential White House bid, recently softened his support for charter schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio is a longtime charter opponent with his own national aspirations.

And New York is not the only state where the charter school movement is facing fierce headwinds because of the election.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, an enemy of public sector unions, was unseated by a Democrat, Tony Evers, a former teacher who ran on a promise to boost funding to traditional public schools.

In neighboring Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat who promised to curb charter school growth, beat the incumbent Republican, Gov. Bruce Rauner, a supporter of charter schools. And in Michigan, a Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer, promised to “put an end to the DeVos agenda.”

Ms. Whitmer won her race for governor decisively against the state’s Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette, who is an ally of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary under President Trump. Ms. DeVos has been an outspoken proponent of charter schools in her home state of Michigan and nationally.

Voters on Tuesday gave Democrats control of the New York State Legislature. It seems likely that the body will restrict the number of new charter schools that can open.CreditHolly Pickett for The New York Times
Now charter school supporters are wrestling with the unpleasant reality that a supposedly bipartisan movement, intended to rescue students from failing public schools, has been effectively linked to Wall Street, Mr. Trump and Ms. DeVos by charter school opponents.

Derrell Bradford, the executive vice president of a national group that backs charters, 50CAN, acknowledged that the election results raised new challenges. He said the situation was especially fraught because Mr. Trump has championed charter schools, making the issue toxic for some Democrats.

“I find it frustrating that the president’s support is often used as the reason for people to abandon support of charters and low-income families,” Mr. Bradford said.

Where insurgent national Democrats support charter schools, they do so carefully: Representative Jared Polis, the Colorado Democrat whom voters sent to the governor’s mansion on Tuesday, founded two charter schools. But he has made sure to criticize Ms. DeVos’s vocal brand of school choice advocacy.

Tuesday’s results were compounded by other recent blows for charters in liberal states.

In 2016, Massachusetts voters rejected a referendum that would have expanded the state’s high-performing charter schools. Though backers poured $20 million into the race, it was no match for Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, progressive stars who opposed the initiative.

Philanthropists tried again in California over the summer, when they spent $23 million to bolster the former Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, in the primary for governor. Mr. Villaraigosa, a Democrat, was easily beat by Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor, who has been vague about the role of charters as he seeks to make California an epicenter of opposition to the Trump administration.

Some advocates find a sliver of hope in the fact that even the most liberal Democrats acknowledge that charter schools are here to stay. Many opponents want to slow growth, not destroy charters.

“No matter how hostile some of the cities get to charters, the charters have endured,” said Jeanne Allen, the chief executive of the Center for Education Reform, a national school choice advocacy group.

In New York, the insurgent Democratic candidates’ criticism of charters was somewhat less central to their campaigns than their support for traditional public schools. And though most of those Democrats said they would reject any plan to expand charter schools, they are aware that charters are popular among some families in their own districts.

“You don’t want to alienate anybody,” said Alessandra Biaggi, who in the Democratic primary unseated one of the charter lobby’s most reliable allies, State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, in a Bronx district. “I understand why charter schools exist, I understand why they have come to the Bronx, I really get it. But we’ve got to focus on improving our public schools.”

But even the best-case scenario — widespread political ambivalence, rather than animus, toward charters — would have significant consequences for charter school supporters in New York.

The Legislature may not even bother to take up charter advocates’ most pressing need: lifting the cap on the number of charter schools that can open statewide. Fewer than 10 new charter schools can open in New York City until the law is changed in Albany.

That means the city’s largest charter networks, including the widely known Success Academy, will be stymied in their ambitious goal of expanding enough to become parallel districts within the school system.

“I understand why charter schools exist,” said Alessandra Biaggi, who will represent part of the Bronx in the State Senate. “But we’ve got to focus on improving our public schools.”

But it is the smaller, more experimental charter schools that may have the most to lose.

“A new generation of schools will be thwarted,” said Steven Wilson, the founder of Ascend, a small network of Brooklyn charter schools.

And charters will now be partially regulated by the movement’s political foes. State Senate Democrats, with the lobbying support of teachers’ unions, are likely to push laws requiring charter schools to enroll a certain number of students with disabilities or students learning English. Previous proposals indicate that those politicians may force charters to divulge their finances, and could make it harder for charters to operate in public school buildings.

Those legislators could even impose a limit of about $200,000 on charter school executives’ salaries. At least two operators made over $700,000 in 2016.

Charter school advocates in Democratic states said defeat has made their political mission clear: Convince the holdouts of their liberal bona fides.

“What people don’t understand is that our previous politics obscured just how progressive the vast majority of people in the charter movement actually are,” James Merriman, C.E.O. of the New York City Charter School Center, said.

Still, some of the political wounds New York’s charter school sector has sustained appear self-inflicted, especially in light of the state’s eagerness to challenge Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Days after the 2016 election, Eva Moskowitz, the C.E.O. of Success Academy, interviewed with Mr. Trump for the role of education secretary. When she announced that she would not take the job, Ms. Moskowitz praised the president on the steps of City Hall.

The next day, Ms. Moskowitz hugged Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, when she visited a Success Academy school. A few months later, Ms. Moskowitz welcomed the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to the same school during the fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Ryan helped lead.

Students peered out the windows of the Harlem school as angry protesters waited outside, playing bongos and waving signs.

After a backlash from her staff, Ms. Moskowitz said she “should have been more outspoken” against Mr. Trump.

The situation got worse when one of Ms. Moskowitz’s most prolific donors, the hedge fund billionaire Daniel S. Loeb, said last summer that a black state senator who has been skeptical of charter schools had done more damage to black people than the Ku Klux Klan.

His comment was met with fury from black supporters of charter schools, some of the movement’s most indispensable allies.

On Tuesday, that senator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, became the next leader of the New York State Senate.

Categories Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Democrats, Massachusetts, New York City

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 3

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
6

Sue Legg recently retired as education director of the Florida League of Women Voters. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. At my request, she wrote a four-part series reflecting on School Choice in Florida after 20 years.

Twenty years later: Who Benefits, Not Schools!

Florida’s Constitution mandates that the state shall make ‘adequate provision for all students to access a uniform, safe, secure, efficient and high-quality system of free public schools.

The strategies on how to implement or circumvent these values result in constant lawsuits…at least five in the last two years alone. The arguments are not new: civil rights, funding, local vs. state control, and accountability. One might ask: Who benefits in a system that generates so much conflict? Politicians and profiteers, but not the public may well be the answer.

Political Cronyism and Conflict of Interest.

Charter supporters use money and influence to affect policy outcomes. According to Integrity Florida, $2,651,639 was spent on committee and campaign contributions in 2016 alone. Major donors include John Kirtley, who heads Florida Federation for Children and is also chair of Step Up for Students (which distributes a billion dollars in corporate tax credit scholarships to private schools). All Children Matters, run by Betsy DeVos, gave over $4 million to Florida political committees between 2004 and 2010. The Walton family gave over $7 million between 2008 and 2016 to Florida’s All Children Matter. Large contributions by the Waltons, John Kirtley, CSUSA, Academica, Gary Chartrand (a member of the State Board of Education) and others were also made to Kirtley’s Florida Federation for Children. In addition, for profit charters have spent over $8 million in lobbying in Tallahassee. Former Governor Jeb Bush’s foundation ExcelinEd, supports the spread of pro-choice policies in 38 states.

Conflict of interest claims in the Florida legislature have been made against current and former legislators including Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran; legislators Manny Diaz, Eric Fresen (recently found guilty of tax evasion), Seth McKeel, House Education Chair Michael Bileca, Senators John Legg, Anitere Flores, Kelli Stargel, and Ralph Arza (who was forced to resign for other reasons). They have personal ties to the charter industry and held important education committee leadership roles.

Testing Companies.

The A.I.R. testing company received a six-year $220 million contract for the Florida state assessment exams. This contract does not include the mandatory End of Course exams required in high school subjects, the kindergarten readiness test, the English Language Learner test, or the 50 teacher certification tests and the principals’ leadership exam. Add to this cost was the technical debacle resulting from a law requiring all tests to be administered online. Districts did not have the bandwidth.

Private and Charter Schools Expansion.

The Florida tax credit scholarships (FTC) to private schools no longer serves only low-income families. Income eligibility has risen to $63,000 for partial stipends. Funding is increased by 25% per year, but the corporate tax revenue to support them runs afoul of the governor’s agenda to reduce taxes. As a compromise, in 2018 a sales tax ‘donation’ to private schools for new car owners was approved for students with approved claims of being bullied. Students with disabilities may qualify for MacKay scholarships to private schools which may have no qualified teachers to serve them. Parents whose children have severe disabilities are given a stipend and search on their own for assistance.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

News from NPE Action: Our Allies in Indianapolis Captured Two of Three Seats on the School Board!

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
10

Congratulations to public school advocates in Indianapolis, who were vastly outspent by the “School Choice Trust” (Mind Trust and Stand for Children), yet still managed to win two out of three seats on the school board!

The Indianapolis story is here.

Vocal critics of the Indianapolis Public Schools administration looked poised to unseat two incumbents in Tuesday’s school board election. The results signal opposition to sweeping moves that have reshaped the district, such as high school closings and partnerships with charter school operators.

The race for the at-large seat remained close as the final votes were tallied Wednesday night, with retired IPS teacher Susan Collins taking 43.7 percent of votes over incumbent Mary Ann Sullivan, a former board president. Collins led by about 600 votes — Sullivan held 42.4 percent of the vote, and Joanna Krumel, another challenger, had about 14 percent.

Taria Slack, a federal worker, defeated incumbent Dorene Rodriguez Hoops with 59 percent of the vote to represent the northwest side of the district.

The third seat was won by a proponent of school choice, a policy usually associated with conservatives and opponents of public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Indianapolis, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, School Choice

Jan Resseger: School Choice Fails to Provide Equity for the Neediest Children

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
17

Jan Resseger reviews the evidence about the “portfolio” model of school choice and weighs in on the Burris-Ravitch critique of the recent paper from the Learning Policy Institute that supported that model.

She writes:

“The Learning Policy Institute’s report, The Tapestry of American Public Education, promotes a lovely metaphor, a tapestry of school options woven together—open enrollment, magnet schools, charter schools, and specialty schools based on distinct educational models. The Learning Policy Institute declares: “The goal and challenge of school choice is to create a system in which all children choose and are chosen by a good school that serves them well and is easily accessible. The central lesson from decades of experience and research is that choice alone does not accomplish this goal. Simply creating new options does not lead automatically to greater access, quality or equity.” Here is how the Learning Policy Institute proposes that such fair and equal choice might be accomplished: “Focus on educational opportunities for children, not governance structures. Too often, questions related to the number of charters a district should have address school governance preferences, rather than the needs of children… Work to ensure equity and access for all. Expanding choice can increase opportunities, or it can complicate or restrict access to convenient and appropriate opportunities, most often for the neediest students… Create transparency at every stage about outcomes, opportunities, and resources to inform decision making for families, communities, and policymakers… Build a system of schools that meets all students’ needs.”

“The Learning Policy Institute’s recommendations sound familiar. They are the same arguments made by the Center on Reinventing Public Education as it describes its theory of “portfolio school reform.” Portfolio school reform imagines an amicable, collaborative mix of many different schools: “A great school for every child in every neighborhood. The portfolio strategy is a problem-solving framework through which education and civic leaders develop a citywide system of high-quality, diverse, autonomous public schools. It moves past the one-size-fits-all approach to education. Portfolio systems place educators directly in charge of their schools, empower parents to choose the right schools for their children, and focus school system leaders—such as school authorizers or those in a district central office—on overseeing school success.”

“Under portfolio school reform, a school district manages traditional neighborhood schools and charter schools like a stock portfolio—opening new schools all the time and closing so-called “failing” schools. CRPE says that portfolio school reform operates as a cycle: “give families choice; give schools autonomy; assess school performance; schools improve or get intervention; and expand or replace schools.”

“This rhetoric is all very nice. But the realities on the ground in the portfolio school districts I know fail to embody equity and justice. I believe it is a pipe dream to promise a great school choice for every child in every neighborhood. For one thing, there are the political and economic realities, beginning with the operation of power politics which is always part of the mayoral governance that is at the heart of this theory. There is also the unequal access parents have to information, and the unequal political, economic, and social position of parents. And finally there is the devastating impact of the ongoing expansion of school choice on the traditional public schools in the school districts where charters are proliferating. CRPE calls its governance theory “portfolio school reform.” Many critics instead describe parasitic school reform.”

Resseger cites studies by Gordon Lafer and Bruce Baker that show the harm the portfolio model inflicts on public schools.

And she concludes:

“The public schools are our mutual responsibility through public governance—paid for and operated by government on behalf of he public. We have a lot of work to do to realize this promise for all children. Bruce Baker describes our responsibility: ‘More than anything else, our system of public schooling requires renewed emphasis on equitable, adequate, and economically sustainable public financing at a level that will provide all children equal opportunity to achieve the outcomes we, as a society, desire for them.’”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Justice, Privatization, School Choice

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 2

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
4

Sue Legg, the former director of education for Florida’s League of Women Voters, wrote this series at my request. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. This is part 2.

Twenty Years Later: Impact of Charter and Private Sector Schools

With support from the state, charter and private schools enroll 22% of Florida’s three million children. Charters receive the same per student funding as regular public schools. Private schools receive tax credit scholarships to avoid Florida’s constitutional ban on vouchers funded directly by the legislature.

Nearly half of Florida’s 655 charters are run by for-profit management firms dominated by two firms: Academica and Charter Schools USA (CSUSA).

In 2016, In the Public Interest reported that Academica’s real estate arm controls more than $155 million in south Florida real estate. They essentially own the property for half of their schools and lease it to themselves through the non-profit charter boards they establish. Some of its charters pay exorbitant leases to the Catholic church or other religious entities. Using church facilities is not illegal if there is no religious instruction or other artifacts in classrooms.

CSUSA operates in a similar manner. CSUSA has its own real estate company. We tracked the history of one such school and found that CSUSA had purchased a former ATT call center for about $1.2 million. They flipped the building several times to have the property reappraised, and invested $1.5 million in air conditioning etc. The final appraisal was for $9 million, and the CSUSA board signed an escalating lease for over a million dollars per year which would in time surpass the school budget. Teachers are paid from the remaining budget which seldom allows for retirement or health benefits. Thus, teacher turnover tends to be more than double the rate for traditional public schools.

In 2016, the U.S. Office of the Inspector General delineated the similarities between charter financing and the subprime loan crisis that wreaked havoc with the housing industry. Real estate loans have minimal annual payments with large balloon payments when the loan becomes due.

Independently run charters survive at first on start up funds from the state and federal government. Even though charters are exempt from the regulations governing the quality of school facilities, many complain they are underfunded. Some are housed in abandoned strip malls or former business locations that need remodeling.

The lack of regulation was supposed to spur innovation. Charters must meet local fire and safety codes, employ teachers who are certified within 18 months, and administer state assessments. Otherwise, they are exempt from operational district oversight and state school facilities codes. District school boards can only intervene if charters cannot pay their bills or they receive failing grades two years in a row on the state assessment tests. There is no limit on charter expansion, and the State Board of Education may overrule, and does, proposals that are not approved locally.

Where does this lack of regulation lead? The simple answer is profiteering, corruption and closures. The management of Newpoint charters is the current scandal. The company has been charged with racketeering involving 57 million dollars in the operation of its 15 schools. Investigative reporting by the Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, and Tampa Bay Times have documented many other scandals in which charters close without warning, funds are collected for unenrolled students,

Charters close at an alarming rate. At least 373 Florida charters closed in the last twenty years. They take the money with them. Even some proponents of charters are having doubts.

Parents are finding out the hard way that they have no voice in charter school management. Erika Donalds, a former school board member whose husband is a legislator, sponsored the doomed constitutional amendment 8 to create a separate charter system. She also co-founded one of the Classical Academies where she was a board member. The charter was based on ‘Christian values’, but had a principal who created an environment “where fraud can occur without detection”. Donalds withdrew her children. She has, however, formed an alliance with the wife of the 2017 Florida Senate president to open another Classical Academy.

Past attempts by some legislators to limit the ‘self-dealing’ and profiteering failed. In September 2018, Integrity-Florida released its latest report on needed reforms. Millions of tax payer dollars have been lost to both excessive profits and criminal misuse of funds. Legislation is needed to require a justification for opening a charter and improved regulation to prevent profiteering. At least now, the public is growing aware of the financial threats to our public schools. No longer is the problem ‘over there’. It is affecting everyone.

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

Arizona: Charter School Leader Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy and Theft

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
17

The former director of the Bradley Academy of Excellence pleaded guilty to conspiracy and theft of millions of dollars.

Daniel Hughes, the former director of the Bradley Academy of Excellence, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy and theft.

According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Goodyear charter school over-reported its number of students enrolled for two years so it could receive additional funding.

For the 2016-2017 school year, 191 of the 652 reportedly enrolled students were fake. For the next school year, 453 of 528 were fake.

School officials worked together to create the fake students, which ultimately caused the school to receive $2.5 million in overfunding: about $2.2 million from the state, $230,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for meals and $91,000 from the U.S. Department of Education.

Related Links
West Valley charter school abruptly closes doors amid financial woes
Hughes pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of theft — both felonies — and faces between three and 12.5 years in prison.

The school, previously known as the Bradley Creemos Academy, abruptly closed in December before it was scheduled to be audited by the Arizona Department of Education.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Fraud

Tennessee: Aspire Charter Chain In Trouble, Financially and Academically

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
7

The Aspire charter chain in Memphis is in trouble and debating its future. This is one of billionaire Reed Hastings’ investments, and it is not faring well.

Facing a roughly $2 million operating deficit and lagging academic progress, a California-based charter organization that runs four schools in Memphis is reconsidering its future in the city — even floating the possibility of pulling out of the area altogether.

At a public meeting on Friday, Aspire’s national board discussed with its Memphis staff four possible scenarios for moving forward. Board chair Jonathan Garfinkel said that changes are anticipated, given the budget deficit and the fact that academic “results have not been what we’ve hoped.”

As a result, Aspire could cease to oversee its four Memphis schools, which serve some 1,600 students in total. This wouldn’t mean the schools would close, but that the governance of the school would change. A task force — composed of board members, Aspire staff in Memphis and consultants — came up with the following four possible paths forward, though Garfinkel said more possibilities could be considered.

Memphis remains an Aspire region with additional supports and a plan to close the financial gap.

Memphis becomes an Aspire “franchise,” keeping the name and core approach and receiving some supports, like curriculum and coaching, but operates as a separate nonprofit with significantly more autonomy.

The four Memphis schools become a standalone charter network with their own central office and fundraising function.

The four schools team up with one or more existing local school district or charter network.

If any changes are made, they wouldn’t go into place until after this school year. Garfinkel emphasized that no decisions have been made, and the task force would use Friday’s conversation to steer its board recommendations, slated for January.

Guess they are not “saving poor kids in failing schools.”

Wonder if Reed Hastings will rethink his grand plan to privatize every public school? I’m guessing not. Being a billionaire means never saying you made a mistake.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Memphis, Privatization, Tennessee

Reed Hastings: Destroyer of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
21

Reed Hastings, billionaire founder of Netflix, hates public schools. He wants to eliminate school boards and replace them with corporate management. He has spent more than $100 million promoting charter schools.

Reed Hastings: Netflix CEO Goes Nuclear on Public Schools

“Hastings’ lavish spending has raised concerns among critics who worry that the sort of technologies and efficiencies he used to build his Silicon Valley empire and is now applying to education might not work for the nation’s schoolchildren.

These concerns were raised in 2014, when Hastings, at a California Charter Schools Association meeting, asserted that public schools are hobbled by having elected schoolboards.

“Let’s think large-scale,” says Brett Bymaster, a Silicon Valley electrical engineer who broke the story about Hastings’ school board comments on his blog about Rocketship, a charter school chain supported by Hastings. “You have someone who is contributing millions and millions of dollars to local and statewide political races and who was the former president of the state school board — whose stated goal is to end democracy in education. That is deeply disturbing.”

When Hastings served as chair of the California State Board of Education, he opposed bilingual education, leading Democratic legislators to block his reappointment. While on The State Board, he led the charge to remove any limits on the number of charters in the state and to limit regulation or accountability.

“The fact that California Charter Academy, one of the country’s largest charter school operators, collapsed and left 6,000 California students without a school during his board tenure, did little to sway Hastings’ enthusiasm for publicly financed yet privately run schools. Along with helping to fund the Rocketship and Aspire charter programs, he’s served on the boards of the California Charter Schools Association and the KIPP Foundation, the largest network of charter schools in the country. And much of Hastings’ school reform efforts have focused on technological solutions. He helped launch NewSchools Venture Fund, which has invested $250 million in education entrepreneurs and “ed tech” products. He’s also been a major backer of DreamBox Learning, which develops the math software used in Rocketship schools, and the Khan Academy, an online teaching video clearinghouse.

“But so far, the outcomes of many of these ed tech ventures have been mixed. Khan Academy has been criticized for including fundamental math errors in some of its instructional videos. And while DreamBox once championed a Harvard University study that found that use of its math software was associated with test achievement gains in grades three through five, the study itself noted it could not be ruled out that the gains were “due to student motivation or teacher effectiveness, rather than to the availability of the software.” What’s more, the user data collected by programs developed at Khan Academy, DreamBox and other companies are fueling concerns over student privacy.

“More broadly, education experts are worried about the impact of minimally staffed, call center-like computer learning labs on the nation’s students and teachers, especially as this approach becomes more commonplace in the name of cost savings and innovation. (In a 2012 Washington Post article, former Rocketship CEO John Danner noted that “Rocketeers” could eventually spend 50 percent of their school day in front of computers.)”…

“When Netflix became the first major U.S. company to offer unlimited paid family leave for both male and female employees, it was criticized for extending the policy only to its white-collar employees, not blue-collar workers in charge of customer service and DVDs. And while Microsoft has required that many of its contractors and vendors provide their workers with sick days and vacation time and Google has demanded that its shuttle bus contractors pay better wages, so far Netflix has ignored calls for improved working conditions for its contract workers, says Derecka Mehrens, co-founder of Silicon Valley Rising, a campaign to raise pay and create affordable housing for low-wage workers in the tech industry.

“Mehrens sees a similar class bias in Hastings’ approach to public education. “We see profound consequences, both political and economic, when technology industry leaders take action from a position of privilege and isolation from the very communities they desire to help,” she says. “When tech industry leaders like Reed Hastings call for an elimination of school boards or for more privatization of public schools, they block low-income people from using the one instrument that the powerful can’t ignore – their vote.”

“Hastings’ end goal for California appears to be the near-total replacement of traditional public schools with charter schools. In his 2014 speech where he discussed abolishing elected school boards, Hastings pointed to New Orleans – whose school system was largely taken over by the State of Louisiana after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and converted to the country’s first predominantly charter public school system – as a model:

“So what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily, and the work ahead is really hard because we’re at eight percent of students [in charters] in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90 percent, so we have a lot of catchup to do… So what we have to do is continue to grow and grow… It’s going to take 20-30 years to get to 90 percent of charter kids.”

For his contempt for public schools and his determination to remove democratic governance of education, I hereby place Reed Hastings on this blog’s Wall of Shame.

Categories Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Technology, Wall of Shame
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