Archives for category: Charter Schools

Jeb Bush has been promoting school choice and disparaging public s hoops for years. Betsy DeVos was a member of the board of his Foundation for Excellence in Education until Trump chose her as Secretary of Education.

Jeb Bush invented the nutty notion of giving a letter grade to schools.

Jeb Bush zealously believes in high-stakes standardized testing and VAM. In Jeb’s Odel, Testing and letter grades are mechanisms to promote privatization.

Who funds his foundation?

See the list here.

The biggest donors in 2017 were Gates, Bloomberg, and Walton, each having given Jeb more than $1 Million for his privatization campaigns.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bloomberg, Michael, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, School Choice, Segregation, Standardized Testing, Vouchers, Wall of Shame, Walton Foundation

California: Torlakson Creates a Task Force to Review State Charter Laws

By dianeravitch

August 18, 2018 //

Tom Torlakson, the outgoing state superintendent of public instruction in California, has created a task force to review the charter school laws in the state.

California has more charter schools than any other state. The California Charter School Association is the richest, most powerful lobby in the state and has been able to stymie any overhaul of the law. The CCSA has staunchly opposed any revision of the law that might require accountability or transparency from charter schools and that would, for example, bar conflicts of interest or for-profit charters.

Governor Jerry Brown, who has been a progressive leader on so many major issues, has been a faithful defender of charter schools, vetoing any legislative efforts to update the law.

But, it now appears that the new governor will be Gavin Newsom, and he has no debts to the CCSSA, which directed millions of dollars to Antonio Villairaigosa in the primaries, who ran a distant third.

Given the reshuffling at the top, it is time to fix the conditions that allow frauds and scandals to go undetected in the charter sector.

Responsible members of the charter industry should work diligently to remove the fraudsters and grifters from their sector, as should everyone.

Charters should not have the ability to appeal from the district board to the county board to the state board, where they are certain to win approval, no matter how ill-qualified their staff.

At present, given the lack of any accountability for the expenditure of public money by charters, the state has experienced many scandals. To learn more about the woeful state of California’s charter industry, read Carol Burris’s carefully researched “Charters and Consequences.”

The Torlakson commission has the chance to get the law right, which would benefit both public schools and charter schools.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Scandal

Omarosa: DeVos Wants to Privatize All Public Schools

By dianeravitch

August 18, 2018 //

Valerie Strauss writes about Omarosa’s new book “Unhinged” and what she says about Betsy DeVos.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/08/14/omarosa-claims-betsy-devos-wants-to-replace-public-education-with-for-profit-schools-and-that-trump-calls-her-ditzy-devos/

“A new book about President Trump by one of his former senior advisers, Omarosa Manigault Newman, claims that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants “to replace public education with for-profit schools” and that Trump has called her by the nickname “Ditzy DeVos….”

“Manigault Newman writes:

“Her plan, in a nutshell, is to replace public education with for-profit schools. She believes it would be better for students, but the truth is, it’s about profit. She’s so fixated on her agenda, she can’t give any consideration to building our public schools, providing financing for them, particularly their infrastructure needs.

“Manigault Newman writes that she accompanied DeVos on a trip to Florida in 2017 and that DeVos was booed while giving a graduation speech at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college in Florida. Graduating students heckled DeVos in large part because a few months earlier, she had called historically black colleges and universities — which were created because blacks couldn’t attend white schools — “pioneers” of school choice.

“Manigault Newman writes that after the speech, she asked the secretary how she thought she did. DeVos responded, according to the book, by saying she thought she did “great,” and then is quoted as having said the students at the Bethune-Cookman graduation “don’t have the capacity to understand what we’re trying to accomplish.” Manigault Newman then wrote this: “Meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda.”

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

What Is DFER (Democrats for Education Reform)? LINK ADDED

By dianeravitch

August 17, 2018 //

Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) was created by a group of guys who work as hedge fund managers. Some are Democrats, other are Republicans. They support charter schools and high-stakes testing. They never support public schools. They support Teach for America. They think that teachers should be evaluated by the test scores of their students, even though research overwhelmingly shows that this method is a failure (see the recent RAND-AIR report on the flop of the Gates-funded demonstration of evaluating teachers by test scores). They believe in merit pay, even though merit pay has never worked anywhere. There is no evidence that any active member of DFER ever attended a public school, ever taught in a public school, or ever sent his children to a public school. DFER doesn’t like public schools. Like Betsy DeVos, which it pretends to oppose, DFER believes in free-market reform of schools. If I am wrong, I hope that one of these hedge fund managers contacts me to let me know.

DFER loves corporate charter chains and doesn’t like local democratic control of schools. They see nothing unsavory about out-of-state billionaires buying an election for their favorite candidate, even in a local school board election. DFER is a PAC that collects and distributes fund to candidates who support its goals.

Here is the DFER list for this year’s election. Cory Booker and Michael Bennet are perennial favorites of DFER. I don’t know if Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia is aligned with their philosophy or if DFER is trying to establish a relationship. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee in the Congress. Maybe DFER is currying his favor. His predecessor, Congressman George Miller of California, was fully aligned with DFER’s views and was richly rewarded with fundraisers, even when he didn’t have an opponent. His former chief of staff, Charles Barone, now runs the DFER office in D.C.

Suffice it to say that DFER pays no attention to research that does not support its fervent belief in charters, private management, and high-stakes testing. DFER believes in the free market, punishments and rewards for performance. That works on Wall Street. It should work in schools, even if it doesn’t.

Here is a graphic that shows the links among DFER and unsavory characters who also want to privatize public education. There is a factual error in the graphic. Political money is spent by 501c4 organizations. Those designated as 501c3 are supposed to be non-political. The non-political wing of DFER is called ”Education Reform Now.” It has a political advocacy group called “Education Reform Now Advocacy.” Of course, it advocates for high-stakes testing and charter schools. “Education reform,” in the eyes of those connected to DFER, means replacing public schools with private management that is neither accountable nor transparent.

DFER puts out a list of candidates (all Democrats) and invites its members to send them contributions. In this way, it is able to raise very large sums for friends of charter schools in Congress and in important state races, even school board races. Its mailing list includes many very wealthy people, so DFER is a major source of money for candidates like Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and other charter-friendly Democrats.

The Democratic Party conventions in both California and Colorado denounced DFER for calling itsel “Democrats” when they undermine public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Louisville: Will Dark Money Suppress Democracy in the Fight Over a State Takeover?

By dianeravitch

August 17, 2018 //

Jeff Bryant has written a thorough investigative report of the attack on the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville) in Kentucky. The report was funded partially by the Network for Public Education.

Louisville has one of the best integrated school districts in the nation. Its NAEP scores are better than those of other urban districts.

The only “crisis” in Louisville is caused by the election of Matt Bevin, a rabid Tea Party Governor who wants to seize control of the Louisville public schools and introduce charters.

A transplant from Connecticut, Bevin swept into the governor’s job despite the fact he had never held political office anywhere, running on a Tea Party inspired campaign was mostly self-funded with earnings from hedge funds he operates.

Bevin has taken unprecedented actions to remake the Kentucky Board of Education, stocking it with critics of public schools and Jefferson County Public Schools in particular. One Bevin appointee, Gary Houchens, an associate professor at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, is listed as a “policy scholar” for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a rightwing think tank. Another pick, Kathy Gornik, has served as board chair for the organization.

The Bluegrass Institute was founded with money from two libertarian networks, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network, and has benefited from a pipeline of dark money.

One of Bluegrass’s top issues is “education reform,” which it defines as “charter schools, tax credits, and vouchers”—all forms of “school choice” that divert taxpayer money from public schools to private entrepreneurs. The Bluegrass Institute’s staff education analyst, Richard G. Innes, has been attacking Jefferson County Public Schools for years. After the announcement of recommended takeover, he penned an op-ed endorsing it.

Fortunately, parents are organized and fighting back.

The parent leader is a public school parent, Gay Adelmann:

“Jefferson County Public Schools is a district of choice, [and] parents can look for schools and not houses,” says Gay Adelman, a white Jefferson County Public Schools parent with a student who attends The Academy at Shawnee, a magnet middle school and high school in the West End with a focus on aerospace. Shawnee has a student population that is 59 percent non-white and 79 percent on free and reduced price lunch, a typical measurement of poverty.

Adelman helped form the grassroots group Dear Jefferson County Public Schools that pushed to elect the current school board. She recently ran for State Senate in the Democratic party primary, campaigning on a platform supporting Jefferson County Public Schools and opposing state takeover. She lost but managed to garner 44 percent of the vote as a first-time candidate with little funding.

Bevin fired the state commissioner and hired one of his own choosing, Wayne Lewis, a charter zealot who is determined to grab control of the Louisville district.

But Bevin and Lewis face a community that supports its public schools. The recent school board elections saw public school supporters beat the Dark-Money candidates:

In the 2016 school board election, Kolb, a first-time candidate for the board, won an improbable upset victory against well-financed incumbent board chairman, David Jones Jr., the son of the co-founder of health insurance giant Humana. Kolb estimates he was outspent by up to fifteen-to-one, but he won because he and his volunteers knocked on over 13,000 doors.

Running as a one-term incumbent, current JCPS school board member Chris Brady was also targeted by big money for defeat, with over $350,000 from a local Super PAC that backed his opponent. He won anyway, he tells me, by “running on my record” of supporting the district and new leadership he helped put into place.

Jeff Bryant casts the battle for control of the public schools of Louisville as a battle for democracy:

But if the takeover of Jefferson County Public Schools is all about politics, it’s not a contest between “red vs. blue,” but whether democracy matters at all.

The pro-public schools coalition is planning a big rally on October 18 in the afternoon. I will be there and so will my friend and civil rights leader Jitu Brown of the Journey for Justice. We will be there to support the students and parents of Jefferson County.

Categories Charter Schools, Dark Money, Democracy, Louisville

New York: Who Is Illegally Funding the “Democrats” Who Vote with the Republicans FOR Charter Schools and AGAINST Raising Taxes on the Rich?

By dianeravitch

August 16, 2018 //

Here is a useful diagram of the sources of funding for the group called the “Independent Democrats” who use their votes in the State Senate of New York to keep Republicans in control.

You will see some familiar names there, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and billionaire hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who was chairman of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain.

A judge ruled the committees and their campaign contributions were illegal. A New York State Board of Elections official ordered the candidates to return the illegal contributions. But the candidates won’t do it.

Eight former members of the Republican-aligned Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) have benefited from nearly $1.6 million in fund transfers and expenditures from two IDC-affiliated committees since 2011, which together raised over $4.6 million, excluding a transfer from one to the other, a Sludge analysis of state elections board data found. After breaking campaign finance rules and paying a $27,400 fine in 2016 for missing numerous reporting deadlines, the senators disbanded The IDC Initiative and formed a new committee, the Senate Independence Campaign Committee (SICC). Most of this spending has since been ruled illegal.

These eight New York State Senate Democrats were part of the IDC, which until recently aligned with Republicans in the chamber, giving the GOP a narrow majority. Formed in 2011, the IDC used its campaign committees to take in money—mostly from corporations, LLCs and political action committees—and to fund their campaigns and make elections expenditures in their favor.

Another committee, SICC Housekeeping, which funded the operations of the IDC, accepted nearly $700,000 from The IDC Initiative and roughly $1.2 million in almost exclusively corporate contributions.

Even after the committees were ruled illegal on June 5, a newly constituted version of SICC continued to funnel funds it had illegally raised to the campaigns of ex-IDC incumbents, including $121,000 to Jeff Klein (NY-34), $66,000 to Marisol Alcantara (NY-31) and $60,000 to Jesse Hamilton (NY-20).

As all eight incumbents face progressive primary challengers, they’re digging in their heels, defying a directive from their own state elections board in order to hold onto the illegal funds. As Sludge previously reported, the challengers have received far more individual contributions, and their average donation amount is a fraction of that of the ex-IDC members.

“Campaign finance laws aren’t suggestions—they are designed to keep our democracy healthy and honest,” Zellnor Myrie, who is challenging Hamilton, said in a press release. “The ‘former’ IDC members have shown their blatant disregard for our democratic safeguards by keeping these campaign contributions…By refusing to return this money, the IDC is showing us yet again that their real interests lie with their donors instead of their constituents.”

Special interests provided the bulk of the contributions to the three IDC-aligned committees. Lax campaign finance laws in New York allow corporations to donate large amounts of campaign cash and treat opaque LLCs as individual donors, even if the LLCs are connected to corporations that have already given the maximum allowed amount. This effectively allows LLC owners to donate unlimited amounts of money.

Jessica Ramos, who hopes to unseat ex-IDC member Jose Peralta in Senate District 13, told Sludge, “These numbers make clear what we’ve known all along: Jose Peralta empowered Republicans because he is funded by Republicans. Our public schools are underfunded and our rents are skyrocketing, but Peralta would rather take cash from charter school billionaires and real estate lobbyists than deliver for his community.”

Strangely, NYSUT (New York State United Teachers) endorsed IDC member Marisol Alcantara, who is running against Robert Jackson; Jackson was the city council member who sued the state for billions of dollars in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. He is a champion for public schools and equitable funding. If you live in Robert Jackson’s district, please vote for him, not Alcantara, who supports charters and votes against raising taxes on the richest New Yorkers. If you are a teacher or a parent or a concerned citizen, vote for Robert Jackson for State Senate in District 31.

Never forget: Dark money never sleeps.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Dark Money, New York, Privatization

Florida Outrage! Voucher and Charter Advocates Try to Sneak Constitutional Amendment onto the Ballot to Repeal Requirement for Public Schools

By dianeravitch

August 15, 2018 //

Someone is trying to pull a fast one on the people of Florida. Voters are supposed to consider an amendment to the State Constitution that bundles several different proposals into a single amendment, to the utter confusion of voters, who will not be able to vote individually on the proposed changes.

The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida filed a brief to the panel of his former colleagues, asking that they either seek justification for this bundling or toss it off the ballot.

How can it be possible to justify an effort to mislead and trick voters?

One member of the Constitutional Revision Commission was Patricia Levesque, who heads Jeb Bush’s foundation; she said that the state constitution was obsolete because it did not contemplate the creation of charter schools, online education or other innovations of the current era. Another Commission member is a charter school founder, who claimed that the current wording in the state constitution was designed to protect the “education monopoly.”

Retired Florida chief justice Harry Lee Anstead has asked his former panel to require justification for why six proposed constitutional amendments including Amendment 8 should remain on the November ballot, or to toss them out.

Anstead, joined by former Florida Elections commissioner Robert Barnas, contend in their filing to the state Supreme Court that the six proposals from the Constitution Revision Commission are unconstitutionally bundled, preventing voters from making a simple “yes” or “no” decision on them.

They challenge Amendment 8, which includes three ideas collectively grouped under education, as well as amendments 6 (rights of crime victims), 7 (first responder and military survivor benefits), 9 (offshore oil drilling and vaping), 10 (state and local government structure), and 11 (property rights).

Their key argument:

“Petitioners submit herein that each and every one of the foregoing proposed revisions bundles independent and unrelated proposals in a single ballot question in a manner that requires a voter to vote ‘yes’ for a proposal that the voter opposes in order to vote ‘yes’ for an independent and unrelated proposal the voter supports and to vote ‘no’ for a proposal the voter supports in order to vote ‘no’ for an independent and unrelated proposal the voter opposes. This is logrolling and a form of issue gerrymandering that violates the First Amendment right of the voter to vote for or against specific independent and unrelated proposals to amend the constitution without paying the price of supporting a measure the voter opposes or opposing a measure the voter supports.”

The plaintiffs recognize the CRC’s ability to propose a comprehensive revision of the state constitution. However, they argue, this would require several discrete amendments and not a single overarching one.

The CRC has instead bundled independent and unrelated items, they argue: “All are beyond the power the Constitution has bestowed upon the Constitution Revision Commission and must be removed from the ballot.”

Additionally, regarding Amendment 8, they specify that the proposal does not clearly state its intent.

“This ballot language is clearly and deceptive misleading because it does not disclose to the voter that the proposed amendment to Article IX § 4(b), adding the language ‘established by the district school board,’ eliminates the constitutional requirement in Article IX § 1(a) that Florida have a uniform …system of free public schools, which has been a continuous constitutional imperative in Florida beginning with the Constitution of 1868. This measure seeks sub silentio to subvert decisions such as Bush v. Holmes, 919 So. 2d 392 (Fla. 2006),” they write. “This subterfuge must not be perpetuated upon Florida voters.”

One senses the hand of Jeb Bush in this subterfuge.

Never forget: Dark money never sleeps.

This is a quote from the first link, dated August 14, 2018:

They challenge Amendment 8, which includes three ideas collectively grouped under education, as well as amendments 6 (rights of crime victims), 7 (first responder and military survivor benefits), 9 (offshore oil drilling and vaping), 10 (state and local government structure), and 11 (property rights).

Their key argument:

“Petitioners submit herein that each and every one of the foregoing proposed revisions bundles independent and unrelated proposals in a single ballot question in a manner that requires a voter to vote ‘yes’ for a proposal that the voter opposes in order to vote ‘yes’ for an independent and unrelated proposal the voter supports and to vote ‘no’ for a proposal the voter supports in order to vote ‘no’ for an independent and unrelated proposal the voter opposes. This is logrolling and a form of issue gerrymandering that violates the First Amendment right of the voter to vote for or against specific independent and unrelated proposals to amend the constitution without paying the price of supporting a measure the voter opposes or opposing a measure the voter supports.”

The plaintiffs recognize the CRC’s ability to propose a comprehensive revision of the state constitution. However, they argue, this would require several discrete amendments and not a single overarching one.

The CRC has instead bundled independent and unrelated items, they argue: “All are beyond the power the Constitution has bestowed upon the Constitution Revision Commission and must be removed from the ballot.”

This is the second, published April 16, 2018:

Despite calls to treat each idea separately, the Florida Constitution Revision Commission has sent a proposal to voters that would set school board member term limits, require civic education in public schools, and allow for the creation of a state charter school authorizer.

Commission member Roberto Martinez, a former State Board of Education chairman and key legal adviser to Jeb Bush, pressed the panel Monday to unbundle the package [P 6003].

The portion to give control of some public schools to an entity other than a local school board would be a “game changer” that would radically alter public education governance, Martinez argued. Voters should have a clear understanding of the proposal and then decide on its own merits — not because it’s tied to another concept, he said.

“These are three separate issues,” former state senator Chris Smith said in agreement. “I don’t even realize how I’m going to vote. I’m strong on some of it. I’m against some of it.”

The opposition reflected a growing drumbeat across Florida, where several organizations have raised concerns about the “power grab” they suggested Republican government leaders are attempting. They had a coordinated campaign in newspapers over the weekend, signaling this could likely be a most challenged ballot item, and wrote a letter to CRC chairman Carlos Beruff asking for each proposal to be taken up independently.

Beruff was among the 22 members to vote against unbundling the proposals, and among the 27 to support placing the package on the November ballot. A proposal needed 22 votes to advance.

Unlike those who suggested the measure would decimate local control of public education, supporters of the initiative said the ideas “absolutely” belong together because they are all part of Article IX.

They contended it would unshackle the Legislature in any future efforts to come up with new ideas to improve the system.

The current constitutional language of Article IX authorizes local school boards to operate, supervise and control all free public schools within their jurisdiction. The amendment would limit that authority to the schools “established by the district school board.”

That has been read by many observers as a method to allow creation of an unelected state charter school approval system, which in the past has been rejected in court because of this section of the constitution.

Commission member Patricia Levesque, who heads Jeb Bush’s education foundation, argued that a state charter authorizer is not spelled out in the proposal. Rather, Levesque said, the idea is to upgrade 50-year-old language written when Florida’s population was less than half of what it is now.

Floridians did not contemplate charter schools, online education, dual enrollment or other ideas that have emerged since. Levesque contended that new concepts face political hurdles because of the constitution, and called for the change.

Commission member Erika Donalds, a Collier County School Board member and charter school founder, said the constitution needs to be forward looking.

“When these reforms run their course, will [lawmakers] be able to respond?” asked Donalds, who is attempting to open charter schools outside Collier County.

The time has come, she suggested, to get rid of the “unfair, antiquated” wording that is used to “protect the education monopoly,” and to give parents more opportunities for school choice.

“It is our duty to take the hogtie off the Legislature,” said Donalds, whose husband serves in the state House and recently sponsored a measure to create a private school scholarship for students who claim to be bullied in public school.

Commission member Frank Kruppenbacher, a longtime lawyer for district and charter schools, rejected that the Legislature cannot make any education reforms it wishes.

“What it needs is the leadership to do it,” he said, noting all the initiatives that have been implemented over the years.

Kruppenbacher was among the 10 members to vote against the proposal. The others were Martinez, former Florida Bar president Hank Coxe, state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, State Board of Education members Tom Grady and Marva Johnson, former state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, state Sen. Darryl Rouson, Indian River County Commissioner Bob Solari, and Florida education commissioner Pam Stewart.

The ballot measure would require 60 percent voter approval to become effective.

One other education proposal, which would allow high-performing school districts to avoid certain portions of the state education code similar to charter schools, is to be considered separately. Commission Style and Drafting chairman Brecht Heuchan explained that the fourth proposal could not fit with the others and meet the wording limitations for amendments.

UPDATE: The “innovation school districts” proposal failed 13-23.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Florida, Fraud, Vouchers

“School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice”

By dianeravitch

August 15, 2018 //

The editorial pages of the New York Times have been an echo chamber for school choice for years. The editorials regularly applaud charter schools as escape hatches from public schools and repeat the talking points of the billionaires and hedge fund managers who have gleefully replaced public schools with privately managed schools. I can’t recall an editorial that acknowledged the importance of rebuilding, revitalizing, and strengthening public education as a major responsibility of our society. I can’t recall one that criticized the onslaught of privatization against public education in our nation’s urban schools, where parents of color have lost not only their public schools, but their voice as citizens in creating public schools that serve the entire community. The editorial board has steadfastly ignored the coordinated and bipartisan assault on democratic governance of public schools in cities and states across the nation. The op-ed page, which was created to provide a space for views different from the editorial page has seldom challenged school choice orthodoxy. Almost every regular opinion writer has lauded the “miracle” of charter schools, including David Brooks, Nicholas Kristof, and David Leonhardt. The op-ed page recently included an article urging liberals not to give up on charters even though Betsy DeVos likes them too, even though they are segregated and non-union.

But now comes a new and welcome voice.

Erin Aubrey Kaplan writes that school choice is the enemy of justice. She has been selected as a regular opinion writer, which is more good news. She writes about her personal experience as a child in California, a state that is controlled by Democrats but purchased by the billionaires who sneer at public schools and want to replace them with charter schools. She reminds us that school choice was the battle cry of segregationists. In many states and cities, it still is.

Her article poses an essential question: Is public education, democratically controlled, still part of the social contract? And she writes that many white liberals, including Jerry Brown (and in New York, Andrew Cuomo) have said no.

She writes:

“LOS ANGELES — In 1947, my father was one of a small group of black students at the largely white Fremont High School in South Central Los Angeles. The group was met with naked hostility, including a white mob hanging blacks in effigy. But such painful confrontations were the nature of progress, of fulfilling the promise of equality that had driven my father’s family from Louisiana to Los Angeles in the first place.

“In 1972, I was one of a slightly bigger group of black students bused to a predominantly white elementary school in Westchester, a community close to the beach in Los Angeles. While I didn’t encounter the overt hostility my father had, I did experience resistance, including being barred once from entering a white classmate’s home because, she said matter-of-factly as she stood in the doorway, she didn’t let black people (she used a different word) in her house.

“Still, I believed, even as a fifth grader, that education is a social contract and that Los Angeles was uniquely suited to carry it out. Los Angeles would surely accomplish what Louisiana could not.

“I was wrong. Today Los Angeles and California as a whole have abandoned integration as the chief mechanism of school reform and embraced charter schools instead.

“This has happened all over the country, of course, but California has led the way — it has 630,000 students in charter schools, more than any other state, and the Los Angeles Unified School District has more than 154,000 of them. Charters are associated with choice and innovation, important elements of the good life that California is famous for. In a deep-blue state, that good life theoretically includes diversity, and many white liberals believe charters can achieve that, too. After all, a do-it-yourself school can do anything it wants.

“But that’s what makes me uneasy, the notion that public schools, which charters technically are, have a choice about how or to what degree to enforce the social contract. There are many charter success stories, I know, and many make a diverse student body part of their mission. But charters as a group are ill suited to the task of justice because they are a legacy of failed justice.

“Integration did not happen. The effect of my father’s and my foray into those white schools was not more equality but white flight. Largely white schools became largely black, and Latino schools were stigmatized as “bad” and never had a place in the California good life.

“It’s partly because diversity can be managed — or minimized — that charters have become the public schools that liberal whites here can get behind. This is in direct contrast to the risky, almost revolutionary energy that fueled past integration efforts, which by their nature created tension and confrontation. But as a society — certainly as a state — we have lost our appetite for that engagement, and the rise of charters is an expression of that loss.

“Choice and innovation sound nice, but they also echo what happened after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, when entire white communities in the South closed down schools to avoid the dread integration.

“This kind of racial avoidance has become normal, embedded in the public school experience. It seems particularly so in Los Angeles, a suburb-driven city designed for geographical separation. What looks like segregation to the rest of the world is, to many white residents, entirely neutral — simply another choice.

“Perhaps it should come as no surprise that in 2010, researchers at the Civil Rights Project at U.C.L.A. found, in a study of 40 states and several dozen municipalities, that black students in charters are much more likely than their counterparts in traditional public schools to be educated in an intensely segregated setting. The report says that while charters had more potential to integrate because they are not bound by school district lines, “charter schools make up a separate, segregated sector of our already deeply stratified public school system.”

“In a 2017 analysis, data journalists at The Associated Press found that charter schools were significantly overrepresented among the country’s most racially isolated schools. In other words, black and brown students have more or less resegregated within charters, the very institutions that promised to equalize education.

“This has not stemmed the popular appeal of charters. School board races in California that were once sleepy are now face-offs between well-funded charter advocates and less well-funded teachers’ unions. Progressive politicians are expected to support charters, and they do. Gov. Jerry Brown, who opened a couple of charters during his stint as mayor of Oakland, vetoed legislation two years ago that would have made charter schools more accountable. Antonio Villaraigosa built a reputation as a community organizer who supported unions, but as mayor of Los Angeles, he started a charter-like endeavor called Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

“This year, charter advocates got their pick for school superintendent, Austin Beutner. And billionaires like Eli Broad have made charters a primary cause: In 2015, an initiative backed in part by Mr. Broad’s foundation outlined a $490 million plan to place half of the students in the Los Angeles district into charters by 2023.

“I live in Inglewood, a chiefly black and brown city in Los Angeles County that’s facing gentrification and the usual displacement of people of color. Traditional public schools are struggling to stay open as they lose students to charters. But those who support the gentrifying, which includes a new billion-dollar N.F.L. stadium in the heart of town, see charters as part of the improvements. They see them as progress.

“Despite all this, I continue to believe in the social contract that in my mind is synonymous with public schools and public good. I continue to believe that California will at some point fulfill that contract. I believe this most consciously when I go back to Westchester and reflect on my formative two years in school there. In the good life there is such a thing as a good fight, and it is not over.“

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Inequity, Justice, Privatization, Racism, School Choice, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

D.C.: Prominent Charter Chain is Abandoning Its D.C. School, Can’t Make it Work

By dianeravitch

August 14, 2018 //

Democracy Prep is leaving the District of Columbia. Its charter school is a failure. Interestingly, Democracy Prep was chosen to take over the Andre Agassi Charter School in Las Vegas after that well-funded school failed.

Charters come, charters go. Kids, go find another school. Tough luck. Better luck next time. Walmart opens and closes stores all the time. What’s the big deal? You know, disruption.

A prominent Southeast Washington charter school with more than 600 students announced Friday that the coming school year will be its last.

Leaders of Democracy Prep Congress Heights said in an email to parents that the school, which has students in preschool through eighth grade, was unable “to provide Congress Heights scholars the school they deserve.”

The letter said Democracy Prep will seek a new organization to run the campus for the 2019-2020 academic year. School leaders said they are confident they will find a new operator and that students will not have to be displaced.

Democracy Prep, a New York-based charter network, made big promises when it entered the District in 2014 to take over Imagine Southeast, which was on the cusp of being shut down over poor performance.

The charter network had built a reputation for lifting test scores among poor children from low-income families in New York’s Harlem neighborhood and promised to bring its model of college prep and civic education to Washington. The network operates nearly 20 schools across the country, and the D.C. school is the only one it is closing.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Failure, Privatization

Florida: Is It Possible to Close Down a Financially Troubled, Floundering, Under-Enrolled Charter School?

By dianeravitch

August 14, 2018 //

Palm Beach County is struggling to close down a floundering charter school called Eagle Arts Academy.

Frustrated so far in their attempts to close Eagle Arts Academy, Palm Beach County public school leaders are going for the nuclear option: an immediate shutdown of the troubled Wellington charter school.

Schools Superintendent Donald Fennoy is proposing to close the school this week, arguing that its financial woes and evident lack of a campus or teaching staff make it unsafe for students.

The school’s “fiscal mismanagement and deteriorating financial condition have reached such a critical point that there now exists an immediate and serious danger to the health, safety and welfare of (Eagle Arts’) students,” Fennoy wrote in a letter to school board members.

Board members are expected to vote Wednesday on the proposal for an “immediate termination” of the school’s charter.

Monday afternoon, the school’s executive director, Gregory Blount, told the school parents via email that it would be “difficult” to reopen the school next month and recommended that they enroll their children in other area charter schools.

The move to close Eagle Arts comes after a series of delays thwarted the district’s first attempt to shut it down before the school year begins Aug. 13. As a charter school, Eagle Arts is publicly financed but operated by a private board of directors.

RELATED: Eagle Arts charter school may reopen despite vote to close it

In March, the school district initiated a gradual shutdown process, one that requires 90 days’ notice and allows the school to remain open if it chooses to appeal.

Eagle Arts appealed the decision and then convinced an administrative judge to twice postpone a hearing in the case. The delays ensured that the school would be able to reopen next month before the case is decided.

This month the school district tried instead to end its monthly payments to the school, but the judge in the case last week ordered that the payments continue.

But the school district had another tool in its belt: an immediate shutdown of the school.

Under state law, the district can immediately close a charter school only if it determines that an “immediate and serious danger to the health, safety, or welfare of the charter school’s students exists.”

Eagle Arts can appeal, but under the law it wouldn’t get to stay open while it does so. The school district could take control of the school, but Fennoy recommends shutting it down instead while any appeal process plays out.

If the school board votes Wednesday to immediately close the school, it’s not clear what becomes of a $255,000 payment that the school district withheld from it this month.

An administrative judge ordered the school district to pay the money by the end of last week, but by Monday the district had not released the money, a school official with knowledge of the case told The Palm Beach Post.

It’s also unclear whether the decision to immediately close the school would override the ongoing appeal, or if the administrative judge overseeing the appeal would attempt to block the board’s new move to close it.

Neither Blount nor a school district spokeswoman responded to requests for comment on the case.

Eagle Arts has been in trouble for a long while, and the law protects the charter, even though it is in financial trouble and has no campus. Why close it down just because it is failing?

For years, Blount has faced criticism for his combative management style and for steering hundreds of thousands of dollars in school funding into his personal businesses.

Once one of the county’s largest charter schools, Eagle Arts’ enrollment plummeted in recent years after a series of scandals and frequent staff turnover. By the end of the last school year, enrollment had fallen to about 273 students.

The district has argued that the school must be closed because it is in “deteriorating financial condition,” has not paid rent for its 13-acre campus since September and is spending “excessive” amounts on administrative salaries while its student enrollment falls.

In making its case to immediately close the school, the school district is citing its latest woes as evidence that it is an unsafe environment for children. The owner of the school’s campus filed an eviction action in June, saying that the school owed it more than $700,000 in unpaid rent.

Okay, so the director puts the school’s money into his personal business. Is that a problem? So it hasn’t paid rent? No problem. The director explained that the test scores are low because the students are visual learners, you know, artistic types.

It must not be a “no excuses” school. It has so many excuses. Open the article for lots of links.

Eagle Arts Academy has been a problem for Palm Beach County for a long while. Last April, the school was struggling to pay its staff, yet paying the executive director for the right to use the name of the school and its logo.

Since June, the financially struggling Wellington charter school has paid at least $42,000 to director Gregory Blount’s company for the right to call itself Eagle Arts Academy and use an eagle logo, website and data-processing system that the company owns, school records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post show.

This charade (joke) has been going on for about two years.

Here are the most recent reports, which include the two above.

July 30 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/pbc-schools-chief-calls-for-immediate-shutdown-eagle-arts-academy/imcd7DdXPVTIYITRpgRblL/

July 17 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/did-eagle-arts-director-steal-church-camera-feud-leads-theft-probe/JVK24WXtdIAoDCmTqUtsEK/

July 10 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/the-school-board-can-close-eagle-arts-cutting-off-its-money/fjXxdbwjURYqMHwPQinQXM/

June 6 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/eagle-arts-charter-school-may-reopen-despite-vote-close/m2VLePcn8kIMqVWMmA0DfM/

May 1 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/eagle-arts-academy-withholds-teachers-pay-for-second-time-month/ts6tgRDgjvCcNev7kpvALO/

April 13 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/despites-worries-eagle-arts-teachers-report-receiving-full-paychecks/tFJU8OOfXsWVIO0gcIyEAK/

April 13 – https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local-education/while-struggling-pay-staff-eagle-arts-pays-its-leader-for-its-own-name/09EWrdHvSG9QJCxTjfl2nO/

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