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Teacher: My Nightmare Year in a Charter School

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2018 //
24

 

Florina Rodov taught in a charter school in Los Angeles for a year. In this article, she describes her experiences. 

It was an eye opening and nightmarish year.

She taught from 2005-2009 in a New York City public school,and got burned out by the testing, the paperwork, and the cultural contempt for teachers. She heard about the charters and was intrigued.

“On August 2, 2016, in sunny Los Angeles, I interviewed with the amiable principal of a charter school. A former teacher herself, she founded the school with an attorney friend to give middle and high school kids a college preparatory program that offered AP courses, sports, and the arts. The teachers at her school had a voice, she said, and the close rapport between students and staff made it feel “like a family.” I was inspired by her passion — and despite the fact that the school was moving for a third time in three years and had lost its co-founder and a few teachers (all of whom had resigned), I signed a non-union contract on the spot.

“But I soon realized there was a gulf between charter school hype and reality. Every day brought shocking and disturbing revelations: high attrition rates of students and teachers, dangerous working conditions, widespread suspensions, harassment of teachers, violations against students with disabilities, nepotism, and fraud. By the end of the school year, I vowed never to step foot in a charter school again, and to fight for the protection of public schools like never before.

”On August 15, my first day of work, I dashed into the school’s newest home, a crumbling building on the campus of a public middle school in South Los Angeles. Greeting my colleagues, who were coughing due to the dust in the air, I realized most of us were new. It wasn’t just several people who had quit over the summer, but more than half the faculty — 8 out of 15 teachers. Among the highly qualified new hires were a seasoned calculus teacher; an experienced sixth grade humanities teacher; a physics instructor who’d previously taught college; an actor turned biology teacher; and a young and exuberant special education teacher.

“When the old-timers trickled in, they told us there’d been attrition among the students, too: 202 of 270 hadn’t returned, and not all their seats had been filled. Because funding was tied to enrollment, the school was struggling financially.”

Working conditions were difficult. Everyone worked a 60-hour week. The SPED teacher had 48 students.

But that wasn’t all.

“The working conditions made it a test of endurance. The contract with the district that called for our school to get cleaned twice weekly wasn’t honored. The frazzled janitor only had time for us after he was done with the co-located middle school, which was almost never. I watched pieces of pepperoni decay on the stairs and globs of feces dry up on the bathroom wall over several weeks. During a lesson, my smart, sweet ninth graders were distracted by a roach striding across the floor, victoriously waving a cookie crumb in the air with its pincers. Needless to say, the lesson went to the insects.

“But the biggest threat was to our safety. We were in a gang-ridden, drug-infested area — but there was no security guard or emergency plan in place. And even without outside factors, it was quickly becoming a climate of terror inside the school, as well. When a senior grabbed a teacher’s ass, the principal didn’t expel him (she couldn’t afford to lose more students) — so he continued sexually harassing her, and it felt like there was nothing we could do to stop him…

”Last year, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos quipped that picking a school should be as easy as choosing Lyft, Uber, or a taxi. In California — the Wild West of the charter sector because of the schools that pop up indiscriminately — it is that easy. The result is chaos: Schools struggle to establish themselves, teachers quit, and kids bounce around from school to school at a head-spinning rate. One of my seventh graders had attended seven schools over the course of seven years…Due to this school-hopping culture, only 16 seniors remained of the 43 freshmen who had enrolled at our charter in 2013.”

There are no doubt good charters, bad charters, every kind of charter. What is the value of disrupting a nation’s public schools recklessly, without regard to quality or consequences?

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization

Puerto Rico: Legislators Moving to Adopt Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
36

Another victory for the Trump-DeVos agenda of school choice, this one in Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from massive hurricane damage.

Politico Morning Education reports:

SCHOOL CHOICE PROPOSAL MOVES AHEAD IN PUERTO RICO: One of the island’s legislative chambers approved this week an education reform plan that would usher in charter schools to the territory and roll out a program of school vouchers in 2019. The plan was pitched by Gov. Ricardo Rossello as the island’s education system grappled with a tough recovery and mass migration to the states following Hurricane Maria. It has been criticized by teachers unions, which fear that turning over education to private entities will disrupt public schools there.

– The legislation allows for the creation of charter schools, or for the conversion of existing public schools into charters. Schools must be run by non-profit operators, and must be non-sectarian. Students from across the island would be able to participate in enrollment lotteries, though schools have to give preference to students in neighboring communities. Teachers who chose to work for charter schools in Puerto Rico would be given a leave of absence from the Education Department, which would hold their jobs for up to two years.

– Responding to concerns that Puerto Rico’s system would emulate post-Katrina New Orleans, where nearly all students attend charter schools, lawmakers instituted a cap on the number of charter schools equal to 10 percent of all public schools there.

– As for school vouchers, lawmakers are proposing a rollout in the 2019-2020 school year that would allow 3 percent of students to attend schools of their choosing – including private schools. That number would rise to 5 percent the following year. It’s unclear how much money would be granted to each student, but the legislation calls for no more than 70 percent of what is already allocated per public school student.

The lesson: If you can’t fund your schools adequately, offer school choice instead. It will intensify social and economic segregation and it won’t improve education, but it will give the illusion of reform.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

California: Why the State Board of Education Will Never Say No to KIPP

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
14

 

Expanding charter schools is the passion of Betsy DeVos.

Lest we forget, it was also the passion of the Obama administration, which spent eight years promoting the wonders of charter schools.

In the last months of the Obama Administration, with John King as Secretary of Education, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $100 million to California and to KIPP to open more charter schools. 

“KIPP Public Charter Schools and the California Department of Education have received federal grants together worth nearly $100 million to expand and start more public charter schools.

“The California Department of Education won $49.9 million to run a grant competition for charter school operators, to support nearly 500 new and expanded public charter schools.

“A consortium of the KIPP Foundation and the KIPP California Region won nearly $48.8 million over three years.

“Among schools benefiting from the award are four growing KIPP Bay Area schools: KIPP Heritage Academy and KIPP Prize Preparatory Academy in San Jose, KIPP Excelencia Community Prep in Redwood City and KIPP Bridge Academy in Oakland. Each of the schools may receive up to $500,000 over the three-year grant period for expansion.”

All that money to expand a charter chain that was first introduced to a national audience in performance at the Republican convention of 2000, when George W. Bush was nominated for the Presidency. 

Betsy DeVos will enjoy the results, but hold Secretaries Arne Duncan and John King and President Obama accountable. John King is now president of Education Trust, which supports high-stakes testing as the path to equity (which it never has been and never will be since all standardized tests mirror family income). Arne Duncan works for Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education

Jay P. Greene: The Disconnect Between Changing Test Scores and Changing Life Outcomes

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
10

 

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, test scores have been defined by federal law as the goal of education. Schools and teachers that “produce”higher scores are good, schools and teachers that don’t are “bad,” and likely to suffer termination. The assumption is that higher test scores produce better life outcomes, and that is that.

In late 2016, Jay P. Greene produced a short and brilliant paper that challenged that assumption. I have fallen into the habit of asking myself whether the young people who are super-stars in many non-academic fields had high scores and guessing they did not. Fortunately, it is only in schools where students get branded with numbers like Jean Val Jean of “Les Miserables.” Outside school, they can dazzle the world as athletes, musicians, inventors, or mechanics, without a brand.

Greene writes:

“If increasing test scores is a good indicator of improving later life outcomes, we should see roughly the same direction and magnitude in changes of scores and later outcomes in most rigorously identified studies. We do not. I’m not saying we never see a connection between changing test scores and changing later life outcomes (e.g. Chetty, et al); I’m just saying that we do not regularly see that relationship. For an indicator to be reliable, it should yield accurate predictions nearly all, or at least most, of the time.

“To illustrate the un-reliability of test score changes, I’m going to focus on rigorously identified research on school choice programs where we have later life outcomes. We could find plenty of examples of disconnect from other policy interventions, such as pre-school programs, but I am focusing on school choice because I know this literature best. The fact that we can find a disconnect between test score changes and later life outcomes in any literature, let alone in several, should undermine our confidence in test scores as a reliable indicator.

“I should also emphasize that by looking at rigorous research I am rigging things in favor of test scores. If we explored the most common use of test scores — examining the level of proficiency — there are no credible researchers who believe that is a reliable indicator of school or program quality. Even measures of growth in test scores or VAM are not rigorously identified indicators of school or program quality as they do not reveal what the growth would have been in the absence of that school or program. So, I think almost every credible researcher would agree that the vast majority of ways in which test scores are used by policymakers, regulators, portfolio managers, foundation officials, and other policy elites cannot be reliable indicators of the ability of schools or programs to improve later life outcomes.”

I would add that Chetty et al did not establish a causal relationship between teacher VAM and later life outcomes, only a correlation. The claim that my fourth grade teacher “caused” me not to become pregnant a decade later strains credulity. At least mine.

Greene’s essay includes an excellent reading list of studies showing high test scores but no change in high school graduation rate or college attendance.

The Milwaukee and D.C. voucher studies that show a gain in high school graduation rate should note the high attrition rate from these programs, which inflates the graduation rate.

Imagine saying to a governor, I have a policy intervention that will raise test scores but will have little or no effect on life outcomes. Would they jump at the offer? Based on the political activity of the past 15 years, the answer is yes.

Overall, however, a seminal essay from a prominent pro-choice scholar.

Categories Charter Schools, Research, School Choice, Vouchers

Oklahoma: Will Teachers Strike? John Thompson Explains.

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2018 //
3

 

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, writes here about the run-up to a possible teachers’ strike. Teachers’ salaries in Oklahoma are near the lowest in the nation. Coincidentally or not, supporters of school choice are massing this morning Choice advocates are rallying this morning at the State Capitol to demand more funding for charters and vouchers. The choice advocates don’t care about teachers’ salaries, teacher shortage, or the experience of those who teach their children.

 

John Thompson writes:

“Oklahoma gives $500 million a year in tax breaks to energy companies, but it is #1 in the nation in cutting state funding for education, reducing formula funding by 28%. We are either third from last or last in the nation in teacher pay. Teachers have not received a state pay increase for a decade; the starting salary is $31,600 for a first-year teacher. State employees have not received an across the board pay raise in 12 years.

“As the rest of the nation watches the grassroots rebellion of teachers that is likely to lead to an April 2 walkout of both teachers and state employees, outsiders should be aware that before the legislature could address our fiscal crisis, it has had to deal with more pressing priorities.

Another year goes by, and Oklahoma still leads the nation for cuts to education


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/07/good-jobs-first/are-oklahoma-teachers-lowest-paid-nearly/
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-teachers-continue-wait-for-pay-raise-a-decade-after-last-increase/article/5580331
http://newsok.com/article/5586584?slideout=1

“The first priority which had to be resolved before Oklahoma could address the budget was brought up by my legislator, Rep. Jason Dunnington (D-OKC). He wanted Imad Enchassi, senior imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, to serve as the House Chaplain for a Day. Enchassi is one of the state’s most thoughtful, articulate, and witty leaders. However, the Republican leadership continued to block the iman’s application They changed their rules requiring clergy participating in the House Chaplain Program “be from the representative’s own place of worship.”

“After 250 Christians, Jews, and Muslims showed up in the Capitol rotunda to hear Enchassi lead an Islamic prayer, the Republican leadership had to change the guidelines once again. After all, they needed the rules necessary for keeping political issues out of their daily prayers …

“Sure enough, a second priority emerged when the Senate leadership had to defend a Baptist minister’s 15 minute prayer/serman to that legislative body. He blamed school shootings on gay marriage.

“The pastor said:

‘Feb. 14 (a young man) went into a school and killed 17 of our people, our kids. What is going on? What is going on? … Do we really believe that we can create immorality in our laws? Do we really believe that we can redefine marriage from the word of God to something in our own mind and there not be a response? Do we really believe we can tell God to get lost from our schools and our halls of legislation and there be no response? Do we really believe that?’

http://newsok.com/interfaith-leaders-say-legislatures-chaplain-program-excludes-non-christians/article/5583810
https://www.thelostogle.com/2018/03/02/angry-baptist-minister-makes-triumphant-return-to-oklahoma-capitol/

“The legislative load in the wake of recent school shootings was somewhat easier because Oklahoma had already authorized teachers to carry guns at schools, but the law required 74 hours of training. So surely teachers who care about their students should agree to put their pay on the back burner until the required training was reduced …

“Then the right to carry concealed guns into churches had to be reinforced, once again. Non-Oklahomans should understand why Sen. John Bennett (R-Sallisaw) felt compelled to protect churchgoers’ right to arm themselves against “knuckleheads” and “evil people.” His new priority was legislative action for implementing Matthew 26:52, which says “those who take up the sword die by the sword.”

”But Bennett, who has called Islam a “cancer” and who said that state employees seeking a pay raise are engaging in “terrorism,” didn’t include mosques. Consequently, another Republican had to file a bill protecting guns in all houses of worship.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2018-02-28/oklahoma-panel-oks-plan-to-ease-training-for-armed-teachers
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/capitol_report/guns-in-churches-bill-passes-oklahoma-house-would-extend-stand/article_0209a184-5573-56b7-8adb-3395049f68f8.html
http://newsok.com/article/5570937

“Oklahoma’s refusal to accept Obamacare contributed to the enormous hole in the budget that created the education crisis. So, another priority was passing legislation and preparing Gov. Mary Fallin’s order that work requirements must be attached to Medicaid.

“As the April 2 strike deadline approaches, legislative leaders have suggested legislation allowing ad valorem taxes dedicated to capital expenditures be redirected towards salaries. That would free some rich communities to offer a raise. And the word is that equally eccentric funding ideas will be floated.

“It is tougher to raise revenue in Oklahoma than in West Virginia because a constitutional amendment requires a 75% majority to increase taxes. We should not forget, however, why that provision became law.

“In 1992, after a decade of economic collapse due to deindustrialization spurred by Reaganomics, the oil downturn, the banking and savings and loan collapse, AIDS, and the crack and gangs epidemic, HB1017 was passed. After a four-day strike, the tax was passed, saving our schools, but the backlash killed all but one tax increase since then.

“So, Oklahoma’s April tornado season is likely to be upstaged by a bottom-up teachers’ revolt. It is likely to produce a political battle royal which will be worthy of the attention of readers across the nation. Stay tuned.”

Categories Charter Schools, Oklahoma, School Choice, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers, Vouchers

Betsy DeVos to National PTA: Public Schools Stink!

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2018 //
51

 

When she delivered her keynote remarks to the National PTA, Betsy DeVos took potshots at 60 Minutes, claiming the show edited her remarks. She apparently did not explain in what way she was misquoted.

“So, now that I have the opportunity to speak unedited, I’m not afraid to call out folks who defend stagnation for what it really is: failure,” she said, criticizing those who are against school choice given that U.S. students are ranked 40th in math, 23rd in reading and 25th in science compared to other countries.

“The Education secretary is a proponent of school choice, which encompasses policies such as letting students attend religious or charter schools with public funding.”

DeVos did not acknowledge that the US placed dead last in the first international assessment in 1964.

She did not acknowledge that the US was never a high scoring nation and typically scores around the median.

She did not acknowledge that test scores are the result of child poverty and that any effort to raise test scores must address as child poverty.

She did not acknowledge that the US is #1 in child poverty among the OECD nations.

She refuses to acknowledge that school choice does not produce higher test scores. On the whole, school choice lowers test scores. The prime example of the effects of school choice is Michigan, where NAEP scores have fallen since Betsy DeVos’s choice policies were imposed. The other examples are Milwaukee and Detroit, which demonstrate the null impact of choice. Milwaukee has charters, vouchers, and public schools that must take the kids the choice schools don’t want. Detroit has loads of charters. Both are among the lowest scoring urban districts tested by NAEP.

She has an agenda, but it has already failed. She is an ideologue and zealot, who pays no attention to evidence, not even in her own state.

She would destroy public education if it were in her power. But we will stop her. She is already an object of ridicule. It won’t get better.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Michigan, Milwaukee, Privatization

Tom Ultican: How DeVos and Her Allies Destroyed the Public Schools of Detroit

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2018 //
12

California teacher Tom Ultican has been systematically deconstructing the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” one claim, one city at a time.

In this post, he explores the disastrous consequences of the policies of school choice zealots, especially the DeVos family. Every intervention made things worse, especially for the poorest children, who live in Detroit. They were not simply abandoned. Their schools and city were ransacked by raiders of DPE.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Failure, Hoax, Michigan, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: DeVos Tries to Recoup Her Embarrassment on Twitter

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
4

 

Mercedes Schneider describes Betsy DeVoid’s effort on Twitter to recover from her awful interview on 60 Minutes, which made her appear ignorant and clueless, even about her own state.

In the interview, she feigned ignorance when Lesley Stahl said that the state’s scores on NAEP dropped precipitously over the past decade of choice, which Betsy engineered. But Lesley Stahl knew.

The best Betsy could come up with was that Detroit charters—which select their students— have higher scores than Detroit public schools. But even the charter scores were abysmal.

If Betsy wants to argue the miracle of choice, Detroit is not a good example. No miracle.

 

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

Julian Vasquez Heilig: KIPP and #NotUs in California

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
5

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig calls BS on KIPP in California, where they are pushing a KIPP charter into a community that doesn’t want them.

The local district, already financially drained by charters, rejected them. The county district rejected them. As in, go away. Now they are applying to the state board, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Charter School lobby.

”KIPP is now trying to insert more schools into the San Francisco Bay Area. But they are having a problem. They ran into some snags in the local authorizing process. First, the local district said that there are now more charters than neighborhood public schools and they are teetering on financial disaster. Their march towards bankruptcy is occurring even with increased funding from the state the past few years because the loss of students to charters has resulted in massive budget shortfalls. After their 3-2 denial by the district, KIPP then went to the county for their second and final attempt at local authorizing. However, that didn’t go well for KIPP because the county wanted assurances that that KIPP would abide by AB 1090, which is a California financial conflict of interest law. KIPP refused to abide by California financial conflict of interest laws. What!?

“Charters talk on and on about how interested they are in transparency and accountability #NotUs. They tell legislators that they are abiding by the law #NotUs. Then they tell other people that the law doesn’t apply to them (See video below) #NotUs. This sort of malfeasance goes on and on because we allow charters to talk out of two sides of their mouth. We also allow the “good” charters to say, “We are good” and of course there is some “bad.” #NotUs Which ultimately provides cover for the entire sector at the expense of transparency and accountability for children, families and taxpayers.”

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

Florida: Parents Push Back Against Privatization

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2018 //
17

 

Carol Lerner posted this comment in response to a post about the new $100 million tax credit voucher program in Illinois:

 

“The article says it is the largest “first-time” tax credit scholarship program. Florida, at nearly $1-billion, has the largest tax credit scholarship program in the nation. And what is particularly horrifying is that it can increase (as stated in legislation) by 25% per year (which it has been doing each year thus far). At that unbelievable rate, in 15 years the spending on these voucher scholarships would exceed the current education budget of $21-billion and in 20 years, it would be almost as large as the entire current $87.2–billion Florida state budget. That is unlikely to happen but it just shows how absurd a 25% growth rate is.

“Florida gets its money for this $1-billion and rising program by diverting corporate income and other taxes to two non profit scholarship-funding organizations (SFOs): Step Up for Children and AAA Scholarship Foundation. Step Up for Children gets the lion-share of the money for which they get a 3% cut. They also actively solicit money from corporations. Step Up for Children was set up by John Kirtley, a close associate of Betsy DeVos.

“Now with the passage on Monday of Florida House Bill 7055, the amount of money diverted to vouchers that should be going into the general treasury is further expanding as is the source of the money. The legislation stipulates that money to fund sending students who are victims of bullying to private schools will come from a consumer sales tax allowing residents to allocate $110 in sales tax when they purchase a car or transfer registration from another state. So now, it is not just corporate taxes but also consumer taxes that are tapped. A recent article indicated that state revenue projects for this year are down and cuts will have to be made. It is no wonder revenue is down despite a supposid booming economy.

“There is a growing backlash to these privatizing maneuvers in Florida and pretty much all but a few Democrats in the State legislature are on the correct side. (Of course, the Republicans far exceed the Democrats, especially in the FL House of Representatives but this might change a bit in November.) Where I live in Sarasota, a group of us set up last summer an organization, Protect Our Public Schools (POPS), to fight school privatization. The impetus for this was the passage of HB 7069 legislation (a big giveaway to charter schools, particularly corporate-managed charters among many other really awful things). From the start we tied fighting privatization to working for a high quality education for all students. Since the Parkland shooting, we decided to expand our mission to include addressing school violence in all its forms. We are attending school board meetings, holding public forums, staffing tables at marches (e.g., The Women’s March, the upcoming March for Our Lives) and getting a great response. I have developed a presentation on school privatization in Florida and have been invited to present to a bunch of Indivisible groups and just the other day was invited to address the local UU Church. So the movement is growing but our enemies are strong and very well funded and are increasingly using dark monies to target and replace pro-public education school board members.

“If anyone knows people from other parts of Florida working on school privatization issues, please let me know. Given the fact that Florida has an increasingly state-run education system, it is important that we all work together.”

I encouraged Carol and other Floridians to contact Carol Burris of the Network for Public Education to learn about other allies in Florida as well as Sue Legg, education director of the Florida League of Women Voters. She has many allies in the state.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization
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