Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Most Educators, including Conservatives, Oppose School Choice

By dianeravitch
December 26, 2017 //
12

[A NOTE TO READERS:I am posting on a limited schedule for the next week.]

A poll conducted by Education Week found that most educators—including those who voted for Trump—oppose school choice.

Opposition to vouchers is stronger than to charters, but both are opposed.

“Overall, however, charters were viewed almost as negatively as private school vouchers by the educators who participated in the October survey of 1,122 educators conducted by the Education Week Research Center.

“A plurality of those surveyed—45 percent—“fully oppose” charter schools, while another 26 percent “somewhat oppose” them. And 58 percent don’t support using government funds to help students cover the cost of private school, while 19 percent said they “somewhat oppose” vouchers. Meanwhile, about half oppose or “somewhat oppose” tax-credit scholarships, which give individuals and corporations a tax break for donating to scholarship-granting organizations.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Opinion Polling, Privatization, School Choice

Philadelphia: Hearing for Nine New Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
3

Philadelphia is overrun with charter schools, the public schools have been sacked and depleted of resources, but another nine charters have applied to the School Reform Commission for approval.The SRC is in control until June 30, 2018, then control shifts to a board appointed by the Mayor. The people of Philadelphia deserve democratic control of their schools.

Here is the sponsor of two of the proposed charters:

ASPIRA wants to open two new charter schools, despite evidence that it has been unable to operate its existing charter schools without running deficits. The Charter Schools Office has found, among other irregularities, that ASPIRA uses money meant for the education of students at Stetson Middle and Olney High —both of which are former District-run schools— to guarantee loans that the organization took out to purchase other buildings offering different services. The SRC voted 4-1 on Thursday not to renew those charters, and it is making plans to return the schools to District control.

The company’s finances were further hurt by payouts from sexual harassment lawsuits against CEO Alfredo Calderon.

“The SRC continued to fund these Aspira schools despite serious allegations of fraud, ghost contractors for painting Olney high school, admitted misuse of taxpayer dollars, failure to make PSERS payments, and other serious financial transgressions,” Lisa Haver said during her public comment at the hearing. Haver is the co-founder of the Alliance for Public Schools (APPS), an activist group that considers itself a watchdog of the SRC and charter expansion. “After following the Aspira financial and academic scandals for over two years, it’s hard to believe that they believe they are in line to open more schools.”

Here is another applicant:

Franklin Towne, which currently runs a national blue-ribbon charter high school, is proposing to open its own middle school at 5301 Tacony St. in Frankford — in the same building as its high school. It would link Franklin Towne’s elementary school to its high school, acting as a feeder. The school would serve grades 6-8 and open in the 2019-20 school year at its maximum enrollment of 450 students.

“If granted, we would be able, capable, willing and anxious to open a middle school to better serve the students in the 19137 area,” said Patrick Field, chief academic officer of Franklin Towne.

Franklin Towne has a solid academic record at both its elementary school and its high school.

However, the company is also known for running schools where the vast majority of the student body is white — 71 percent at its high school and 86 percent at its elementary school.

When will Philadelphia commit to rebuilding and reviving its public schools, where most students are enrolled and where facilities have been stripped bare to support charters?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Philadelphia

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter Gets Renewed for 9 Years While Bankrupting Local School District

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
7

In the bizarro world of charters in Pennsylvania, the receiver of a bankrupt district (Chester Upland) granted a nine-year renewal to a low-performing charter school (The Chester Community Charter School), pushing millions towards its sponsor.

The charter enrolls 70% of the primary school students in the district. It has been the prime mover in bankrupting the district, drawing away resources and students. In exchange for not opening a high school (which it did not plan to do), the receiver gave it another nine more years.

What is behind this sweet deal?

The owner of the school was one of the biggest contributors to former Republican Governor Tom Corbett and a member of his transition team.

He has profited handsomely by supplying goods and services to his Chester Community Charter School.

CSMI’s founder and CEO is Vahan H. Gureghian of Gladwyne, a lawyer, entrepreneur and major Republican donor –the largest individual contributor to former Gov. Tom Corbett. And though CSMI’s books are not public – the for-profit firm has never disclosed its profits and won’t discuss its management fee – running the school appears to be a lucrative business. State records show that Gureghian’s company collected nearly $17 million in taxpayer funds just in 2014-15, when only 2,900 students were enrolled.

The receiver is a Republican accountant who served as treasurer of Corbett’s campaign.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, whose office has scrutinized the Chester school’s finances in the past and who has often called the state’s charter law “the worst in the country,” was unaware of the renewal until he was told this month by the Inquirer and Daily News.

DePasquale, a Democrat, said he had never heard of such a lengthy charter school renewal, and questioned whether the move limited the district’s authority to demand improvements, especially at a school where test scores are so low.

Things are going well on the financial side for the charter company, but not so well on the academic front. Its schools have shown very low performance. But poor academic performance is no deterrent to its longevity or its profitability!

CSMI, its parent company, has long been a prominent player in the charter world – and not just in Chester. The company runs a school in Atlantic County, N.J., and until last year had another in Camden – New Jersey denied its renewal because of low academic performance.

Chester Community has also struggled to succeed. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams released in September showed that Chester Community had some of the lowest scores among charter schools in the region: Less than 16 percent of students passed PSSA reading tests in the last school year; 6 percent passed math.

The scores were lower than all but one of the four Chester Upland district schools that have K-8 students.

When the State Education Department tried to remove the receiver of the district, who has the same powers as a superintendent, Chester Community Charter School defended him, and he held on to his position.

Two weeks after the receiver was reappointed, the charter school filed its request for a nine-year extension and the receiver agreed.

By the way, the charter founder-owner has dropped the price of his Palm Beach mansion to only $64.9 million. It is a steal It is almost a $20 million drop from the original asking price.

The owners of a never-occupied, eight-bedroom mansion in Palm Beach cut their asking price by $5 million to $64.9 million.

The new $64.9 million asking price for the French Chateau-style mansion is almost $20 million below the original asking price when it was listed for sale more than two years ago.

The 35,993-square-foot residence at 1071 North Ocean Boulevard is still the most expensive home listed in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service…

The owner is a trust linked to Philadelphia-area lawyers Vahan and Danielle Gureghian, who initially planned to occupy the custom-built home.

The Gureghians’ Palm Beach residence features a bowling alley, home theater, pub room and library, plus dual ocean balconies and an eight-car garage.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Detroit: Charters Lag Far Behind State Averages by Almost Every Metric

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
4

Doug Ross, a charter founder in Detroit, wrote an opinion piece for the Detroit News in which he shows that Detroit charters outperform the much abused Detroit public schools. This’s is no surprise since charters are free unlike public schools) to choose their students and to push out the students they don’t want. The public schools must enroll the students not wanted by the charters. This is hardly a meaningful comparison.

Ross wants to make the point that the charters get better results than public schools—without acknowledging the fundamental difference mentioned above—but he does acknowledge that the charters are far below the statewide averages on every measure (except high school graduation rate, which is easily manipulated). No charter miracles here.

Curiously, the Detroit public schools have higher SAT scores than the charters.

The Detroit charters perform far worse than the state averages in math and reading.

The percent of students rated proficient in reading in grades 3-8 is 12.3% is public schools; 23.6% in charter schools; and 47.3% statewide.

Ross concludes:

“The next few years are not about DPSCD-charter competition. They are about learning together across DPSCD-charter lines about the best ways to help Detroit children get the education they deserve, and providing the quality public schools the city urgently requires if it is to continue to move forward.”

He is right. Where we part company is on the basic concept of charters, that they have the freedom to choose their students while the public schools take the kids unwanted by the charters.

That is not a formula for high quality public schools or for equity.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Detroit, Privatization

Carol Burris: The Malicious Reformer Assault on Public Schools in Indiana

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
6

Indiana was once renowned for its public schools, which were beloved community institutions. Then rightwing zrepublicans took control of the state, and the result was disruption, chaos, and community division. Instead of working together to improve their public schools, the public was enticed to pursue private choices, all under the false promise of “reform.”

Carol Burris went to Indiana, visited schools, met educators, and has written a three-part series about the corporate attack on public education in the Hoosier State. At the center of destruction are two men: Mitch Daniels, the former governor who is now president of Purdue (a soft landing he engineered), and Mike Pence, the pious evangelical who is now Vice-President.

Here is part 1 of Carol’s gripping story of the attack on public education in Indiana.

“Entire public school systems in Indiana cities, such as Muncie and Gary, had been decimated by funding losses, even as a hodgepodge of ineffective charter and voucher schools sprang up to replace them. Charter school closings and scandals were commonplace, with failing charters sometimes flipped into failing voucher schools. Many of the great public high schools of Indianapolis were closed from a constant churn of reform directed by a “mindtrust” infatuated with portfolio management of school systems.

“When I asked who was most responsible for the downward spiral of public education in the state, the answer was always the same: Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s 49th governor.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indiana, Privatization

Texas: Low Graduation Rates for Charter Schools, Far Lower than District Schools

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2017 //
49

Texas charter schools have a graduation rate overall of 62%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the state’s public school. Results like this help to explain why public support for charters is dropping fast in opinion polls, like that of the pro-choice, pro-charter Education Next. EdNext reported an 11-point drop in public support for charters in just the last year, among members of both parties.

Texas Public Radio reported:

“When the exclusions and exceptions the state grants charter schools are stripped away, Texas charter schools have an average graduation rate almost 30 percentage points lower than the state’s traditional school districts.

“According to a 2017 report from the Texas Education Agency, just 62 percent of Texas charter school students graduated on time in 2016, compared to more than 90 percent of students from traditional school districts.

“The discrepancy doesn’t show up on campus or district level accountability reports, however, because most charter schools with low graduation rates are rated under alternative standards or have high numbers of students excluded from the graduation count.

“But it’s a statistic the Intercultural Development Research Association believes Texas should be paying attention to. The San Antonio-based research and advocacy group released a report last week highlighting the difference in graduation rates.

““A 90 percent versus a 62 percent graduation rate — it’s huge. That’s incredible because charter schools are seen as these kind of rescue schools,” said David Hinojosa, program director for IDRA. “Yet, then when you look at the outcomes for these charter schools and this diversion of resources towards charter schools they’re not paying off.”

“IDRA’s calculation includes the graduation rates of all charter schools, including those that have asked the state to be rated under alternative standards. Under Texas law, schools can ask to be measured under alternative standards if most of their students are classified as at risk of dropping out of school. About 22 percent of Texas charter schools are rated under alternative standards.

“Hinojosa said looking at the graduation rates of all charter schools “offers a fair comparison” because the statewide percentage of charter school students Texas considers at risk of dropping out is about the same as the rate of at-risk students in traditional school districts: a little more than 50 percent.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, High School Graduation, Privatization

Tom Ultican: The Billionaires’ Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2017 //
26

Tom Ultican lays out in gruesome detail the billionaires’ plan to destroy public education.

The documentation is solid. The billionaires are jointly funding every anti-public school organization they can find, and they create them when they don’t exist.

Gruesome, yes. But it is a fact that their spending has not accomplished much, other than to ruin the lives of children, teachers, families, and communities. Nowhere has it produced better education. They sow chaos and disruption, then move on to the next big idea.

He begins like this:

“Three researchers from Indiana coined the terminology Destroy Public Education (DPE). They refuse to call it reform which is a positive sounding term that obfuscates the damage being done. America’s public education system is an unmitigated success story, yet, DPE forces say we need to change its governance and monetize it.

“We are discussing the education system that put a man on the moon, developed the greatest economy the world has ever seen and wiped out small pox. It is the system that embraces all comers and resists all forms of discrimination. In the 1980’s, it was laying the foundation for the digital revolution when it came under spurious attack.

“Not only are great resources being squandered on DPE efforts but the teaching profession is being diminished. Organizations like Relay Graduate School and the New Teachers Project are put forward as having more expertise in teacher education than our great public universities. That would be amusing if wealthy elites were not paying to have these posers taken seriously.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Failure, Fraud

An Interview with a Parent Activist and Filmmaker in New York: Kemala Karmen

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2017 //
11

You will enjoy reading this interview with parent activist Kemala Karmen. She grew up in Louisiana in a family of activists, experienced racial discrimination, and now lives in New York City, where she is active in the Opt Out movement and works with film maker Michael Elliott.

How do we start a revolution and change education for the better for every student?

Start by learning from Kemala.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Resistance, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: Bay-Area Rocketship Charter, Where Vomit Stays on the Carpet

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2017 //
23

This is a stunning and shocking expose by Mercedes Schneider, who has corresponded with a teacher at one of the Bay Area Rocketship charters and fed her documents about standard practices and policies. This is a scary documentation of child abuse.

A small sample:

“In a description of the “charter school nightmares” blog, “rkshp employee” notes the following:

“More about my school. We have:

no cafeteria
no school nurse
no on-site custodian
no school library
school is 7:45 – 4 PM (8.25+ hours) daily
recess is 15 minutes
lunch is 15 minutes and kids are not allowed to talk during lunch
every student (from pre-K to 5th grade) has mandatory computer class for 90 minutes a day

“In another post, “rkshp employee” notes, “Our 3 principals are all TFA (Teach for America) alum.””

This is worse than Dickensian.

If we had a functioning Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, it would launch an immediate investigation.

This is child abuse. Why do parents put their children in these absive institutions?

Categories California, Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Industry, Privatization

Columbus Dispatch Editorial: Will the ECOT Saga Please End?

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2017 //
10

One of the most remarkable turnarounds in the nation happened in Ohio. There have been so many charter scandals that the major newspapers have become skeptical, as well they should be. They have noticed the scams, frauds, phantom schools, phantom students. They’ve noticed how many charters get scores lower than the public schools they were supposed to compete with.

They are no longer entranced by the marketing of the charter school industry.

In Ohio, the biggest scandal is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, known as ECOT.

This editorial appeared in the Columbus Dispatch. The editorial board is no longer fooled by the charter industry.

It was founded in 2000. It developed some very bad habits that cheated the public of millions of dollars.

“Alas, the school’s owner, who had no background in education, began to realize that education is really hard. And keeping the attention of at-risk students is really, really hard. The owner began to realize that many students who signed up for his school almost never logged in. Didn’t show up. His virtual classroom was half-empty. But tracking down these students and hounding them to get online and learn something would be time-consuming, expensive and, in many cases, nearly impossible.

“The owner quickly realized something else. Keeping an honest account of how many students were logging in to meet state attendance requirements would reduce the amount he could charge the state — by millions of dollars. Every year. The owner made an unfortunate choice. He decided to charge the state for a full year of instruction for each student signed up, even if a student logged in for only a few minutes each month.

“This is the sad story of ECOT — the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, Ohio’s largest online charter school. Since its founding in 2000, the school consistently has billed the state for students whose participation it could not document.

“In November 2001, then-State Auditor Jim Petro determined ECOT received $1.7 million for students not enrolled. Despite these early warnings, ECOT continued to charge Ohio’s taxpayers for phantom students, in increasing numbers.

“State audits from 2000 to 2016 revealed how lucrative this pattern has been for ECOT owner Bill Lager. Although organized as a nonprofit, ECOT contracts with two Lager-owned, for-profit entities for management and software services. From 2000 to 2016, ECOT paid the two businesses a tidy $192.8 million.

“At long last, in 2016 the Department of Education had had enough. It began insisting on honest accounting. After reviewing log-in durations and offline documentation for the 2015-2016 school year, the department concluded ECOT had reported 15,322 full-time students, while only 6,313 could be verified. The State Board of Education required ECOT to repay about $60 million of the $108 million it had received.

“This upset the owner. So he sued the state and its taxpayers, claiming the education department has no right to look under the hood, no right to check whether students actually are logging in. Fortunately, this argument was rejected by both the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals. The case now is before the Ohio Supreme Court.”

ECOT has the lowest graduation rate in the nation.

How much longer will the taxpayers of Ohio allow this “school” to collect millions for students who never participated in class?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fake, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools
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