Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Chicago: Arne Duncan Aide is Running Daley Mayoral Campaign; More School Closings Ahead?

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
9

Mercedes Schneider noticed that Peter Cunningham, the editor or former editor of the billionaire Education Post, is campaign manager for mayoral candidate Bill Daley. Cunningham worked for Arne Duncan in the U.S. Department of Education, where he strongly defended Duncan’s zeal for closing schools with low test scores.

Is this a signal that a new Mayor Daley would double down on zrahm Emanuel’s horrifying record of closing public schools? Rah my set a record unequalled in American history by closing 50 schools in a single day. Never happened before. Will Daley follow the Duncan-Rahm path?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Jackie Goldberg: LAUSD Must Reduce Class Sizes Now!

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
10

Jackie Goldberg is one of the premier advocates for children and public education in California and, indeed, the nation. She was a classroom teacher for 17 years, a member of the Los Angeles school board, and a member of the Legislature, rising to chair of the State Assembly Education Committee. She is a legendary figure to supporters of children and public schools.

She writes in the Los Angeles Times that the LAUSD board must act to reduce class sizes, which in some schools, exceed 40 students.

A few excerpts from her excellent article:


Today, classes of 45 students or more are not uncommon in most secondary schools. (This excludes kindergarten through third-grade classes, which receive state funding specifically for class-size reduction.).

If the district truly wants its students to learn more, it should get rid of Section 1.5 and immediately begin hiring 2,000 new teachers to meet the class-size goals that are already laid out in the current contract. [Section 1.5 is a waiver from a class-Size reduction agreement.]

This would cost $200 million more each year. That may sound like a lot, but the district has a minimum of $1.8 billion in reserve.

Opposition to class-size reduction comes from the top. When I chaired the Assembly Education Committee, lobbyists would often come in and argue that the cost of reducing class sizes in California’s public schools was simply too high.

When I asked these lobbyists where their own children attended school, many if not all of them would respond that they sent their children to private schools — some to schools where tuition could cost as much as $45,000 a year and classrooms would have as few as a dozen students.

In other words, although they paid considerable tuition rates for their own kids to benefit from small classes, they considered it perfectly acceptable for children who live in poverty — 80% of the LAUSD student population — to be relegated to the third-largest class sizes in America. Really?

There is also some quiet opposition coming from a few well placed charter-school advocates. Why? Because if the district were to reduce class sizes by hiring 2,000 additional teachers, it would need to provide 2,000 classrooms to those new teachers — classrooms that some charter-school advocates are eyeing for themselves.

The Board of Education at LAUSD needs to put its students first. Though it claims to do so at nearly every meeting and on seemingly all of its printed materials, its claims are often empty rhetoric.
Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »
It is common sense that smaller classes make for better learning environments and higher grades and test scores. It’s also well documented.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Law Professor: The Days of Charters and Vouchers Are Numbered

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
30

Derek Black, a Law professor at the University of South Carolina, attended the Network for Public Education conference in Indianapolis and left convinced that the privatization movement is not going to survive.

Read it all. It is an uplifting take on the future.

He writes:

Why am I suddenly confident, rather than nervous, about charters and vouchers? I got the chance to meet and listen to teachers from across the country at the Network for Public Education’s annual conference in Indianapolis this past weekend. For the first time in my professional career, I had a firm sense of public education’s future. I have litigated and participated in several civil rights and school funding cases, dealt with lots of different advocates, and watched closely as the teacher protests unfolded this spring. In Indianapolis, I saw something special—something I had never seen before.

I saw a broad based education movement led not by elites, scholars, or politicians, but everyday people. Those everyday people were teachers who were not just from big cities, small cities, suburbs, or the countryside, but from all of those places and as diverse as America’s fifty states and ten thousand school districts. The teachers weren’t just young or old, white, black or brown, men or women, straight or gay. They were all of the above.

So what then binds them together? Their opponents would say they are radicals or self-interested. But these teachers weren’t that either. As I sat down across the table and listened, I was struck by just how “every day” many of these teachers were. They had hopped on planes and come from across the country, but they were not any different from my kids’ teachers back in South Carolina–who had not even hinted at the possibility of a strike.

These movement “leaders” in Indianapolis were reluctant leaders. Like my kids’ teachers, these teachers struck me as the type who put their heads down, follow the rules, teach what the state asks, and care most of all about their students. And while these teachers were obviously disappointed in their states and concerned about the future of public education, I wouldn’t even call them mad. They stepped out on a ledge because they felt they had to.

One teacher, whom I recognized from this past spring’s newspapers but won’t name, actually had a lot of good things to say about her teaching experience and school. She said her principal lets her teach how and what she wants and that her school is good place. If I did not know who she was, you could not have convinced me that she led thousands of teachers this past spring.

There is one stereotype, however, that fits these teachers well: studiousness. They read—a lot. They research—a lot. As a result, they know and keep track of stuff that normally only policy wonks and professors know. Details matter in education policy and these teachers were on top of them. If I were governor and starting a new watchdog agency—whether in education or some other area—these teachers are some of the first people I would hire.

Over time, I have come to realize that clients matter more than attorneys. Groups of committed individuals standing behind movement leaders are, as often as not, more important than leaders. Attorneys and leaders tend to be just vessels for something larger than themselves.

What makes this teacher movement special is that the leaders are also the followers. The leaders come from within the ranks, not urged on by outsiders, elites, or money. They are urged on by their own sense of right and wrong, by their heartfelt care for public education and the kids its serves. For those reasons, they won’t be going away, bought off, or fatigued any time soon.

Categories Charter Schools, Courage, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, School Choice, Teachers, Vouchers

Peter Greene: The Dilemma of Kansas City

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
16

Peter Greene is now writing on a regular basis for Forbes magazine, an absolutely splendid setting for his brilliant work.

In his latest article, he tells the sad story of Kansas City, Missouri.

In 1964, it had 77,000 students.

When the order came to desegregate the district, white families fled the city’s system, and in an unusual and controversial move, the system tried to meet its desegregation goals by luring those white students back with an array of shiny special programs rather than investing in a more solid base. Just before the turn of the century, Missouri okayed charter schools, but only for urban areas (meaning Kansas City and St. Louis). Since then, a portion of the district has been annexed and the district suffered under a Broad-trained superintendent (and his abrupt departure). Today there are 14,216 students in the public school system, and 12,468 in the various charters operating in the city.

Now, Kansas City is struggling to figure out how to co-exist with the charters. Dr. Mark Befell, the superintendent, is trying to figure out how to create a new ecosystem.

The proliferation of charters in Kansas City has also created a system that is difficult for families to navigate. Charter schools present a wide variety of grade ranges including K-6, K-4, 6-12 and, most improbably, 5-11. Parents have to figure out how to navigate their child through all thirteen grades while factoring in programs, location, and whether or not the charter will admit students in the school’s higher grades (a charter that doesn’t “backfill” may cover grades K-6, but will not accept students in the higher grades even if the school has empty seats). A student can ending up switching school systems multiple times in her educational career.

Unregulated charters have made a mess out of the Kansas City ecosystem, but Bedell is looking to clean it up. The school district has a unique opportunity. Charters in Missouri can be sponsored by a university, a school district, or the state’s charter school commission, and one of Kansas City’s major sponsors is getting out of the business, leaving eight charters in search of a sponsor. The state commission wants them, but so does the public system.

As in other districts, the question is whether and how the public schools can survive the charter invasion.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Kansas City, Privatization

Senator Kemala Harris Endorses Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
7

You may have noticed that I have posted several times about the importance of electing Tony Thurmond to be the next Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. I do this because California is a very large, very important, very influential state. Even though California is a blue state, the privatizers have a strong Foothold there because there is a concentration of tech billionaires, p.us Eli Broad, who believe that public schools should operate like businesses. It worked for them, so naturally they think it’s right to impose their beliefs on education. These billionaires’ influence is increased by the huge money flow into the state from out-of-State billionaires like Michael Bloomberg of New York City. Currently, the billionaires have placed their bets on Marshall Tuck, a candidate who morphed from banker to charter leader.

Tony Thurmond is a social worker and a legislator. He identifies with the kids he wants to help.

Senator Kemala Harris made a video on behalf of Tony Thurmond. By doing so, she risks alienating the billionaires who play a large role in choosing presidential candidates.

Bravo to Senator Harris!

It is not easy for a person in politics to thumb her nose at the richest people in the state.

She is a woman of principle.

Oh, and by the way, when both Thurmond and Tuck asked for the endorsement of the California Democratic Party, 95% of the delegates endorsed Tony Thurmond. Tuck has the endorsement of the California Republican Party.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

A Billionaire Stops Funding Charters and TFA, Starts Funding Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
46

The richest woman in Connecticut no longer gives to charter schools and Teach for America. Barbara Dalio has shifted her giving to public schools.

She fell in love with public education.

She fell in love with the schools that take everyone, even the least of them, the children that the charters reject.

She got woke.

In the past three years alone, the foundation, which Barbara co-founded with her husband, has donated $50 million to public education programs in Connecticut.

“I never thought I would get into education because it’s not my background, so I am learning as I go along,” she said. “I love it. I don’t play golf or tennis. This is my passion.”

Connecticut Adds Two More Billionaires To The Forbes 400 List. Here’s A Look At All Nine Members.
Dalio, 70, who is universally described as humble and hands-on, said in an interview last week that her shift toward traditional public school districts came about as she learned more about education and became concerned about the achievement gap and students who are disengaged from school.

Dalio said she observed that the kids who go to public charter schools have parents who are often more involved and have the initiative to seek out an alternative for their child.

But many parents, she said, don’t have the time to do that.

“It’s not that they don’t care about the kids,” Dalio said of those parents. “It’s that they are burdened in many instances with just one parent having two or three jobs. That really struck me.”

It’s a shift that some of the wealthy donors that have focused on charters and other reform efforts are also making in recent years, some experts say.

A few years ago, there was a feeling among some wealthy donors that giving to local neighborhood schools might be a waste of money, said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies with the American Enterprise Institute.

“Now the zeitgeist has changed,” said Hess. “TFA [Teach for America] and charter schooling are more controversial than they were eight or 10 years ago for various reasons and after the teacher strikes, teachers are more sympathetic. There’s a sense that if you’re a wealthy person and you’re trying to give away dollars in a way that you feel good about, you might make different choices in 2018 than you did in 2008.”

When Dalio arrived as an immigrant from Spain in her 20s, she knew very little about the American educational system except that she saw it is as inspiring.

“One of the things that struck me was all the people that succeeded or were able to have a very good education just through the public schools,” Dalio said. “I just admire that democratic side that the United States has. I don’t know if it still has it but I thought it was so amazing that anyone of any social class can just go to a public school and get a great education.”

Dalio, who lives in Greenwich, learned more about the public schools as she raised her four sons who attended both public and private schools and had very different needs and learning styles.

“I didn’t have a formula that would work for all of them, so I had to be very nimble and had to rely on teachers to help me help them,” Dalio said. “So that’s how my love for teachers started because they were always really there for me and for them. They were very caring.”

As the family’s foundation was expanding, Dalio said, “I really felt for the public schools and I really wanted to be helpful.”

But she realized she needed to be educated. So she began volunteering at an alternative high school in Norwalk where she started coming in once every two weeks and soon was up to two or three times a week.

“I learned really how many needs the kids have because they had kids with learning differences, kids that have had trauma in their lives, kids with emotional needs,” Dalio said, as well as kids who are hungry. “So it really is challenging for the school, the teachers to address all of those needs, especially with [budget] cuts” that eliminate social workers or mental health programs, she said.

Dalio said she learned through the alternative school and also with her own children, one of whom has bipolar disorder, that all children can succeed if given the right the services and help.

Her own son is in very good shape now, she said, “but it took a lot of resources and patience and time and you know if we didn’t succeed, he could have been just one of those kids.”

“So I always feel a bit for the underdog … or the kids that don’t have opportunities and I see that if you give them what they need, which is sometimes not that much, [with] just a little attention and love, you can really turn them around…”

David Callahan, editor of Inside Philanthropy, said he hopes “other philanthropists will pay attention to what (Dalio is) doing and the hands-on immersive approach she’s taken, which is how philanthropy should operate if it doesn’t want to alienate the people it needs to engage to succeed.”

“If Barbara ever gets focused on the national level,” Callahan said, “I think that could be a big deal, given her mindset and the sensibility she brings to this space.”
”

Public education should not have to depend on the goodwill of philanthropists. It is a civic duty to educate all children through taxation.

But billionaires have banded together to destroy education and to promote choice instead of raising taxes.

Thank you, Ms. Dalio, for putting your money where it does the most good for the most children.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Hope, Philanthropy

Pasi Sahlberg: GERM Is In Retreat

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
12

The great Finnish scholar Pasi Sahlberg coined the term GERM to represent the Global Education Reform Movement. GERM is the advance of markets, standardization, choice, and rankings, which began in England and the U.S. and spread to other nations. GERM is corporate education reform, and no one has been more effective at countering the virus on the international stage than Pasi.

His presentation and my own appear in the same session. His begins at 27 minutes into the tape. He posted his slides and visuals on Twitter @pasisahlberg.

Pasi, the author of Finnish Lessons and Finnish Lessons 2.0, gave a brilliant talk about the history, the advance, and the stunning setbacks for GERM.

It is a remarkable talk, which follows my presentation in the first session of the NPE Conference in Indianapolis on October 20.

Pasi is currently working in a major education research Institute in Australia. He reports that New Zealand has ditched its national standards and will soon drop national testing. Watch for Australia to follow suit.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Privatization

Disgrace in San Antonio as Charter Vultures Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2018 //
27

This article by Tom Ultican tells the sordid story of rich elites who have cynically decided to destroy public education in San Antonio.

They have cumulatively raised at least $200 million to attract charter operators to San Antonio, a figure which includes funding by the U.S. Department of Education and local plutocrats. The lead figure is a very wealthy woman named Victoria Rico, who sits on the boards of multiple charter chains. Rico and her friends have decided to re-engineer and privatize public education in San Antonio. Rico is working closely with Dan Patrick, the State’s lieutenant governor, who loves vouchers, hates public schools, and was the Rush Limbaugh of Texas before winning election to the State Senate.

Was there a vote taken in San Antonio? No. Was the public asked whether they wanted to abandon public education? Of course not. The titans don’t believe in democracy. They know what’s best for other people’s children.

They have hired a superintendent, Pedro Martinez, who was “trained” by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, which encourages school closures, privatization, and top-down management. Martinez has worked in school districts but was never a teacher or a principal and apparently knows nothing about pedagogy. Martinez is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which promotes privatization and technology in the classroom. He is also a big fan of the faux Relay “Graduate School of Education,” which specializes in charter teachers training new teachers for charter schools and has no professors or research programs.

As a native Texan, this whole deal made me physically ill. It stinks to high heaven. Everyone facilitating this private takeover of public schools should be ashamed of themselves.

They are not “doing it for the children.” They are doing it for their own egos. There are more failing charter schools than failing public schools. What right do they have to destroy the public schools of San Antonio? Who elected them? They have won plaudits from Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and ALEC. They should be held accountable for their assault on democracy. I noticed that the Texas philanthropist Charles Butt refused to participate in this unholy cabal; he prefers to invest his fortune in supporting public schools.

I take this opportunity to name Victoria Rico, Pedro Martinez, and all their rightwing enablers to the Wall of Shame.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, San Antonio, School Choice, Texas, U.S. Department of Education, Wall of Shame

I Endorse Andrew Gillum for Governor of Florida

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2018 //
12

Andrew Gillum is an exciting new face in the Democratic party. He has pledged to reverse the damage inflicted on Florida’s infrastructure and education if he is elected Governor.

I am happy to endorse Gillum!

Here are good reasons to change the leadership of the state:

1. The Republican party has inflicted pain on the public school system and its teachers. They have enacted very loose charter laws and voucher laws. Florida has three different voucher programs, despite the fact that vouchers are specifically banned in the State Constitution, and despite the fact that voters rejected an effort to change the State Constitution to allow vouchers in 2012. The legislature and the governor have given away hundreds of millions of dollars to private and religious and charter schools, which have minimal accountability. They have enacted laws to judge teachers by test scores, even though this method has been proven ineffective and harmful in Florida and everywhere else.

2. The Republicans have run the state like their private candy store, bestowing millions on charter chains owned by their family and friends and ignoring rampant corruption via real estate deals in the venal charter industry.

3. The Republican party is the party of climate change denial. The current governor, Rick Scott, now running for the Senate, is a prominent denier of climate change, even though Florida is ecologically fragile. See this article in Politico, which shows the green slime that is infiltrating the state’s waterways. Scott is notorious for ignoring the environmental damage caused by his policies.

Vote for Bill Nelson for Senator and Andrew Gillum for Governor.

Andrew Gillum is a good man with solid experience as Mayor of Tallahassee.

Florida has a chance to start fresh and break free of the grip of the greed hogs now running the state and destroying its education system and its environment.

Vote for Andrew Gillum!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Environment, Florida, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider Reveals Where Billionaire Alice Walton Is Financing School Choice

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
1

Mercedes Schneider, Teacher-researcher extraordinaire, has dug into state campaign finance files to track the spending of Walmart heiress and billionaire Alice Walton.

The Walton Family is extremely conservative. They despise unions, and they are contemptuous of punlic schools.

They favor charter schools, vouchers, and Teach for America, which provides the low-wage workers for their charter schools. They partner with Betsy DeVos’s voucher-loving American Federation for Children and also “Democrats for Education Reform,” which is charter-happy.

The Walton Family claims credit for financing one of every four charter schools in the nation.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Privatization, Unions, Walton Foundation
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