Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and mathematics writes an open letter to the monied, powerful California Charter School Association, whose lust for more power and unchecked, unaccountable control is insatiable.
Archives for category: Charter Schools
NPE and Schott Foundation Release Report Card for the States on Privatization of Public School Funds
Today, the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education released the first ever state-by-state report card on privatization of public funds intended for public schools.
It is titled: “Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation’s Commitment to Public Schools.”
Where does your state rank?
Is your state diverting public funds for privately managed charter schools?
Does your state offer vouchers for unregulated, unaccountable religious and private schools?
Does your state have neovoucher schools that encourage corporations and wealthy individuals to underwrite the cost of religious and private education instead of paying taxes to support public schools?
Billions of dollars are being diverted from public schools to pay for tuition in nonpublic schools, some of which hire uncertified teachers and some of which enroll students who were previously enrolled in private schools.
The big takeaway from this report is that every dollar that goes to a charter school or a religious or private school is a dollar taken away from public schools whose doors are open to all, regardless of race, religion, gender, language. Disability, or LGBT status.
In reading the report, you will notice that the overwhelming majority of parents choose public schools in every state.
No matter how many programs are created to promote private alternatives, the public chooses their democratically controlled public schools.
This is a landmark report that identifies the states that fully support their public schools. Inform yourself so you are prepared to fight privatization and defend public education—of, by, and for the people. Not the billionaires. Not the hedge fund managers. Not the entrepreneurs. Not the religious zealots. Not the profiteers. Not Betsy DeVos.
For the people.
NBC took a close look at a charter school in Georgia that recruits white students and promises them an elite education. And it is free to students who are accepted! The tuition for this elite private school is paid by the taxes of poor and middle-income blacks and whites who would never qualify for admission. How sad to see that charter schools in the South are the new segregation academies, but paid for by taxpayers.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/it-s-black-white-thing-how-some-elite-charter-schools-n878656
The video is based on a story about how charter schools exacerbate segregation by Emmanuel Felton, published by the HECHINGER Report.
Congratulations to Emmanuel Felton for a great story!
Kudos to NBC for once again performing as a nonpartisan news operation rather than a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gates Foundation, as it was in the days of the annual propaganda fest called “Education Nation,” which lionized Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Davis Guggenheim, Wendy Kopp, and other stars of the privatization movement.
The article:
“Parents of prospective students converged on Lake Oconee Academy for an open house on a bright but unseasonably cold March afternoon for northern Georgia. A driveway circling a landscaped pond led them to the school’s main hall. The tan building had the same luxury-lodge feel as the nearby Ritz-Carlton resort. Parents oohed and aahed as Jody Worth, the upper school director, ushered them through the campus. Nestled among gated communities, golf courses and country clubs, the school felt like an oasis of opportunity in a county of haves and have-nots, where nearly half of all children live in poverty while others live in multimillion-dollar lakeside houses.
“The school’s halls and classrooms are bright and airy, with high ceilings and oversize windows looking out across the lush landscape. There is even a terrace on which students can work on warm days. After a guide pointed out several science labs, the tour paused at the “piano lab.” The room holds 25 pianos, 10 of them donated by residents of the nearby exclusive communities. The guide also noted that starting in elementary school, all students take Spanish, art and music classes. The high school, which enrolls less than 200 students, has been able to offer as many as 17 Advanced Placement courses.
“Stunned, one mother, who was considering moving her family from suburban Atlanta to the area, asked how the school could afford it all. Lake Oconee’s amenities are virtually unheard of in rural Georgia; and because it is a public school, they are all available at the unbeatable price of free.
“It’s where districts and schools decide to spend their money,” Worth, a veteran educator who has also taught in Greene County’s traditional public schools, explained. “Some schools spend their money on overhead. We spend it on students.”
“Conspicuously absent from the open house were African-American parents. Of the dozen or so prospective families in attendance, all were white except for one South Asian couple.
At Lake Oconee Academy, 73 percent of students are white. Down the road at Greene County’s other public schools, 12 percent of students are white and 68 percent are black; there isn’t a piano lab and there are far fewer AP courses.”
It’s a charter school!
Jane Nylund is a parent activist in Oakland, California, trying to stave off a charter takeover of the school district.
The charter wolf that’s supposed to guard and hunt with us in lean times? That wolf? He’s flipped you on your back and is now tearing at your throat. And who is the dominant one now?
I admit, I still use the privacy-sucking, venom-spreading, kitty-loving social media platform that is Facebook. It makes it easy to stay connected with friends and issues that I care about. Imagine to my surprise when one recent morning, this video pops up on my Facebook feed. Let’s see what behind Door #1?
Ok, a flattering piece of advertising from the newly-created OaklandCharters.org (it was sponsored content) on Kimi Kean, from Aspire. Given the recent controversy regarding Aspire, is the timely appearance of this ad just a happy coincidence? Don’t think so. Maybe just a well-timed piece of Aspire marketing/branding? Probably.
Around the same time, this article came out from the East Bay Express. Now, let’s see what’s behind Door #2?
In the Door #1 video, it poses this question, “How can Oakland Charters help all our public schools, district and charter?” Um, by threatening a lawsuit? If that’s their idea of what collaboration means for OUSD, then please, no more help necessary, thanks very much.
So which example honestly portrays the true nature of whether Oakland charters and district schools can collaborate together? Think hard before you answer. Door #1 or Door #2? My vote goes to Door #2. But that’s just me.
The worst thing about this latest episode is that it goes beyond emotional arguments and and name-calling. It is the subversion of the democratic process. That the collective “we” would allow Aspire/CCSA to intimidate any elected board into postponing needed legislation is unacceptable, but not entirely unpredictable in the Age of the Orange One Who Shall Not Be Named. The board has a right (don’t they?) to draft any piece of legislation that it wants, and it is scary when the charter schools are given so much power that they can bully and threaten a democratically-elected board into backing down from doing their job. I’m sure there’s more going on behind the scenes, but this incident makes it even more critical that both the OUSD board and the Oakland City Council know exactly what they are dealing with and who is behind it. That would be Door #2. Even more enlightening is that Reed Hastings, the founder of Aspire and hater of school boards everywhere, is probably cheering the loudest at this point. The idea that CCSA/Aspire made the school board blink is, in his mind, a small but significant step towards eliminating the school board entirely. He’s loving this stuff. I, for one, did not participate in the democratic process only to have it dismantled by a guy like Reed Hastings. He is simply one of many in a long line of corporate billionaire ed-reformers who has made it clear that he’s no friend to public education. This is an article from 2016, but you get the idea…
The Battle of Hastings: What’s Behind the Netflix CEO’s Fight to Charterize Public Schools?
I hope that going forward, both the OUSD board and the Oakland City Council understand the degree of propaganda put forth by those who will stop at nothing to get what they want, including trampling on the rights of the citizens who elected them, regardless of what kind of school their children attend (or not). I will also reiterate that this discussion has nothing to do with Ms. Kean’s clear passion and dedication to Aspire. But everyone who has voted for members of either the OUSD board or the Oakland City Council has a reasonable expectation for democratic representation and should resist any effort to interfere with that representation. Don’t allow CCSA and its backers to erode that responsibility. We have too much of that nonsense going on in the rest of the country already.
State Supreme Court Judge Debra J. Young ruled that Success Academy can’t certify its own teachers. The chain, New York City’s largest, has very high teacher turnover and wanted to bypass the normal standards and certification process to ease its teacher shortage. It gained the approval of the State University of New York charter committee, which consists of four businessmen appointed by pro-charter Governor Andrew Cuomo. The New York State Department of Education and the New York State United Teachers sued to block the lowered standards.
Judge Young rejected Success Academy and the SUNY charter committee.
“The judge’s ruling upends the plans of the city’s largest charter school network, Success Academy, and wipes out a legislative victory that New York’s charter sector thought it had won — though the decision will likely not be the end of the legal battle.
“The regulations, approved by the State University of New York in October 2017, were designed to give charter schools more discretion over how they hired teachers. They eliminated the requirement that teachers earn master’s degrees and allowed charter schools authorized by SUNY to certify their teachers with as little as a month of classroom instruction and 40 hours of practice teaching.
“Some charter networks argued their existing in-house training programs are more useful to new teachers than the training required for certification under state law.
“But the rule was quickly challenged by the State Education Department and the state teachers union, which filed separate lawsuits that were joined in April. They argued that SUNY overstepped its authority and charged that the rule change would lead to children being taught by inexperienced and unqualified teachers…
The ruling was issued Tuesday by State Supreme Court Judge Debra J. Young, who wrote that the new certification programs were illegal because they fell below the minimum requirements issued by the state….
“The state’s top education officials — Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa — have long seemed offended by the new regulations. On a panel last year, Elia said, “I could go into a fast food restaurant and get more training than that.””
SUNY plans to appeal.
Don’t miss this story in the HECHINGER Report and on Lester Holt on NBC tonight.
Nearly 750 charter schools are whiter than the nearby district schools
Wake up! Get woke! Don’t let them steal our public schools.
MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC News
LINK: https://nbcnews.to/2ypwDBU
‘It’s like a black and white thing’: How some elite charter schools exclude minorities
By Emmanuel Felton, The Hechinger Report
June 17, 2018
This story about school segregation was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, a newsroom for independent journalists, in partnership with NBC Nightly News and NBCNews.com.
For more on this report, tune in tonight to “NBC Nightly News”.
GREENSBORO, Ga. — This clearly was no ordinary public school.
Parents of prospective students converged on Lake Oconee Academy for an open house on a bright but unseasonably cold March afternoon for northern Georgia. A driveway circling a landscaped pond led them to the school’s main hall. The tan building had the same luxury-lodge feel as the nearby Ritz-Carlton resort. Parents oohed and aahed as Jody Worth, the upper school director, ushered them through the campus.
Nestled among gated communities, golf courses and country clubs, the school felt like an oasis of opportunity in a county of haves and have-nots, where nearly half of all children live in poverty while others live in multimillion-dollar lakeside houses.
The school’s halls and classrooms are bright and airy, with high ceilings and oversize windows looking out across the lush landscape. There is even a terrace on which students can work on warm days. After a guide pointed out several science labs, the tour paused at the “piano lab.” The room holds 25 pianos, 10 of them donated by residents of the nearby exclusive communities. The guide also noted that starting in elementary school, all students take Spanish, art and music classes. The high school, which enrolls less than 200 students, offers 17 Advanced Placement courses.
Lake Oconee’s amenities are virtually unheard of in rural Georgia; and because it is a public school, they are all available at the unbeatable price of free.
Conspicuously absent from the open house were African-American parents. Of the dozen or so prospective families in attendance, all were white except for one South Asian couple. At Lake Oconee Academy, 73 percent of students are white. Down the road at Greene County’s other public schools, 12 percent of students are white and 68 percent are black; there isn’t a piano lab and there are far fewer AP courses.
Lake Oconee Academy is a charter school. Charters are public schools, ostensibly open to all. The idea behind charters was to loosen rules and regulations that might hinder innovation, allowing them to hire uncertified teachers for example. But dozens of charters have also used their greater flexibility to limit which kids make it through the schoolhouse doors — creating exclusive, disproportionately white schools.
They do this in a variety of ways: Some pick from preferred attendance zones. Some don’t offer school bus transportation. Others require expensive uniforms.
Lake Oconee Academy is one of 115 charters around the country at which the percentage of white students is at least 20 points higher than at any of the traditional public schools in the districts where they are located, according to an investigation by The Hechinger Report and the Investigative Fund, produced in collaboration with NBC News. The analysis used the most recent year of federal enrollment data, for the 2015-16 school year. The 20-percentage-point difference is often used to define schools as “racially identifiable.”
These 115 charters, which together enrolled nearly 48,000 children, were concentrated in just a handful of states. In 2016, California had 33 racially identifiable white charters, Texas was home to 19 and Michigan, 14. At nearly 63 points, the gap between the percentages of white students at Lake Oconee Academy and at the whitest traditional public school in the area was the fourth-widest in the country.
In all, there are at least 747 public charter schools around the country that enroll a higher percentage of white students than any of the traditional public schools in the school districts where they are located.
Read the full report on nbcnews.com and watch more on “NBC Nightly News”
Jeanne Allen, CEO of the pro-choice, Pro-DeVos Center for Education Reform, does not want you to watch an NBC special tonight on charter schools. Allen’s CER is an outspoken supporter of privatization of public funding and a hyperactive opponent of public schools.
In the following letter, she reports that she warned NBC that its show was based on an article in The Hechinger Report,” which she says is biased against charter schools. Really? It’s been my observation that The Hechinger Report is completely nonpartisan and unbiased on every contentious issue.
Here is the letter that Jeanne (former education analyst for the fringe-right Heritage Foundation), sent to NBC and to her mailing list of thousands.
The Center for Education Reform
RE: NBC’s Charter School Mistake
Dear Friends:
Sunday night, June 17th, NBC News is airing a charter school story that argues charters are increasingly geared to support “white flight.” If the claims weren’t so outlandish and unfounded, it would be laughable.
The producer, who was incredibly open to receiving information countering these allegations, based his report on an analysis performed by the Hechinger Report. In one of the documents CER supplied, we demonstrated Hechinger’s bias against charter schools, as well as the folly of the argument.
Indeed, Hechinger claims to have used NCES data to calculate racial balance in charter schools across the country that justify erroneous claims that increasingly charter schools do not reflect the racial balance of surrounding schools. However, as we pointed out, no researcher can make such statements based on NCES data. One needs at least 4 data points (see link for explanation) and further review, analysis and study, to make any legitimate comparisons.
In the case of the school they use as their prime example, George’s Lake Onocee Academy, originally boundaries were drawn around the school based on a development that was responsible for its existence. The other public schools in the district were failing, and developers wanted to offer a better school to the community. The district was opposed to the creation of the school. And while the boundary no longer exists around that school, local leaders have still fanned the flames of bigotry that Hechinger seized to market the sizzling story to its media partner NBC.
The Hechinger Report journalist then called numerous other states and asked about racial composition of their schools. One might ask why they’d have to call states if they thought they had irrefutable data.
We don’t fault NBC for viewing Hechinger’s work as legitimate or being misled by their data. The thousands of policies, laws and data points that apply to charter school everywhere are complex and require a trained eye and understanding. However, if one is disposed against charters as Hechinger is because they give parents freedom to make choices rather mandate assignment based on artificial factors, then one will make any conclusion that justified their narrative.
Such is the case in this piece which some charter advocates argue is balanced. Regardless of what is said tomorrow night, there is no balance in any piece which starts with the premise that the very reform that created opportunities for millions of children who were failed by the traditional system, and which serve a higher percentage of at risk and minority children, is creating racial imbalance. Indeed, if mandatory assignment by zip code and busing were the answer, we would not have failed students for 3 generations.
All children deserve the education they need to become exceptional adults. The freedom to make that choice is fundamental, as charter schools have shown consistently since 1992.
We hope NBC and other news media will find ways to help the public understand that fact, as well as the enormous need that still exists to bring innovation and opportunity to millions more students trapped in failing schools that Hechinger and its friends in the teachers unions irresponsibility seem determined to defend at all costs, including mis-use of data.
If you’d like to discuss this or any other issue, please call us at 202-750-0012 or drop us a note here.
– Jeanne Allen, Founder & CEO
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
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?”
