Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Mercedes Schneider: Sex Scandal at New Orleans Charter School

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2017 //
11

There is an inherent problem with privatizing and deregulating publicly-funded schools. Without supervision, without oversight, without accountability, bad things may happen. And they may not be noticed unless there is a whistle-blower, because that’s what happens in the absence of oversight.

Mercedes Schneider reports here on a sex scandal in a New Orleans Charter School.

“It baffled me when I read that administration at a New Orleans charter school, Success Preparatory Academy, failed to immediately alert police regarding a cell phone video of a sexual incident that happened on campus in April 2017.

“School admin are mandated reporters of sexual abuse.

“However, what really sealed the deal for the two administrators arrested is their apparent ignorance that deleting the video from a student’s phone constitutes destroying evidence, and emailing the video– one that falls under the definition of child pornography– to oneself and to another administrator– constitutes possession of child pornography.

“But there is more:

“When made aware of the incident, the principal of the school also failed to report it to the police, and he publicly defends the failure to report the incident to police as well as the decision of the other admin to delete the video from the student’s phone; return that phone to the student, and email the pornographic video to herself and another admin.”

Do sex scandals happen in public schools? Yes. But they are likely to be reported because there is oversight and supervision, and because teachers know that they are mandated to report such cases.

A student was forced to perform sex acts in a bathroom. The student’s mother reported the incident to the police, and the school’s administrators were arrested.

“According to the Advocate, all three administrators (Gangopadhyay, Kusmirek, and Shane) hail from Teach for America. As administrators of a K-8 Louisiana school, all should have been well aware that they are mandated reporters of “the involvement of the child in any sexual act with… any other person… or the aiding of the child’s involvement in any sexual act with any other person [or] …pornographic displays.”

Maybe they didn’t learn that in their five weeks of training.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New Orleans, Scandals, Students, Teach for America

DeVos Cancels Visit to Ontario, Canadian Educators Relieved

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2017 //
16

Betsy DeVos planned a study visit to Ontario. Canadian Educators were appalled. They don’t like her privatization ideology any more than American Educators.

She canceled. A last minute “scheduling conflict.” Why go where they don’t want you?

“There had been a reluctance among public-school officials in Ontario to welcome Ms. DeVos, a polarizing figure who many in education circles see as the centre of a movement to use public dollars to pay for tuition at private and religious schools. Ms. DeVos has been accused by the president of the American Federation of Teachers as the “most anti-public education secretary of education ever” and of wanting to “destabilize and privatize” public schools.

“It remained unclear which schools she would be visiting. Several school boards contacted by The Globe and Mail, including in Toronto, York, Peel and Dufferin, said she was not visiting their schools.

“Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said he was pleased to learn that Ms. DeVos was not coming to Ontario.

“After The Globe first reported on her visit earlier this week, Mr. Bischof said in a statement that it was “alarming” the provincial government would allow her to tour Ontario schools.

“I couldn’t be more pleased that it’s cancelled,” he said on Wednesday. “She simply attracts attention to ideas that are of no value in the Ontario education system.”

“Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, added: “If you support an inclusive, equitable, not-for-profit, publicly funded public education system, this is good news.”

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

Jersey Jazzman: The Education “Reform Movent” is a Rightwing Movement

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2017 //
58

Jersey Jazzman is a teacher, blogger, and doctoral student in New Jersey. He has been writing brilliant statistical analyses of the differences between charter schools and public schools for years. He is no ideologue. He is a pragmatist.

In this post, he concludes what I long ago concluded: the so-called “reform movement” is a rightwing endeavor. I believe its real goals are to stamp out unions, deprofessionalize teaching (think TFA), and turn a profit on school funding.

JJ (aka Mark Weber) notes that Eva Moskowitz gets sizable funding from Wall Street and such notorious right wingers as the Mercer Family, which is also funding Steve Bannon. He notes the racist comments of the chairman of her board, as well as the Republican ties of other board members.

It is no secret that the notoriously rightwing Walton Family Foundation claims credit for opening one of e rey four charter schools in the nation. The Waltons hate unions.

One could go on and identify ALEC model legislation for charters. The connections are too glaring to overlook or excuse.

Betsy DeVos, Trump, ALEC, the Waltons, the Mercers…it is hard to find a rightwing politician or organization that is not pushing charters and vouchers.

That’s why the subtitle of my last book was “The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s public schools.”

The “hoax” was that the “reform movement” was actually a rightwing privatization movement.

As JJ writes:

“I really don’t know how much more clear this could be:

“- The education “reform” movement provides a pretext for underfunding public schools, which aligns with right-wing values.

“- The education “reform” movement is inherently anti-union, which aligns with right-wing values.

“- The education “reform” movement thrives when communities of color lose agency over their schools, which aligns with right-wing values.

“- The education “reform” movement is financed by wealthy people who openly profess conservative values.

“Can we please, then, stop this nonsense about charter schools and vouchers being a policy embraced by the left? Yes, there are some Democrats and other folks who are otherwise liberals who support “choice.” But their embrace of “reform” — whether out of ignorance or hypocrisy or, yes, even genuine belief — is inconsistent with the liberalism they espouse in other policy areas.

“Education “reform” is a right-wing movement. There is nothing remotely liberal about privatizing schools, demonizing unions, and making excuses for underfunding education. If you support charter schools and vouchers and call yourself a liberal, that is, of course, your right. But it’s really no different than being a pro-assault weapon liberal, or a pro-life* liberal: you’re holding a position on at least one issue (and likelyothers) that is philosophically aligned with the right.”

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

New Mexico: Audits Failed to Reveal Thefts of Millions by Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
4

At the same time that Betsy DeVos is shoveling millions more dollars for charter schooos, states are unable to keep track of frauds and misappropriation of funds by charter owners.

The state auditor in New Mexico warned then-State Commissioner Hanna Skandera, but she didn’t listen. Like her mentor Jeb Bush, she believes in non-regulation of charter schools.

So this happened:

For six years, La Promesa Early Learning Center’s former assistant business manager allegedly diverted nearly half a million dollars from the school into her personal bank account and deposited about $177,000 worth of questionable checks.

Like all state charter schools, La Promesa was audited annually by an independent firm – a process organized by the New Mexico Public Education Department.

But the alleged fraud and embezzlement were not detected until a vendor called the Office of the State Auditor’s confidential hotline in April to report a suspicious tax form.

So how did years of alleged financial misconduct get past the audits?

State Auditor Tim Keller told the Journal that the problems at La Promesa are part of a larger pattern.

“This isn’t just about one instance, the state needs to do a whole lot more supporting and overseeing of our education dollars to protect them from fraud, waste and abuse,” Keller said in an emailed statement.

“Over the last several years, we’ve urged the Public Education Department to step up oversight and provide the training and support our schools need to succeed. Unfortunately, by the time the Department stepped in at La Promesa, nearly $700,000 was already gone.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Fraud, New Mexico

Where Betsy DeVos Is Spreading Federal Funds for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
31

Thanks to Leonie Haimson for assembling this information about the US ED plans to spread charter money.

US ED announces more funding for charter schools nationwide, including 5 NYC charters, & yet another $3.2M for Success which has received many millions already from the feds as well as from private sources.

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-awards-253-million-grants-expand-charter-schools

more info here: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/charter-schools-program-grants-for-replications-and-expansion-of-high-quality-charter-schools/

and https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/

Charter apps and reviewer comments here: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/charter-schools-program-grants-for-replications-and-expansion-of-high-quality-charter-schools/awards/

U.S. Department of Education Awards $253 Million in Grants to Expand Charter Schools

September 28, 2017

Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that The Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Program (Charter Schools Program or CSP) has awarded new grants this week to fund the creation and expansion of public charter schools across the nation, totaling approximately $253 million.

“These grants will help supplement state-based efforts to give students access to more options for their education,” said Secretary DeVos. “What started as a handful of schools in Minnesota has blossomed into nearly 7,000 charter schools across the country. Charter schools are now part of the fabric of American education, and I look forward to seeing how we can continue to work with states to help ensure more students can learn in an environment that works for them.”

The following grants slates were awarded:

The State Entities program awarded approximately $144.7 million in new grants to nine states.

The Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools program awarded approximately $52.4 million in new grants to 17 non-profit charter management organizations.

The Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities program awarded approximately $56.25 million in new grants to six non-profit organizations and two state agencies.

These grants are awarded to state educational agencies and other state entities, charter management organizations (CMOs) and other non-profit organizations and represent the first cohort of new awards under the program’s new authorizing statute, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Please see below for the list of grantees, first year grant amounts and total recommended funding (contingent on future Congressional appropriations).

State Entity Grantees:

Grantee Name FY 17 Funding (Year 1 and 2 Funding) Total Recommended Funding

Indiana Department of Education $24,002,291 $59,966,575

Maryland State Department of Education $5,490,859 $17,222,222

Minnesota Department of Education $22,381,611 $45,757,406

Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board* $4,240,819 $15,000,000

New Mexico Public Education Department $6,358,693 $22,507,805

Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, Inc.* $4,264,870 $16,499,722

Rhode Island Department of Education $1,953,000 $6,000,000

Texas Education Agency $38,034,535 $59,164,996

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction $37,954,114 $95,777,775

Total $144,680,792 $331,896,501

* Eligible applicants under this program are state entities. A state entity is defined under ESSA as a state educational agency; a state charter school board; a Governor of a state; or a charter school support organization.

CMO Grantees:

Grantee Name State** FY17 Funding Total Recommended Funding

Ascend Learning, Inc. NY $3,661,357 $9,484,885

Brooke Charter Schools MA $353,747 $836,136

Eagle Academy Public Charter School DC $449,066 $812,885

East Harlem Tutorial Program NY $542,640 $2,781,280

Environmental Charter Schools CA $566,063 $900,000

Family Life Academy Charter Schools, Inc. NY $739,260 $900,000

Fortune School of Education CA $1,350,600 $2,043,100

Freedom Preparatory Academy, Inc. TN $1,451,301 $4,297,000

Great Oaks Foundation, Inc. NY $1,958,400 $3,834,000

Hiawatha Academies MN $1,121,400 $1,875,000

IDEA Public Schools TX $26,316,168 $67,243,986

New Paradigm for Education, Inc MI $2,365,400 $5,084,100

Rocketship Education CA $5,090,134 $12,582,678

Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. NY $3,225,240 $6,130,200
The Freedom and Democracy Schools Foundation, Inc. MD $603,003 $1,533,528
University Prep Inc. CO $1,360,730 $3,734,750

Voices College-Bound Language Academies CA $1,258,415 $2,699,999

Total:

$52,412,924 $126,773,527

**State reflects where the organization is based; school expansion sites funded under this grant may differ.

Credit Enhancement Grantees:

Grantee Name State** FY17 and Total Project Funding

Building Hope…A Charter Schools Facilities Fund DC $8,000,000
California School Finance Authority CA $8,000,000

Center for Community Self-Help NC $8,000,000

Charter Schools Development Corporation MD $5,000,000

Hope Enterprise Corporation MS $8,000,000

Low Income Investment Fund CA $8,000,000

Massachusetts Development Finance Agency MA $8,000,000

Raza Development Fund AZ $3,250,000

Total

$56,250,000
**State reflects where the organization is based; school expansion sites funded under this grant may differ.

Additional information regarding these grant programs and awards, including copies of grantee applications, may be found at: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/

I hope we won’t hear from any of the “progressives” who agree with DeVos about charters. She knows exactly what she is doing. Funding schools to compete with and undermine community public schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

North Carolina Forges Ahead with Plan to Copy Tennessee’s Failed “Achievement School District”

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2017 //
21

Five years ago, Tennessee was flush with cash from its Race to the Top grant, and it created a state takeover plan called the “Achievement School District.” The idea was to identify the schools with the lowest test scores and give them to private companies to manage. The promise was explicit: within five years, the lowest-performing schools would join the ranks of the highest-performing schools thanks to the magic of privatization. In the five years since, two leaders have departed, and the schools that were privatized remain among the lowest performing in the state.

North Carolina had to copy this model–after all, it was recommended by ALEC, the corporate bill mill. They had to copy it even after hearing testimony from a Vanderbilt researcher who found no evidence that the ASD was on track to meet its goal.

Given the failure of the Tennessee ASD, North Carolina continued to pursue the idea but renamed it: the North Carolina Ipportunity School District. Same plan, new name. Six schools across the state are on the state’s list for ending local control.

Educators in Durham are fighting back. Two Durham schools are targeted for takeover, and the Durham community says NO.

The elected school board says it will fight the state takeover.

The legislature hasn’t considered the impact of their budget cuts or their attacks on the teaching profession or the decline of teacher salaries as causes of poor performance. And of course they have not given a thought to poverty and segregation.

For some inexplicable reason, Republicans have become the enemies of local control. They think that only the state can fix schools, despite the abysmal results of the Tennessee ASD.

Recently NC elected a young TFA alum to be its state superintendent. He taught for two years but there’s no reason to believe he knows how to turn around schools, never having done it.

Nothing fails like copying failure.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, North Carolina, Parents, Privatization, Tennessee

Michigan: A Textbook Example of How NOT to Reform Schools

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2017 //
12

Martin Levine, writing in the Nonprofit Quarterly, explains that the example of Michigan is strong evidence that Betsy DeVos’ plans to impose choice will harm education.

Before launching a huge new initiative, it is important to have trials and see how things work out. That is why the Common Core failed. Its advocates were so eager to shove it into every state that they couldn’t take the time to see how it worked in reality, in real classrooms with real teachers and real students. They didn’t have time for feedback from practitioners. They had no idea how it would work out. And it blew up in their faces.

Martin Levine says look at Michigan if you want to know how school choice and characterizing works.

Michigan has allowed market forces to replace the planning and oversight roles for which government was traditionally responsible. Control of public education was moved from local school officials to a diverse statewide network that includes universities and community colleges alongside local school boards. A chartering organization can sanction and supervise schools anywhere in the state with no requirement that they understand or are committed to the community the school will serve.

This suggests that rather than plan for the needs of a community from a single, local perspective, Michigan wants the broader market to serve as the control rod. A school in the southeastern corner of the state serving a poor community of color can be chartered by an organization hundreds of miles away with little or no connection to the school’s home neighborhood. The motivation of a chartering organization can be the welfare of the children, or the three percent of per-pupil funding it will receive for its efforts.

The result has been an unbridled expansion of charters and a glutted marketplace:

Since 2002, K-12 student enrollment has dropped by 214,000 in Michigan, but the number of charter schools has doubled. In 2011, state lawmakers abolished the longstanding charter-school cap…So many new schools have opened in Detroit that there are an estimated 30,000 empty seats in the district.

Finding qualified teachers is difficult, as limited supply must stretch to cover too many classrooms. With open enrollment in force, scarce resources must be spent on marketing if a school expects to attract students and remain viable.

In Michigan, public education is a profit-making business. For-profit organizations can and do own and operate public schools, and for-profit businesses have grown to provide goods and services to the charter community. Eighty percent of Michigan’s charter schools are operated and managed by for-profit management organizations. Other for-profits facilitate the buying and selling of school property, finance school operations, and provide the array of goods and services a school needs, day to day. All of this business runs with little oversight, open to conflicts of interest and fraud. When these parasitic businesses fail, or privately-operated charter schools run into financial trouble, they close up shop and exit the marketplace. Their debts may remain a public responsibility to be repaid from taxes, and their students are on their own to find another school to attend.

Scott VanderWerp, who runs the public finance group at Oak Ridge Financial, told the Times how profitable the educational sector could be doing transactions that had little to do with educating children: Just buy some buildings “for a couple hundred thousand bucks, lease them to the school for a couple of years, and then sell them to the school for a few million.” Money meant to teach children is quietly converted into corporate earnings.

What are the results? Abysmal. If test scores are your goal, Michigan’s scores have plummeted. 70% of the charters in Michigan are among the lowest performing in the state. If growth is what you care about, Michigan is dead last.

Levine concludes:

We know enough to know that the market is not the magic bullet to deal with problems in traditional public schooling. Inadequate funding is nor improved by adding competition or funneling dollars to the profit bucket. Weak communities don’t get stronger because we distance schools from community. Change may be needed, but not the one the White House and its associated megadonors are pushing.

Common sense. But who cares about common sense these days? Who cares about evidence? Money rules, and money ruins. We are talking about the education of our children, not profits. Or we should be.

Michigan is Betsy DeVos’s petri dish. Michigan proves that her reforms have failed.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization

Peter Greene to Betsy DeVos: Schools Are Not Like Food Trucks

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2017 //
18

Betsy DeVos keeps searching for an analogy that will convert non-believers to her love of school choice.

Choosing a school is like choosing Uber. Or a cellphone. Or anything.

At her Harvard address, she compared schools to making a choice between a restaurant and a food truck. Do you think Billionaire Betsy buys lunch from a food truck? I will donate $300 to the campaign of Mark Weber’s (blogger-teacher Jersey Jazzman) wife, Linda, who is running for Congress in New Jersey, to the first person who can produce a photo of Betsy DeVos buying lunch from a food truck in front of the ED in D.C. Linda is trying to flip a Republican seat to Democratic. She will be a friend and ally to public education.

Peter Greene explains that schools are NOT food trucks.

“Note that DeVos continues to drift further and further away from any interest in accountability for quality– in this analogy we pick the choice that tastes good, and if it happens to be unhealthy or toxic or laced with fried dog meat, none of that matters. Taste is not a bad guide for matters of food, but with schools, what “tastes good” today is not necessarily what will best serve the student, the family, the community and the nation over the coming decades. “Tastes good this moment” and “provides a solid education for a lifetime” are two entirely different metrics

“Like every other commercial enterprise, the food trucks of DC are not geared to handle all customers. There are many reasons that comparing schools to businesses is a huge fail, but this is one of the hugest– there is no business sector in this country built on the idea of serving every single person in the country. Each food truck operates on the idea that some people will eat there and other people won’t, and as long as enough people eat there, the food truck is good. But if there are people who don’t eat at any of the food trucks, some people who don’t eat at all– well, that is not the food truck operators problem.

“And as a customer, you can’t get whatever you want– you can only get what the trucks are serving.

“The modern charter industry is a business model, and just like any other business model, it is built on serving some customers. Making sure that every student in America gets a good education is not the goal, the purpose or even the concern of the charter industry. But it has to be the concern of a public school system.

“Schools are not businesses. Students are not customers. And education is not a side of fries.”

Find another analogy, Betsy.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice

Key Appointment at U.S. Department of Education Goes to Swamp Dweller

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2017 //
25

Politico reports that a key position at the U.S. Department of Education will go to one of the nation’s most outspoken opponents of public schools, Jim Blew. Blew has long experience at the charter-loving, union-hating Walton Family Foundation and served as president of Michelle Rhee’s public school-bashing Students First. The position he is slated to assume is the policymaking arm of the department. It is supposed to be a nonpartisan, expert role, judging the efficacy of Department initiatives. It might as well be abolished because we already know that school choice, charters, vouchers, union-bashing, and inexperienced teachers will be the policies of this administration.

“TRUMP TO NOMINATE JIM BLEW FOR ED SPOT: Jim Blew, director of the education advocacy group Student Success California, is Trump’s pick to become the Education Department’s assistant secretary of the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. POLITICO reported he was the frontrunner in July. The administration announced late Thursday that the president plans to formally nominate him for the role. The announcement touted Blew’s experience as the former president of Students First, a national advocacy organization founded by former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. It also said that for more than a decade, he was a key adviser to the Walton family, serving as director of K-12 reform investments for the Walton Family Foundation.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Some DAM Poet on “The Fall of the House of Reform”

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2017 //
16

Perhaps our blog poet was thinking of Leonard Cohen’s great song “Anthem” when he wrote this:

“The Fall of the House of Reform”

A crack, a crack in outer wall
The House of Reform, about to fall
A house of test and house of VAM
Of fake “Success” and charter scam
A house of standards built on sand
With Core arranged by Coleman hand
A house infused with sickly air
The flatulence of billionaire
The House was doomed from very start
An empty place without a heart
Expanding crack, lets in the light
As daylight breaks the longest night

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing, VAM
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