Archives for category: Charter Schools
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CTA to Friends of Public Schools: Support AB 276!

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2018 //
6

The California Teachers Association calls on all friends of public schools to support AB 276, which sets standards for accountability and transparency for charter schools across the state.

Charter Legislation to Stop Waste, Fraud and Abuse Up for Critical Vote

Please take a minute to contact your Senator %%Senator Full Name%% at %%Senator Phone%% and urge %%Her or Him%% to SUPPORT AB 276 by Assembly Member Jose Medina.

As responsible educators and Californians, we need to hold ALL public entities accountable for their use of taxpayer dollars, particularly when it comes to our schools.

The ongoing proliferation of charter schools is hurting students in our neighborhood public schools because of the lack of transparency and accountability, and the disparity in requirements under which charter schools operate.

The Senate Education Committee is set to vote on AB 276, which requires charter school governing boards to comply with laws promoting transparency and accountability to parents and the public in the operation of public schools and the expenditure of public funds; holding charter schools to the same requirements as traditional public schools. However, ALL senators need to hear from you since AB 276 might be up for a floor vote.

It just takes 60 seconds to contact your Senator! Those taking funds away from our neighborhood schools are also contacting lawmakers to pressure them to keep things the way they are, so it is imperative we reach out to our senators now and urge them to STOP this waste, fraud and abuse!

Contact Senator %%Senator Full Name%% at %%Senator Phone%% and urge %%Her or Him%% to SUPPORT AB 276 by Assembly Member Jose Medina.

Recent headlines are mind-boggling!
More than $149 million of waste, fraud and abuse of tax dollars has been documented in California’s charter school environment, hurting our students and communities.

Having private and secret meetings to discuss how tax dollars will be spent is not acceptable.
Too much is at risk when our students are counting on sound financial decisions that will ensure they get the quality public education they need and deserve.

The only ones benefiting from our public schools should be the students, and ultimately our community.
AB 276 prohibits charter school board members and their immediate families from financially benefiting from their schools. Public schools’ conflict of interest laws and disclosure regulations should also apply to charter schools that receive public funds.

Streamlined regulations for charter schools were never intended to grant operators total authority over taxpayer dollars without any accountability.

Show us the money!
We must require companies and organizations that manage charter schools to release to parents and the public how they spend taxpayer money, including their annual budgets and contracts. The public’s business should be transacted in public. Public agencies must take their actions openly and their deliberations must be conducted openly.

We deserve to know how our schools are being run, and our state deserves an education system that is free from unfair advantages and double standards. Companies and organizations that manage charter schools must open board meetings to parents and the public, similarly to public school board meetings.

Read more about AB 276:
Fact Sheet | Letter | Details

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Supporting public schools

Missouri: New State School Board Uncertain About How to Evaluate Charters

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2018 //
9

During the tenure of former Governor Eric Greitens, Missouri had no state school board because the legislature refused to confirm his appointees. The new governor appointed new members and at last there is a quorum. Yesterday they had a meeting to renew charter schools, which are allowed only in St. Louis and Kansas City. Five charters were renewed despite their middling performance.

Typically, the board has judged charter performance against the performance of the district, but the charters said this was unfair.

Charlie Shields, president of the state board, said that it was time to review charter school laws.

“Shields was critical of the performance of the St. Louis charter schools renewed Thursday, arguing that they do not convincingly outperform St. Louis Public Schools. He said the state Legislature allowed charter schools to operate in Missouri on the premise that charter schools would be easy to open, but poor-performing charter schools should be easy to close.”

St. Louis was taken over by the state because of low performance and is hoping to have local control restored. Yet charter schools do not outperform the district, and charter leaders say that it’s unfair to expect them to do so. Once again, we see reformers moving the goal posts and lowering expectations.

Whiners. Remember when we were told that charter schools would “save poor kids from failing public schools” and would “close the achievement gap.” They don’t and they haven’t. They fight to survive because they want to.

Under Republican control, don’t expect Missouri to set meaningful accountability standards for charters.

The question now is:

“Who will save poor kids from failing charters?”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Missouri, Privatization

California: School Board Members Plead for Authority to Limit Charters Invading Their Districts

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2018 //
8

Three Bay Area school board members joined to write an article pleading for the authority to stop the invasion of charters into their districts, stripping them of resources and students and causing fiscal crises.

Judy Appel is a Berkeley Unified School Board trustee. Roseann Torres is an Oakland School Board director, representing District 5. Madeline Kronenberg is a West Contra Costa Unified School Board trustee. Assembly District 15 includes Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Hercules, portions of Oakland, Piedmont, Pinole, Richmond, and San Pablo.

They wrote:

“As school board members in Oakland, Berkeley and West Contra Costa, we believe in the power of a public-school education. Public schools used to be a way up for students and our state once led the way. But now we’re falling behind the rest of the country.

“Shrinking budgets and resources are one of the biggest culprits and that’s because, in large part, of the proliferation of charter schools. As school board members, we’ve seen how charter schools threaten public schools and pose a risk to the equal opportunity that public schools should provide.

“As we see more charter schools opening, we’re calling on Sacramento to give school boards like ours more control over charters.

“Many may wonder how charter schools, which are marketed as a choice for parents in search of better options for their children, are putting students at risk. Independently run charter schools take precious per-student taxpayer funding from traditional public schools and aren’t required to deliver the same quality product.

“The Chronicle report earlier this month, “Study says Oakland school district lost $57.4 million last year because of charters,” is a dismaying affirmation of what we’ve seen happening to public education in our state. The study showed a net loss to the Oakland Unified School District of $57.4 million in the past school year alone. This is a district that was forced to cut $9 million from its operating budget halfway through the school year.

“Charter school advocates point to mid-year cuts in school districts like Oakland as justification of why parents deserve school choice. But the very existence of 40 charter schools in the city of Oakland alone denies our schools the funding they need to serve our students well. Increasing class sizes and decreasing investment in programs such as foreign language, arts and music classes, counseling and library services are directly the result of charter school expansion. The majority of Oakland’s charters were created during financial receivership, which seems to have created an opening for the proliferation of charter schools that sadly has not slowed down in the past decade such that each year about four to seven new applications arrive. Oakland is not alone. Not 10 miles away, the 12 charters in West Contra Costa Unified School District are causing similar pressures.

“Though charters take taxpayer funding from public schools, they aren’t held to the same transparency standards as our traditional public schools. For example, charter schools are not subject to open government rules. They often spend public dollars on charter management companies, which in turn have used their war chests to work against collective bargaining rights of educators and counselors, protecting the opaque budgeting in the schools.

“Charter schools also have the ability to turn away students, often refusing to educate our most needy students — those with disabilities, behavioral challenges, special needs or who are new to our country. Those students require more services and ultimately more resources from our schools.

“We believe that elected school boards, like the boards on which we serve, are very limited in their abilities to prevent new charter schools from coming into the district and taking per-pupil dollars. Not only are we unable to prevent charter schools from coming to our districts, we are required by law to provide the charter school free space.

“Charter schools do all of this — siphon public school funds, dodge transparency requirements, limit collective bargaining of educators, cherry-pick students and turn others away — with the claim of providing a superior public education. However, study after study shows that outcomes don’t differ between students who attend traditional public schools and charters. Instead, charters simply bleed public schools of precious resources, leaving educators and administrators to do more with less.

“In our Assembly district alone, we have some of our state’s best-resourced and most under-resourced schools. The funding structure is not serving California’s children fairly, and an entire generation of students will feel the effects.

“That’s not OK.

“Our Legislature must act. We need to give local school districts real control to reject charter school petitions. Legislators need to pass legislation to increase transparency and reporting of existing charters before we allow another one to open its doors. We are committed to equity in education, which means making sure that all of our students have equal access to quality education.”

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

Good News! San Francisco Rejects Walton-Funded Charter

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2018 //
8

Last night, the San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously to reject an “Innovate” charter school. The Walton Family Foundation has poured many millions into the Innovate chain in a sustained effort to disrupt public schools and replace them with non-union, privately managed charters.

Innovate will appeal the rejection to the County board. If they lose there, they will appeal to the state board.

The great change in last night’s hearing is that the board was not fooled. They know that the charter is there to take money away from the schools that are open to all students.

The NAACP was very effective in saying so.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-school-board-shoots-charter-school-application-backed-silicon-valley-education-reform-group/

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, San Francisco, Walton Foundation

Tom Ultican on Philadelphia, Another School Choice Failure

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2018 //
7

Tom Ultican, recently retired teacher of physics, has embarked on a mission to cover the Destroy Public Education movement. His posts have taken him to several cities, where the school choice movement has destroyed public education without putting anything better in its place. In fact, the “new” schools are usually worse than the public schools.

In his latest foray, he studies the destruction wrought by the Destroy Public Education movement on the public schools of Philadelphia.

The trouble started when Republican Governor Tom Ridge hired the Edison Project to conduct a study of the Philadelphia public schools and come up with solutions (such as, taking charge of the entire district themselves, nothing like conflict of interest to stir the commercial juices.)

Ultican relies heavily on Samuel Abrams’ excellent book Education and the Commercial Mindset, which began life as a study of Chris Whittle’s Edison Project.

Things went downhill from there. The whole point of “reform” was not to make the schools better, but to save money.

“Edison’s report was not impartial. Both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News called it a charade. (Abrams 116) The report was overly critical of the school district and recommended that the Edison Project be put in charge of running it. Edison also called for reforming “failing” schools by turning them into charter schools.

“Helen Gym (now on the Philadelphia city council) speaking for Asian Americans United, asked, “If this [privatization] is so innovative why aren’t they doing it in Lower Merion.” (Abrams 114) This turns out to have been a perceptive question. Lower Merion is 85% white and rich. Still today, there appear to be no charter schools in Lower Merion Township. Charter schools mostly exist in poor communities without the political capital to protect their schools.”

Broadies, Broadies everywhere! Closing public schools. Starving them. Opening charters. Destroying the district. The great Charade of “Reform.”

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Philadelphia, Privatization

North Carolina: NAACP Threatens to Sue to Block New Charter Law and Voter ID Law

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2018 //
36

The rabid rightwing General Assembly passed a law to allow expansion of charters, that would predictably encourage more segregation. The NAACP has threatened a lawsuit to block the charter law, as well as a voter ID requirement, which they believe is intended to suppress the black vote.

The NAACP is warning companies like Apple and Amazon not to locate in NC.

Read Jeff Bryant on the charter law. Racism. Segregation. The Old South is back.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, North Carolina, School Choice, Segregation

LINK Added! Philadelphia: Non-Diverse Charter School Appeals Against Conditions on Its Renewal, Wants to Maintain White Majority

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2018 //
8

Ah, remember the old days of saving poor black kids from failing schools?

Here is a charter school in Philadelphia that won a renewal on the condition that it attempt to achieve greater racial diversity and get rid of financial conflicts of interest. The charter school is opposing the conditions on its renewal. Too onerous! So what if its schools are majority white in a district that is 14% white? So what if its owners and directors have conflicts of interest? Why should that matter?

The SRC approved the new charter on April 26 after originally denying it on Feb. 22. The conditions were significant – reducing the enrollment total by a third, requiring the school to give preference to students from nearby zip codes with high non-white populations, and changing policies to conform with various state laws.

Franklin Towne’s existing two schools, which enroll 2,100 students in grades K-12, are 70 and 83 percent white, although they are located in a diverse section of the city. In the School District overall, only 14 percent of students are white.

The SRC also imposed conditions on Franklin Towne’s operational structure, which the District’s Charter Schools Office, in evaluating the application, found rife with conflicts of interest among its schools, its boards, its management organization, and its landlord.

Why not just copy the Minneapolis-St. Paul model and have charter schools that are all white, and others that are all-black? Do you have a problem with that?

Charters are more segregated than public schools. We know that. Who will have the nerve to oppose it when the Founding Fathers of charters in Minneapolis-St. Paul think that segregation and non-union charters are just fine, even, well, “progressive.”

Apparently, if you are part of the charter movement, separate but equal is a swell doctrine.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Privatization, Segregation

Ohio: No Charter School Transparency

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2018 //
11

Denis Smith is a retired educator who worked in the state charter school office. This opinion piece was published by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

Is the Public Records Act working in Ohio, particularly when it comes to receiving information about charter schools? If one recent example is typical of compliance with the statute, the answer is probably no.

According to the attorney general’s website, “When it receives a public-records request for specific existing records, the public office must provide inspection of the requested records during regular business hours or provide copies within a reasonable period of time.”

The key question, of course, is who provides the definition of a reasonable period?

On May 2, William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, filed a public-records request with three organizations that are central to the state’s charter-school industry. These entities include the Ohio Department of Education, which provides the overall legal oversight, and two of the largest charter-school sponsors, or authorizers, as they are also known.

The first sponsor addressed was the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West. Like ODE, the ESC of Lake Erie West, formerly known as the Lucas County ESC, is a public agency fully accountable under the Public Records Act. Some readers may recall the ESC as the long-time sponsor of the now-defunct ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

Phillis also sent a records request to an additional sponsor, the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, which, unlike ODE and the educational service center, is a nonprofit organization.

The nature of the public-records request was to examine correspondence between the sponsors, the Ohio Department of Education, and the schools regarding compliance, reviews by the sponsors, governance and overall school performance.

In particular, the two sponsors are responsible for providing oversight and ensuring legal compliance with a chain of 17 schools that operate under the names Horizon Science Academy and Noble Academy and are affiliated with the management firm Concept Schools, based in Chicago.

These schools, which are associated with the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, have been the subject of controversy for years. For example, three of the Ohio schools in the Gulen chain were the targets of an FBI raid in 2014, and that investigation appears to be ongoing.

On a national level, the Gulen schools are known for their practice of hiring Turkish nationals to fill teaching positions at some of their schools. One investigation found that in Ohio alone, 657 H-1B visa applications, which are designed to enable the temporary use of skilled workers, were filed by the management organization in a 15-year period. In theory, every guest international teacher replaces a qualified American teacher, all at taxpayer expense.

In the area of management and governance, there are concerns, as the Akron Beacon-Journal reported earlier, that these “schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens,” of money transfers to individuals in Istanbul, Turkey, and other issues, some of which appeared in state audits. Additional questions involve a foundation with ties to the chain for its practice of offering trips to Turkey for public officials. Former Ohio Speaker Cliff Rosenberger was one individual awarded all-expense-paid travel prior to his accession to the House leadership.

The ever-developing ECOT scandal has validated the need for more-active oversight of all state charter schools, and the Horizon-Noble Gulen chain is a clear example of additional monitoring that must be performed by the state and the two authorizers, which receive millions in state tax dollars for such purposes.

An extended period of time has elapsed since the Ohio Coalition requested the public records. On June 4, the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation did respond through an attorney. “The Buckeye Community Hope Foundation is not a public entity subject to public records,” was part of its reply to Phillis. As of this writing, there has been silence from the two public entities. This is unacceptable and violates the spirit and the letter of the statute.

As the ECOT debacle has shown, there is a major problem with the management and governance of Ohio charter schools, and the public has a right to know more about questions surrounding one of the national charter school chains operating in Ohio.

For years, the American Society of News Editors has sponsored an event called Sunshine Week in honor of the public’s right to know about their government. Schools are a basic part of our system of self-governance. We cannot allow this public-records request to be ignored by those who otherwise benefit from the receipt of public funds.

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” Louis Brandeis once said. Ohio citizens need to insist that the Public Records Act must be the vehicle to provide answers to lingering questions about how our tax money is expended for what should be a proper public purpose.

http://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20180608/denis-smith-charter-schools-are-withholding-public-records

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

California: Charter Forces Licking Their Wounds After Wasting $23 Million on Lousy Candidate for Governor

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2018 //
19

The charter billionaires pulled out all the stops to push their candidate Antonio Villaraigosa into the governor’s runoff last week, and lost.

Charter school supporters are deciding where to direct their considerable resources after pouring money into the California governor primary to support a longtime ally who failed to move on to November’s election.

The fallout may signal future uncertainty for the school choice movement in a state with some of the most robust charter school laws in the United States.

The front-runner for governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, could hamper or threaten the progress of charters — privately run schools that use public money and have divided parents and politicians. He has mostly emphasized his support of traditional public schools and called for more charter school accountability.

Newsom’s campaign said it would seek to temporarily halt charter school openings to consider transparency issues but that “successful” charters would thrive under his leadership. In the June 5 race, he beat out former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a key ally of the California Charter Schools Association.

The powerful organization and its big-name donors, including Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Walmart heir Alice Walton, gave nearly $23 million to support Villaraigosa, who finished behind Newsom and Republican businessman John Cox.

Now, the group said it’s working on a new strategy that could include supporting Newsom or Cox, despite the Republican’s endorsement from President Donald Trump. The heavily blue state is helping lead a national resistance to his administration. The charter Advocates are in a tight spot after running attack ads against both candidates who advanced to the general election.

So look who is standing on principle! The billionaires will either try to buy the friendship of Newsom, with a handsome cash prize, or they will throw in their lot with Trump-loving Cox.

What do they believe in?

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

Michigan: The Effects of Charters on a State That Once Had Fine Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2018 //
21

It is no secret that the DeVos family controls state education policy in Michigan. As Betsy DeVos has acknowledged, when they make campaign contributions, they expect to see the changes they want.

Since DeVos took control, education in Michigan has been in decline. The state has hundreds of charter schools. Accountability is minimal. DeVos likes it that way. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters operate for profit. That means less money for instruction because investors come first in a for-profit business.

Last year, the New York Times Magazine ran a very good article about the charter mess in Michigan. It points out that 70% of the charters are in the bottom half of state performance. So much for “saving poor kids from failing schools,” more like privatizing schools for profit without regard to the kids.

“The results have been stark. The 2016 report by the Education Trust-Midwest noted:

Michigan’s K-12 system is among the weakest in the country and getting worse. In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state in elementary reading and math achievement to the bottom 10 states. It’s a devastating fall. Indeed, new national assessment data suggest Michigan is witnessing systemic decline across the K-12 spectrum. White, black, brown, higher-income, low-income — it doesn’t matter who they are or where they live.

You will not be surprised to learn that Michigan is systematically underinvesting in its school. Choice is a replacement for adequate funding.

You will also not be surprised to learn that Michigan has a major teacher shortage.

New teachers don’t want to teach in Michigan.

This is why Betsy DeVos, when asked about her home state of Michigan, changes the subject to Florida.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Michigan, Privatization, Teacher Shortage, Teachers
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