Archives for category: Charter Schools
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Red Queen in L.A.: What If We Held an Election and Nobody Came?

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2017 //
26

Red Queen in L.A. reflects on the debacle in Los Angeles. Turnout for a consequential school board election was abysmal.

She notes that Los Angelenos have participated in rallies in great numbers in recent months, but when it came time to vote, they were missing in action.

In the school board election on Tuesday, only 9.3% of eligible voters bothered to vote.

From a school district that is approximately 75% Hispanic and 80% eligible for free-or-reduced-price-meals, comes an election of national significance, decided by a preponderance of very narrow, special interests including relatively affluent silicon-beach-millenials, attorneys, entertainment executives, and real estate investors from the coastal plain to the palisades of LA’s westside. For it to happen in the face of the last six month’s electoral imbroglio is at once mystifying and maddening. After all we’ve been through, here we are all over again witnessing the triumph of alternative facts, propaganda, Big Lies and even bigger money.

What is the cause of this apathy when so much is at stake?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Steven Singer: Charter Schools and Voucher Schools Are Virtually Identical

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2017 //
27

Steven Singer finds it annoying when corporate reformers insist that “charter schools are public schools.”

He insists in this post that the two are almost the same.

Neither is a public school, and neither should be subsidized by public funding.

He writes:

The stark orange monolith that was Donald Trump is starting to crumble.

And with it so are the dreams of corporate education reformers everywhere.

Where in previous administrations they could pass off their policies as Democratic or Republican depending on whichever way the wind blows, today their brand has been so damaged by Trump’s advocacy, they fear it may never recover.

Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, they could champion both charter schools and school vouchers with impunity. But now the privatizers and profiteers hiding in progressive clothing are trying desperately to rebrand.

Not only is Trump’s voucher plan deeply unpopular, but the public has already begun to associate any kind of school privatization with a doomed President.

So like cockroaches, neoliberals have begun to skitter to one type of privatization over another. Fake Democrats hide beneath unfettered charter school expansion. Bought-and-sold Republicans cling to the idea that we should spend taxpayer dollars on private and parochial schools.

But is there a real substantial difference between each of these so-called “choice” schemes? Or are they both just scams when compared with traditional public schools?

THE DIFFERENCES

Charter Schools and Private Schools are basically the same thing.

The biggest difference between the two is funding.

Charter schools are completely funded by tax dollars. Private schools – even when school vouchers are used – often need to be subsidized by parents. For instance, many private schools charge tuition of $30,000 – $40,000 a year. Vouchers rarely provide more than $6,000. So at best they bring the cost down but still make it impossible for most students to attend private schools.

Sure they may start as an effort to allow only impoverished children to use tax dollars towards private and parochial school tuition. But they soon grow to include middle class and wealthy children, thus partially subsidizing attendance at the most exclusive schools in the country for those families who can already afford it.

Parochial schools, meanwhile, are exactly the same except for one meaningful difference. They teach religion.

Their entire curriculum comes from a distinctly religious point of view. They indoctrinate youth into a way of seeing the world that is distinctly non-secular….

The biggest commonality between these types of educational institutions is how they’re run. Unlike traditional public schools – which are governed by duly-elected school boards – charter, private and parochial schools are overseen by private interests. They are administered by independent management firms. They rarely have elected school boards. Their operators rarely make decisions in public, and their budgets and other documents are not open to review by taxpayers. This is true despite the fact that they are funded to varying degrees by public tax dollars.

So in all three cases, these schools are run privately, but taxpayers pick up the tab….

Neoliberal Democrats may try to save the movement by claiming charter schools are completely different. But they aren’t. They are fundamentally the same.

Open the posts to see the links and to finish reading the rest of it.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Massachusetts: More than $43 Million Spent Last Fall in Losing Effort to Expand Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2017 //
6

The battle over Question 2 in Massachusetts was overshadowed by the national election, but it was an important bellwether in the fight against privatization.

The amount of money spent was phenomenal. The usual billionaire suspects put up most of the money to promote the measure and the teachers’ union, spending the dues collected from individual teachers who work daily in the classrooms of the state, put up most of the money to resist increased privatization of public schools.

The ballot measure was defeated overwhelmingly, by 62-38. The only districts to approve it were affluent districts that would unlikely to have any charters, and the districts that voted against it most heavily were those that already had charters and saw the drain on their budgets.

An Associated Press review of donations to school choice ballot questions and candidates found that spending on the 2016 question — which would have let Massachusetts add up to a dozen new or expanded charter schools each year outside of existing caps — topped $43 million.

Of the nine school choice-related ballot questions put before voters across the country since 2000, that level of spending was second only a 2000 ballot question in California, which would have established school vouchers.

Spending on the California question neared $63 million.

Both the Massachusetts and the California question failed. In Massachusetts, more than six in 10 voters rejected the proposal.

Those supporting the Massachusetts question included a handful of big money donors who rank among the top 48 individuals or married couples who gave at least $100,000 from 2000 to 2016 to support statewide ballot measures advocating for the creation or expansion of charter schools or taxpayer-funded scholarships that can be used for private school tuition for students in kindergarten through high school, according to the AP review.

Some of those top money donors to last year’s ballot question hailed from out-of-state including: Alice Walton, of Arizona, a member of Wal-Mart’s Walton family, who gave $740,000; Bloomberg founder and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed $490,000; and John Douglas Arnold, of Texas, a Centaurus Advisors hedge fund manager and former Enron trader, who gave $250,000.

The top 48 donor list also includes Massachusetts residents who supported the 2016 charter school question, including: Edward Shapiro, a Wellesley resident and partner at Par Capital Management, who gave $225,000; Bradley Bloom, a Wellesley resident and co-founder of Berkshire Partners, who gave $150,000; and Ray Stata, a Dover resident and Analog Devices founder, who contributed $125,000.

All told, supporters poured nearly $27 million into trying to persuade Massachusetts voters to support the initiative. The opposition, funded largely by teachers unions, spent more than $16 million fighting the question.

The group spending the most to support the question — the New York City-based Families for Excellent Schools — contributed more than $17 million. The group has refused to say who is funding them.

New Yorkers are familiar with “Families for Excellent Schools.” This is the group that spent millions on television advertising to attack Mayor Bill de Blasio when he tried to rein in Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy schools. The New York Times reported that the group consists of wealthy Wall Street moguls. These “families” for “excellent schools” are rich white men who live in places like Greenwich, Connecticut, and other affluent suburbs, who have probably never set foot in a public school.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Massachusetts

Florida Charter Scandal: Legislators Vote Millions for Charter Schools Where They Earn a Profit

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2017 //
14

Fabiola Santiago has a stunning story in the Miami Herald about the deep corruption in the state’s charter industry.

Several key legislators are financially connected to charter schools.

He writes:

Florida’s broad ethics laws are a joke.

If they weren’t, they would protect Floridians from legislators who profit from the charter-school industry in private life and have been actively involved in pushing — and successfully passing — legislation to fund for-profit private schools at the expense of public education.

Some lawmakers earn a paycheck tied to charter schools.

One of them is Rep. Manny Diaz, the Hialeah Republican who collects a six-figure salary as chief operating officer of the charter Doral College and sits on the Education Committee and the K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee.

Some lawmakers have close relatives who are founders of charter schools.

One of them is the powerful House Speaker, Richard Corcoran, the Land O’Lakes Republican whose wife founded a charter school in Pasco County that stands to benefit from legislation. He was in Miami Wednesday preaching the gospel of charter schools as “building beautiful minds.”

Other lawmakers are founders themselves or have ties to foundations or business entities connected to charter schools.

One of them is Rep. Michael Bileca, the Miami Republican who chairs the House Education Committee and is listed as executive director of the foundation that funds True North Classical Academy, attended by the children of another legislator. Bileca is also a school founder.

These three legislators were chief architects in the passage of a $419 million education bill that takes away millions of dollars from public schools to expand the charter-school industry in Florida at taxpayer expense.

They crafted the most important parts of education bill HB 7069 in secret, acting in possible violation of the open government laws the Legislature is perennially seeking to weaken. There was no debate allowed and educators all across the state were left without a voice in the process.

It’s no wonder it all went down in the dark. It’s a clear conflict of interest for members of the Florida Legislature who have a stake in charter schools to vote to fund and expand them. Their votes weaken the competition: public schools.

This issue has nothing to do with being pro or against school choice. It’s about the abuse of power and possible violations of Florida statutes.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article151418277.html#storylink=cpy

When people ask you how you can possibly be against charter schools, think of this story.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Cloaking Inequity: What NAEP Reveals About Charter Schools Vs. Public schools

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2017 //
40

Julian Vasquez Heilig, a scholar at California State University in Sacramento, reports on a research project comparing the performance of charter schools to public schools, using state scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education and governed by a nonpartisan board appointed by the Secretary of Education. Since members serve for four-year terms, most were appointed by Arne Duncan or John King.

Heilig, with the assistance of Blake zclark, Jr., reviewed NAEP data and reached the following conclusions:

“One would most likely suspect from the current positive public discourse about charter schools that they would display higher national and large city NAEP performance when compared non-charter neighborhood schools, however, this is not actually the case when examining achievement data at the school level. Out of the 28 total comparison tests run, only 4 times did charters produce higher composite score averages than non-charter neighborhood public schools— 8th grade reading and math in the years 2013 and 2015. There was a tie in the large city comparison for 4th grade reading in the year 2013 as charter schools and non-charter neighborhood public schools displayed the same average composite scale scores. In the other 23 cases charter schools produced lower average composite scores on the NAEP (math, reading, science) than non-charter neighborhood public schools.”

The difference favoring public schools in 12th grade was very large.

In light of this disparity, why do so many federal and state policy makers consider charters a remedy for low-scoring public schools? What is the remedy for low-performing charter schools?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, NAEP, Privatization

Great New Documentary–“Backpack Full of Cash”–is Finished and Ready for Screenings in Your Community

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2017 //
40

Sarah Mondale and Vera Aronow announce that their long-awaited film “Backpack Full of Cash” has been completed, and they are now taking it to film festivals and community screenings. This is the film that tells the story of the dangers of public school privatization and the undermining of public education in many districts.

Dear BACKPACK Friends and Supporters,

We want to share some good news. BACKPACK FULL OF CASH––a documentary film narrated by Matt Damon, that explores the impact of privatizing public schools––is now finished, updated and complete with a new Epilogue. With the appointment of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos––a longtime advocate of charter schools, vouchers and online schools, there is a pressing need for public awareness of these issues. BACKPACK seems to be striking a nerve with audiences.

We just showed BACKPACK to sold-out crowds at film festivals in Nashville and Washington, DC where the film won Runner Up–Audience Award, Best Documentary. We are getting many requests for screenings from around the country–and the world! If you or someone you know would like to host a screening, please visit our website. You can also make a donation––now urgently needed––to help us launch the outreach/ distribution campaign for the film.

We have been invited to show BACKPACK FULL OF CASH in Seattle, WA and Alberta, Canada in May/June. If you know anyone in these areas who would be interested, please help us spread the word. Here is the schedule and ticket info:

BACKPACK FULL OF CASH SCREENINGS

SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
(filmmakers in attendance at June screenings only)
Friday, 5/19 at 3:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown
Tuesday, 6/6 at 7:00pm at AMC Pacific Place
Wednesday, 6/7 at 4:30pm at AMC Pacific Place Click here for tickets.

ALBERTA, CANADA
presented by Support Our Students Alberta,
sponsored by Alberta Federation of Labour
(filmmakers in attendance in Calgary only)

Thursday, 5/25 at 7:00pm in CALGARY, Globe Cinema
Saturday, 5/27 at 7:00pm EDMONTON, Art Gallery of Alberta, Ledcor Theater
Tuesday, 5/30 at 7:00pm in LETHBRIDGE, City of Lethbridge Sterndale Bennett Theater
Thursday, 6/1 at 7:00pm in RED DEER, Red Deer College, Welikoland Cinema
Click here for tickets.

Thanks again for your support.

Sarah Mondale, Vera Aronow, and the BACKPACK Film Team

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Media, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers

Peter Dreier: How Big Money Hijacked Democracy in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2017 //
18

Peter Dreier, a professor of political science at Occidental College, gives his political analysis of the Los Angeles school board election.

He writes:

[Nick] Melvoin and his billionaire backers dramatically outspent school board president Steve Zimmer’s campaign, making the District 4 race the most expensive in LAUSD history.

Political pundits will spend the next few days and weeks analyzing the Los Angeles school board election, examining exit polls, spilling lots of ink over how different demographic groups — income, race, religious, union membership, gender, party affiliation, and others — voted on Tuesday.

But the real winner in the race was not Nick Melvoin, but Big Money. And the real loser was not Steve Zimmer, but democracy – and LA’s children.

Who backed Melvoin?

Billionaires, many of whom live far from Los Angeles, bought this election for Melvoin. Their money paid for non-stop TV and radio ads, as well as phone calls, mailers and newspaper ads (including a huge wrap-around ad on the front of Sunday’s LA Times). Melvoin’s billionaire backers paid for 44 mailers and at least $1 million on negative TV ads against Zimmer.

The so-called “Independent” campaign for Melvoin was funded by big oil, big tobacco, Enron and Walmart, and other out-of-town corporations and billionaires. They paid for Melvoin’s ugly, deceptive, and false attack ads against Zimmer, a former teacher and current school board president. Melvoin is so devoted to the corporate agenda for our schools that during the campaign he said that the school district needed a “hostile takeover.”

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who lives in Santa Cruz, donated close to $5 million since last September to the California Charter School Associaton’s political action committee, which poured big bucks into Melvoin’s campaign.

Among the big donors behind Melvoin and the CCSA were members of the Walton family (Alice Walton, Jim Walton, and Carrie Walton Penner) ― heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune from Arkansas, who’ve donated over $2 million to CCSA. Alice Walton (net worth: $36.9 billion), who lives in Texas, was one of the biggest funders behind Melvoin’s campaign. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflicks (net worth: $1.9 billion), who lives in Santa Cruz, donated close to $5 million since last September to the CCSA’s political action committee, including $1 million a week before the election.

Other moguls behind Melvoin and the CCSA include Doris Fisher (net worth: $2.7 billion), co-founder of The Gap, who lives in San Francisco: Texas resident John Arnold (net worth: $2.9 billion), who made a fortune at Enron before the company collapsed, leaving its employees and stockholders in the lurch, then made another fortune as a hedge fund manager; Jeff Yass, who lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, and runs the Susquahanna group, a hedge fund; Frank Baxter, former CEO of the global investment bank Jefferies and Company that specialized in “junk” bonds; and Michael Bloomberg (net worth: $48.5 billion), the former New York City mayor and charter champion. Eli Broad (net worth: $7.7 billion), who hatched a plan to put half of all LAUSD students in charter schools by 2023 — an idea that Zimmer fought — donated $400,000 to CCSA last Friday, on top of $50,000 he gave in November. He made his money in real estate and life insurance.

Not surprisingly, most of these billionaires are big backers of conservative Republican candidates and right-wing causes. Several are on the boards of charter school chains.

Citizens United strikes again. Until there are campaign finance limits, big money will win more elections and corrupt our democracy.

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

Peter Greene: The Tawdry Story Behind the Latest Florida Charter Scam

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2017 //
10

I recently posted a story about Eagle Arts Academy Charter School in Palm Beach, Florida, which seemed to be in chaos. There was financial mismanagement, constant turnover, and multiple snafus.

Peter Greene dug deeper and exposed the back story. He calls it “Florida Charter Scam: Part 23,174.”

He writes:

“Gregory James Blount was a 40-ish-year-old former model and events producer who was working his way out of bankruptcy by teaching modeling and acting classes when he decided that getting into the charter school biz seemed like a fine career move. He recruited Liz Knowles, a teacher and private school chief, to run the school and write his “Artademics” curriculum. But Knowles walked away from Blount soon after (final straw– discovering he had created a Artademics company to cash in). Knowles recalled Blount’s argument for her to stay. “Don’t worry, :Liz. You’ll be rich.”

“The Eagle Arts Academy opened up, and Blount was cashing in. What’s repeatedly impressive about these scam schools is that even people with no education experience or even successful business experience can still figure out how to make big money at this game. Blount was no exception.

“The technique is familiar. The non-profit school hires other companies, and that’s where you make your money. Blount set up a business that he called a “foundation,” though it was not registered as one. The foundation sold uniforms to students at hefty prices, and that money went to Blount. Blount’s company also ran a profitable after-school tutoring program on school grounds, rent free. And when Knowles walked away from writing the school’s curriculum, Blount set up a company to do that; the school paid him for that as well– even though the curriculum was both late. A third company charged the school for consulting services as well.

“The Eagles Arts charter did include a clause saying that no board members of the school could profit directly or indirectly. Blount apparently got around that by simply resigning from the board during the periods that he was making money through his companies.

“So, does this story end with Blount disgraced and in handcuffs?”

No, he is opening for a second year in August.

The wonderful world of school choice, brought to you by Jeb Bush and Betsy DeVos.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Hoax, Privatization

John Merrow: “The Canary in the Mine” and Test-Based Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2017 //
18

John Merrow has been covering education for decades, most recently as education correspondent for the PBS Newshour, and he has learned quite a lot, most of which he puts into his forthcoming book, Addicted to Reform (out on August 1).

One important thing that he learned was that test-based accountability is not a worthy goal for education.

In this post, he identifies what he calls “the canary in the mine,” the bird that falls dead when the methane gas overwhelms it, a warning to coal miners to get the hell out. [Thanks to Reader Stephen Ruis for correcting my original description.]

The canary in the mine is the Broad Prize for Excellence in Urban Education. You see, Eli Broad is obsessed with testing and measurement, and he felt certain that the prospect of a $1 million prize would incentivize urban districts to push up their test scores.

But, the Broad Prize was not awarded in 2015 nor was it awarded in 2016.

Apparently, it has been canceled permanently.

Here’s why: It turns out that the NAEP scores of most of the Broad Prize winners (public school districts) have been flat for years. These districts have been living and dying by test scores, and it’s not working well enough to impress the Foundation’s judges.

It turns out that the big idea of incentivizing districts to raise test scores didn’t work. Scores were “sluggish.” Broad was operating on the assumption that the scores would go up and up and up, but he was wrong. Changes are incremental at best, and big changes are suspect, especially on a large-scale assessment like NAEP.

So, no surprise, Broad dedicates the biggest chunk of his millions to charter schools, not public schools. Unlike urban public schools, which must enroll everyone, the charter schools know the secrets of test score success: selective admissions and significant attrition.

Merrow writes:

Apparently it’s pretty simple for the folks administering the Broad Prize in Urban Education: Successful School Reform boils down to higher test scores. There is no public sign that anyone at the Foundation is questioning whether living and dying by test scores is a sensible pedagogy that benefits students. There is no public evidence that anyone at the Foundation has considered what might happen if poor urban students were exposed to a rich curriculum and veteran teachers, which is essentially the birthright of students in wealthy districts. Just the dismal conclusion that traditional districts are incapable of reform, followed by its decision to double down on charter management organizations, despite the truly offensive record of some of them of excluding special needs children and driving away students who seem likely to do poorly on standardized tests.

What can we conclude: Eli Broad and his foundation have learned nothing and know nothing about pedagogy or how children learn.

Sad. So sad.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Illinois: An Urgent Message from Chicago Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
6

The Chicago Teachers Union called on public-spirited citizens across the state to urge the State Senate to vote for legislation on behalf of Chicago’s students, teachers, and public schools.

The end of the session in Springfield draws nigh. Please make calls to Springfield today & tomorrow for public education, teachers, (Chicago and the rest of the state too), and for progressive state revenue, 1-217-782-2000:

From the CTU:

“Since 2010, the Chicago Teachers Union has recognized that our path forward—while not easy—is clear. Our school communities must have a different governing structure, progressive revenue for a new funding formula and a stronger voice for educators in order to secure the schools Chicago children deserve.

“We are working to unwind harmful legislative actions that have created a second-tier school district, and resulted in declining revenue and corrupt governance. Over the past month, several CTU-backed bills have passed out committee and need your support to pass out of the House chamber.

“Once again, the bill to decommission the unelected and unaccountable Illinois State Charter School Commission—HB768 (Welch)—passed out of the House with a vote of 61-46. Call the Senate

“The majority of the members—63-54— of the Illinois House of Representatives agree that Chicago Teachers deserve their voice. The House advanced HB1253 (Tabares) to the Senate. The bill will restore the full collective bargaining rights of Chicago educators. In 1995, a Republican-controlled Illinois General Assembly along with a Republican governor enacted legislation that was designed to undermine collective bargaining rights for teachers only in the city of Chicago. This legislation contributed greatly to oversized classrooms; the loss of experienced teachers; the decline of Black and Latino teachers through runaway privatization. Call the Senate

“HB3720 (Harper) is a tax increment finance (TIF) reform bill that will bring true transparency to TIFs and provide funds for special education and trauma services in our schools. The bill passed the House with a veto proof majorityof 75-39. Call the Senate

“SB1719 (Senator Daniel Biss) is a bill that will establish a privilege tax on private equity and hedge funds. These millionaires and billionaires earn about $4.8 billion per year in under-taxed income. SB1719 will allow the state of Illinois to capture the revenue lost through this loophole and provide an estimated $500 million per year.

“From other teacher and grass roots groups:

“A) HB 3393 – Close Rauner’s Tax Loopholes – specifically the Carried Interest Loophole Call both the House and the Senate, Madigan has blocked this by placing it in the Rules Committee – so please call his office as well.

“B) HB 1774 This is for the Elected School Board for Chicago – we must move this bill but Madigan stopped it in the House and put it into the Rules Committee – Call the House and Madigan to get this moving.

“C) HB 3567 Cap the expansion of charters in financially strapped school districts – yahoo! Madigan has blocked this one as well so please call the House and Madigan.”

Virus-free. http://www.avg.com

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Chicago, Democracy, Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »