Archives for category: Charter Schools
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Delaware: Another Charter School Votes to Join the Union

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
7

Kevin Ohlandt reports that a second charter school in Delaware voted to join the Delaware State Education Association.

This is sure to make the Waltons, Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and Democrats for Edicarion Reform very angry, because part of their motivation for supporting charters is to break trachers’ Unions. More than 90% of charters are non-union, and their billionaire backers want to keep them that way.

Kevin writes:

Odyssey Charter School teachers and staff voted and an overwhelming majority decided to join the Delaware State Education Association. This is the second charter school in Delaware to do so in 2018. Last Spring, the Charter School of Wilmington also voted to join DSEA. In 1997, Positive Outcomes joined DSEA but opted out in 2000. Delaware College Prep joined in 2012 but closed a few years later due to low enrollment.

With 131 for and 16 against, over 89% of the educators in the school decided a teachers union was the best option for them. Prior to 2018, it was virtually unheard of for Delaware charters to unionize. What turned the tide?

For Odyssey, the decision was clear- they did not like decisions the board was making and felt their voices were not being heard. When former leader Nick Manolakos did not have his contract renewed, the school hired two to take his place. But the tipping point was when their former Board President, who had just resigned, became a leading contender for a third highly paid administrator.

Over the summer this led to those teachers and parents questioning the board about decisions that would affect the school. Parents saw fundraiser after fundraiser to get more money for the school but didn’t feel the money was going towards what the school promised. But they had money for all these administrators.

Remember, Delaware is the state that DeVos gave more than $10 million to expand charter schools, even though there is a problem with low enrollments (I.e., not much demand).

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Delaware, Education Industry, Privatization, Teachers, Unions

Ross Barkan: Cuomo Is Back to His Divide-and-Conquer Strategy

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
5

This article by Ross Barkan reminds us of why Andrew Cuomo never won the hearts of progressives and never will. He really is not a progressive, and he has many tricks up his sleeve to prevent unified Democratic control of the Legislature. He is now playing urban Democrats against suburban Democrats. He will pull any trick to foil his arch-enemy Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City. He persuaded suburban Democrats to pledge unity, based on the phony claim that the Big City doesn’t pay its “fair share” of the costs of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As the article shows, NYC does pay a fair share, and Cuomo likes to pretend he is not in charge of the agency, which is currently struggling with an aging infrastructure and poor service. Fixing it is Cuomo’s job, but he is a shirker.

Correction: New York State teachers’ union did not endorse Cuomo or anyone else on the Democratic primary. However, it remains a fact that Cuomo has repeatedly insulted teachers and imposed a draconian (and failed) teacher evaluation plan. Cuomo still loves charter schools because they are the hobby of Wall Street, and their billionaire backers support Cuomo.

He periodically reminds us who he is and what he cares about.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, DFER, Education Industry, New York, New York City, Privatization

Philadelphia: Failing Charter School Fights Closure, Says It Is Better Than Public School ”Cesspools”

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2018 //
9

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission (now the Board of Educatuon) ordered the closure of Eastern Academy Charter School because of its poor academic performance, but the charter has vowed to fight the closure, a process that could drag on for years due to Pennsylvania’s charter-friendly law. The charter school even challenges the school district’s power to hold it accountable. It feels it is entitled to public money without any accountability for academic quality.

“Eastern is appealing on several grounds. For one thing, it contends that the Charter Schools Office unfairly assessed its academic record by including two special admission schools in one comparison group. For another, it says that two Charter Schools Office staffers who participated in the review were inexperienced.

“Susan DeJarnatt, a professor of legal research at Temple University and a critic of the charter school industry, said that Eastern’s arguments essentially object “to any kind of oversight.”

“The heart of the argument seems to be an idea that many charter proponents have advanced recently — that no charter school should be closed so long as any District schools that underperform the charter school in any way are operating, regardless of the charter’s academic performance or compliance with the law…

“In its appeal, Eastern included a speech by its CEO, Omar Barlow, in which he referred to neighborhood schools where many of his students might otherwise attend as “cesspools” to justify his own school remaining open. In the speech, he made no attempt to refute the charter office’s findings of poor academic performance and violations of state and federal laws.

“DeJarnatt said Eastern’s strongest argument is the one that questions the decision of the charter office to include two special admission schools in a group to which Eastern was compared. But she said that the school presented no evidence of how it would have fared if those magnet schools were removed. Still, she doesn’t see that argument as likely to void the SRC’s decision.

“The school was founded in 2009 with support from Eastern University, though the university has not continued to support the school. David Bromley, executive director of Big Picture Philadelphia, was also a member of the founding coalition. Although Eastern’s website contends that it is a Big Picture School, the only Big Picture Schools in Pennsylvania are El Centro and Vaux.

“By any standard, the school’s academic performance has been low. On the latest round of PSSAs, 20 percent of students in the school’s middle grades scored proficient in English and 1 percent were deemed proficient in math. The high school had poor scores in math and science on the Keystone exams. The school serves 349 students in grades 7-12.”

Twenty percent proficient in English! One percent prominent in math!

This is a failing school.

Why is this school still open?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Privatization

New Mexico: Charter Founder Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Stealing Millions

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2018 //
5

Scott Glasrud received a sentence of five years for theft of millions of dollars from his charter chain.

After more than five hours in court Friday morning, a judge has sentenced the founder of Southwest Learning Centers to five years in prison.

Members of the Southwest Learning Center were happy to hear the judge’s sentence Friday.

The president of one of the schools tells News 13 he still does not believe five years is enough for all the damage Scott Glasrud has done.

“After 14 years of doing this, I don’t know if he knows another way of life. Personally, I don’t feel that he’s learned a lesson at all,” says Larry Kennedy, President of SAMS Academy.

Glasrud pled guilty to stealing millions of dollars from the school and state to feed his lavish lifestyle.

He used the money to buy expensive cars like a Maserati, boats and a $10,000 square-foot home.

Last year, he took a plea deal on charges of theft, fraud and lying to investigators that would put him behind bars for four to five years.

During his sentencing Friday morning, no cameras were allowed inside the courtroom, but Glasrud gave a tearful testimony saying he was sorry for what he has done and has no excuse for his behavior, except that he was greedy.

Larry Kennedy, the president of SAMS Academy, says he did not buy Glasrud’s act.

“I felt he was putting on a show. He put on a show for the schools for 14 years. He’s very good at it. I really feel that’s what he did,” says Kennedy.

Categories Accountability, Albuquerque, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, New Mexico, Privatization

John Merrow: What Have Our Test-Centric Policies Produced?

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
36

John Merrow hammers away at the folly of placing standardized testing at the center of all education.

The evidence of this folly, he says, is the latest ACT reports.

What can we learn from them?

Our seniors are not getting smarter as a result of the testing regime imposed on them.

“These seniors have had 12 or 13 years of test-centric education, and the kids coming up behind them have also endured what the ‘school reformers’ designed. How much more evidence do we need of the folly of “No Child Left Behind” and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” before we take back our schools?

“People who have consistently been ‘half right’ have been in charge of public education for too long. Now some are changing their tune (“Perhaps we have been testing too much,” they say) and asking for another chance. Others, however, are doubling down, calling for more charter schools, vouchers and other aid for private schools, and more anti-union initiatives. I say a plague on both their houses.”

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

Nevada: Republicans Promise to Create More Charter Schools and Vouchers if They Win State Races

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
9

There has never been a bigger hoax than the claim that Democrats and progressives support school choice.

School choice has always been the rallying cry of segregationists and the rightwing of the Republican party.

The latest evidence comes from Nevada, where the Republican party has promised to create more charter schools and expand the voucher program if they win control of the Governorship and the Legislature. They warn that Democrats will curtail privatization (aka, “school choice”).

Of course, promoters of school choice go out of their way to pretend to be “reformers” and Democrats. That is why there is an organization of hedge fund managers called “Democrats for Education Reform,” when their goals are exactly the same as Betsy DeVos and ALEC.

School choice was born as the rallying cry of southern segregationists in the wake of the Brown decision. For many years, its advocates kept a low profile because the public understood that school choice=segregation.

You must always remember that “reformers” are privatizers, and they want to “re-form” the public schools into privately controlled market-based entities, whose books are closed to the public and whose governing board is self-selected, not elected.

If you live in Nevada, please vote.

Every vote counts.

If you don’t vote, you will see an unprecedented attack on your community’s public schools and an explosion of privatization, with your tax dollars going to privately managed charters and religious schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Nevada, Privatization

Delaware: Betsy DeVos Gives State $10.4 Million to Expand Charters, Despite Lack of Demand

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2018 //
17

Mercedes Schneider noticed a curious fact about Betsy DeVos’s latest handout to charter schools in Delaware.

DeVos gave the state $10.4 million to expand charters and “share best practices” only months after a Delaware charter school closed due to under enrollment.

In other words, Delaware does not have a demand for charter schools, but DeVos is funding them anyway.

It is truly weird to see the federal government handing out $399 million for new charter schools when the charter sector is amply funded by the richest people in America.

Funding is not their problem. Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity are. Money won’t fix those problems.

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

Jeff Bryant: What Betsy DeVos Did While You Were Distracted by Kavanaugh

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2018 //
21

You must always remember that Betsy DeVos is working every day to promote vouchers and charters, no matter what story is in the headlines.

While the nation was obsessed with the crucial battle for control of the Supreme Court for the next generation, DeVos was busy promoting her privatization agenda.

Jeff Bryant has the story here.

We know, for example, that she handed out $399 million to the overfunded charter industry, which is riddled with fraud, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and profiteering. These are matters of no concern to DeVos, who supports the expansion of online charters, which have proven to be frauds, and for-profit schools, which have enabled widespread fraud in Michigan.

Bryant writes:

USDoE recently awarded $399 million in federal grants to expand and support charter schools across the country.

The grants, made through the Charter Schools Program, which has enjoyed a $40 million boost under the Trump administration, went to individual charter school operators and various state education agencies and nonprofit groups that either help secure funding for charters, push for their expansions, or advocate for the charter cause.

Even a cursory scan of some of the recipients warrants deeper scrutiny.

For instance, among three Alabama charter schools that received $1 million each in grant money, two have already been the subjects of multiple lawsuits.

Birmingham charter Legacy Prep – which recently changed its name, postponed its opening date, and has yet to find a building – just settled a messy court case with its founder – a Baptist church pastor – over who had authority over the school’s operations and whether the school’s governing board was properly constituted.

The court settlement follows closely after the Alabama Public Charter School Commission won its effort to overturn the Birmingham district school board’s original denial of the charter’s application. The district board had ruled last year that the school’s application did not meet the requirements of the district’s request for charter proposals.

So now, thanks to DeVos and her department, federal funds are going to a charter school under suspect leadership, with no building, that the district doesn’t want.

Similarly, another Alabama charter with a million dollar grant, University Charter School in Livingston, had to hurdle a lawsuit to open its doors.

In May, the county board that oversees the district filed suit to prohibit the charter’s authorizer from operating the school in a former high school that the district sold to the authorizer with the specific condition not to open a charter school in the building.

Here again, federal dollars are funding a charter startup in a local community that does not want it. So much for DeVos’s promises to curb the “overreach” of the federal government in education.

Supporting Rightwing Cronies

Another charter school grant winner on the list that deserves a closer look is the American Heritage Academy in Idaho.

The school’s founder Frank Vandersloot is a conservative billionaire, with a net worth of $1.9 billion, who was a finance co-chair of Mitt Romney’s 2012 failed presidential campaign and has given money to Florida Republican US Senator Marco Rubio, former Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina, the Republican National Committee, and state Republican parties across the US, according to a report in Forbes.

Vandersloot made national headlines in 2015 when he sued Mother Jones magazine for defamation after the news outlet published an article detailing his efforts to oppose gay rights.

Vandersloot has hosted a closed door meeting with President Trump at the headquarters of his company, Melaleuca. The company – which sells diet, personal care, home cleaning, and cosmetic products – has been compared to Amway, the mega-company DeVos is heiress to, in that it employs a multi-level marketing strategy.

Vandersloot and DeVos are, in fact, connected through their participation in a multi-level marketing trade group that has been active in promoting legislation that attempts to limit the Federal Trade Commission’s ability to investigate and prosecute multi-level marketing scam operations.

All the Things We Don’t Know

None of this is to consider whether Vandersloot’s charter school, or any of the other charter school grantees, may or may not be worthy institutions, but shouldn’t taxpayers know more about why the school deserves our money?

Should we know, for instance, why grant money will go to a North Carolina charter, the Charlotte Lab School, that touts racial diversity in its mission, yet has a student population that is two-thirds white in a district where only 30 percent of the students are white?

Should we know more about why a federal grant is going to a Kansas City charter school, Scuola Vita Nuova Charter School, that is located at an Italian Cultural Center and had to pay $30,000 to former principal who filed lawsuit claiming the school’s founder made her fire her same-sex partner who also worked at the school?

Because of DeVos’s general lack of transparency, what we’re left with, instead of answers, are more questions and a well-founded suspicion that her purpose in office is to purloin as much public money as she can into the hands of private interests while justifying it as a much-needed reform.

Perhaps if there’s a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives after the upcoming midterm elections, there will be inquiries to reveal the inner machinations of DeVos’s department. But in the meantime, she and her associates toil away behind a shroud of scary headlines, and that’s just the way they want it.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

What Do Kanye West and Betsy DeVos Have in Common?

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2018 //
22

Answer: They both visited rapper Pitbull’s charter school in Miami.

Pitbull, I have heard, is a misogynistic, foul mouthed rapper who has made a lot of money being crude while singing.

According to Wikipedia:

He attended South Miami Senior High School before graduating from Miami Coral Park High School, where he focused his career on rapping.

Who knew that “rapping” was in the curriculum. Well, it worked for him. Bigly.

Of course, he had to have his own charter school.

His school is part of the for-profit Academica chain.

Happily for Academica, it has close relationships with certain state legislators, so accountability is light to non-existent. Today, he calls himself (according to the NPR story linked below) “Mr. Education.” The National Charter School Conference invited him to be its keynote speaker.

Pitbull’s SLAM Academy has the full support of the national charter leadership. He is a celebrity, so they don’t mind his profanity or his history as a drug dealer. Nor do they care that he never went to college. He has fame, and how he got it doesn’t matter.

Nina Rees, who heads the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says she’s not about to apologize for supporting the rapper’s school.

“Whether it’s Pitbull or Meryl Streep in Rhode Island or Sandra Bullock in Louisiana,” she says, “charters do benefit from celebrities because public schools, they do have to market themselves to families because these are schools of choice.”

Rees says she has no problem with Pitbull’s music, either.

“We’re not endorsing his music, but welcoming him as an investor,” Rees says. Besides, she adds, everybody is entitled to their own tastes. “I admit that I’m a fan of his music.”

Three of Pitbull’s six children attend charter schools.

“I’m not just a charter school advocate. … I’m a charter school parent,” Pitbull said when talking at this year’s National Charter School Conference in D.C. “And that makes me one of you.”

Indeed.

I wonder if children in his charter study his lyrics.

More news about Pitbull, AKA “Mr. Education.”

He plans to open another charter school in Arizona.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2018/10/12/pitbull-plans-slam-charter-school-sports-management-arizona-wozu/1578767002/

Thus ends American education, washed up on the rocks of capitalism and vainglorious egotism, turned into an international joke, as rappers, sports stars, celebrities, grifters, and entrepreneurs claim public money to open their own school. No experience needed.

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

Andrea Gabor: When School Choice Means No Choice

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2018 //
32

Andrea Gabor is the author of the new book, “After the Education Wars,” a penetrating account of the mistakes of the reform movement.

She writes here about the wrong turns taken by charter enthusiasts. How did a movement intended to unleash grassroots energy turn into an industry dominated by national corporate chains?

“When Albert Shanker, the legendary teachers’ union leader, promoted the idea of charter schools 30 years ago, he was hoping to create flexibility from the constraints of education bureaucracies and union contracts so teachers and communities could experiment and innovate.

“In the years since the first charter-school law was passed in Minnesota, in 1991, the charter movement has strayed far from Shanker’s original vision. Instead of community-based, educator-driven innovation, charters have grown into an industry dominated by like-minded management organizations that sometimes control hundreds of schools — some nationwide.

“These charter organizations have proliferated with the help of deep-pocketed philanthropists and businesspeople who have sought to transform the public-education system so that both charters and traditional public schools operate like companies competing in an economic market. Schools survive by producing the greatest gains, usually measured by test scores. The rest lose students as families choose the highest-performing schools or have their charters revoked by state-designated organizations that authorize charters.

“Now the charter industry is reaching an inflection point. Business backers are pushing to expand charter schools at an unprecedented rate, doubling down on the idea that free markets are the best approach to improving K-12 education. At the same time, critics — some from within the charter movement — are shining a spotlight on the industry’s failures and distortions…

“That faith in markets isn’t supported by the evidence, however. Studies show that, on average, charter schools and traditional public schools produce similar results. But freedom from regulation is associated not with success but with especially high failure rates; charter-school performance tends to be weakest in states with the laxest rules for ensuring education quality.

“Paradoxically, deregulation has also tended to narrow choices rather than expand them. New Orleans, for example, which has turned most of its public schools over to charter organizations, is dominated by charter-school oligopolies that enforce uniform curriculum and disciplinary standards. Instead of fostering creative pedagogy, the charter industry has focused on producing high test scores, the key measure by which philanthropists determine which charter organizations to finance. Teachers are typically required to teach canned curricula and rarely last more than a few years, and students are often subjected to one-size-fits-all discipline policies…

“Education policies should protect children and their schools from the brutal realities of the market while leaving room for the kind of teacher- and community-led experimentation that the charter movement was originally meant to foster.”

Gabor is the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York. This article appeared at Bloomberg.com. Michael Bloomberg is a major supporter of charter schools nationally.

KIPP did not like Gabor’s article. But KIPP Is wrong, and Gabor is right. The original idea of charters was that each would be unique, and they would be teacher-led to try out new ideas. Neither Shanker nor the other charter originator Ray Budde ever imagined corporate charter chains with cookie-cutter “no excuses” policies. KIPP is the Walmart of charter schools, which may explain why the rightwing, anti-union Walton Family Foundation showers millions on them.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Discipline, Education Industry, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization, Walton Foundation
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »