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California: CTA Launches “Kids, Not Profits” Campaign

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2016 //
3

CTA represents charter school teachers in addition to public school teachers. But it is standing up to the billionaires who are promoting charters in hopes of killing unions.


California Teachers Association
1705 Murchison Drive
Burlingame, CA 94010
http://www.cta.org

Contacts: Claudia Briggs at 916-325-1550 or Mike Myslinski at 650-552-5324

Educators Launch ‘Kids Not Profits’ Campaign

Radio Ads and Website Support Legislation for More Charter School Accountability

and Expose Billionaires’ Agenda to Divert Money from Neighborhood Public Schools

BURLINGAME – California’s educators launched the “Kids Not Profits” campaign today, calling for more accountability and transparency of California charter schools and exposing the coordinated agenda by a group of billionaires to divert money from California’s neighborhood public schools to privately-managed charter schools. These billionaires are spending record amounts of money to influence local legislative and school board elections across the state.

The campaign is launching with a series of radio ads and an informative website – www.KidsNotProfits.com – where parents and the public can get more information about privately-managed charter schools, their impact on students, the billionaires behind them and take action to demand accountability, transparency and equal access for all students. A coalition of education, civil rights and community organizations is supporting legislation that is now headed to Governor Brown for his signature. The first radio spots are running in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. Listen to the English and Spanish radio ads here.

“Public schools should be about students and inspiring young minds – not profits,” said Eric Heins, president of the 325,000-member California Teachers Association. “Educators, parents and civil rights advocates have been talking about the need for accountability and transparency of these privately-run charter schools for some time. We can’t let a group of billionaires with no classroom experience push their profit-driven agenda on our public schools.”

The radio ad lays out the billionaires’ coordinated agenda to:

Divert money out of California’s neighborhood public schools to fund privately-run charter schools, without accountability or transparency to parents and taxpayers.
Cherry-pick the students who get to attend charter schools – weeding out and turning down students with special needs.

Spend millions trying to influence local legislative and school board elections across California.

In the June primary election, this small group of billionaires spent more than $11 million in several state legislative and county office of education races. This network of billionaire donors mirrors the dark money networks used by the Koch brothers. In fact, many of the same donors were directly implicated in an illegal dark money scheme in 2012. This group promised to spend even more in the November election and have already begun writing big checks.

Recent news headlines and academic studies have documented the waste, fraud and abuse by privately-managed charter schools that have cost taxpayers millions while hurting students. An ACLU report, “Unequal Access,” found that more than 20 percent of California’s charter schools deny access to students with disabilities, English learners, or students who have lower grades and test scores. The NAACP recently called for a ban on privately managed charters. State regulators have found more than $81 million in fraudulent and wasteful spending at charter schools in California, while another report shows that an expansion of privately-run charter schools would cost the Los Angeles Unified School District more than $500 million this year alone.

The coalition is calling on Governor Brown to sign AB 709. This bill requires all charter schools to be transparent and accountable to parents and to disclose how they spend taxpayer money, including budgets and contracts. It prohibits charter school board members and their families from profiting from their schools, and requires charter schools to comply with California’s open meetings, open records and conflict of interest laws.

The coalition also supported SB 322, which prohibits charter schools from having discriminatory admission requirements to prevent them from cherry-picking the students they want and turning away students that need extra help, such as special education students, students learning English or students with low academic performance. It also ensures uniform disciplinary actions for all students by requiring charter schools to identify a list of acts for which students can be suspended or expelled, as well as setting a maximum length for suspensions. This bill failed on the Assembly floor late yesterday.

“CTA proudly represents more than 5,000 charter school educators and is working with many others who want to join with us in standing up for students and accountability,” said Heins. “When the charter law was passed in California, no one ever intended it to be a playground for billionaires who want to profit off students and push their agenda on the rest of us. It’s time to hold charter schools and their private operators accountable to some of the same standards as traditional public schools.”

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

California: Listen in Today to Discussion of Need for Charter School Accountability

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2016 //
8

At 10 am, Pacific Time (1 pm EST), there will be a teleconference discussion of the need for charter school accountability in California. You can listen in.

Will California adopt laws to stop the graft and fraud in the unregulated, unsupervised charter industry? Or will the state keep handing out taxpayers’ money to anyone who wants to open a school and then let them do whatever they want, with no oversight?

California Teachers Association August 31, 2016
1118 10th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
http://www.cta.org

Contacts: Claudia Briggs at (916) 325-1550 or Mike Myslinski at (650) 552-5324

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Parents and Community Groups Call on Gov. Brown to Sign Legislation to Increase Accountability and Transparency at California’s Public Charter Schools

Media Teleconference Panel Thursday to Outline Impact on Students from Charter Fraud, Waste of Taxpayer Funds

SACRAMENTO – A coalition of parents, lawmakers and elected leaders, education leaders and community groups will come together in a media teleconference Thursday to call on Gov. Jerry Brown to support co-sponsored legislation that increases accountability and transparency at California charter schools. Recent news headlines and academic studies have documented the waste, fraud and abuse by privately-managed charter schools, which have cost taxpayers millions while hurting students. CTA and other civil rights groups have sponsored and supported numerous pieces of legislation to ensure equal access for all students.

Teleconference speakers include:

Ø State Treasurer John Chiang to talk about the need for tighter laws to address fraud and waste in California’s public charter schools.

Ø Assembly Member Mike Gipson, author of AB 709, which addresses the need for transparency and accountability and is now on the governor’s desk awaiting action.

Ø Carol Kocivar of the California State Parent Teachers Association will talk about the need for all students to have equal opportunity to attend a charter school.

Ø Dr. George McKenna, Vice President of the LAUSD School Board, to talk about the impact on students in the state’s city where the charter movement is expanding and promises to expand significantly in the coming years.

Ø Anaheim Union High School District Superintendent Mike Matsuda will share experiences from Anaheim and the negative impact on students and communities.

Ø Bob Lawson from In the Public Interest will discuss recent findings showing the public appetite and support for tighter measures to eliminate fraud, waste and discriminatory practices that keep students from accessing non-traditional public schools – charter schools.

Ø Amy Roylance, parent of a student at the Livermore Valley Charter School, who had to withdraw her students on the first day of school this year. The charter is being investigated by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for financial fraud and potential criminal charges.

Ø Victor Leung of the ACLU to discuss their recent report, Unequal Access.

WHAT: National Media Teleconference

WHEN: Thursday, September 1, 2016
10:00 a.m. PST

WHERE: Call 888-500-6951; Enter Conference ID: 7802692

Please dial in 5-10 minutes prior to start time.

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The 325,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools

Nashville: Reformers Slip a Ringer into Chief of Staff Job

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2016 //
11

T.C. Weber, who blogs as Dad Gone Wild, writes about the latest problem in Nashville.

The pro-public school/anti-charter forces won a resounding victory at the elections recently. Their candidates won handily.

But then the new superintendent of schools stunned everyone by hiring as his chief of staff a woman who had been actively involved in the charter movement in Washington state and elsewhere. She scrubbed the charter stuff off her resume, but the Internet is forever, and she couldn’t hide her long history as a supporter of the very policies that Nashville voters had just decisively rejected.

Jana Carlisle was executive director of the Partnership for Learning, which advocated for charters in Washington State, even though voters had rejected them three times. The initiative was finally passed, by less than 1%, in 2012, after Bill Gates and his fellow billionaires poured nearly $20 million into their campaign, a sum that overwhelmed the League of Women Voters, PTAs, teachers’ unions, and the NAACP. Carlisle made a statement about implementation of the charter law soon after its passage. The statement (which I copied on my cellphone) has now been removed from the Internet. Here it is:

PFL: Testimony to state board on charter schools, accountability

On November 8, 2012, Jana Carlisle, executive director of the Partnership for Learning, testified at the State Board of Education’s meeting in Vancouver on public charter school implementation and the state’s new Accountability Index.

Her comments are as follows:

“Good Afternoon. My name is Dr. Jana Carlisle and I’m here representing the Washington Roundtable’s education foundation, the Partnership for Learning.

I’m here today to reinforce the importance of the State Board of Education’s role in providing guidance and oversight to local school boards wishing to become charter school authorizers, as well as to the smooth and quality functioning of the state’s public charter school application, approval, and annual review processes. The founding member organizations of the Washington Coalition for Public Charter Schools include the League of Education Voters, Stand for Children, Democrats for Education Reform, and the Partnership and Roundtable. Our groups are committed to supporting effective implementation of and leadership for public charter schools in Washington state. To do so, we are interested in collaborating with the State Board and its staff, the Commission, and a broad base of stakeholders that include parents, students, educators, and elected and agency leaders. As is the case with the SBE, our implementation conversations have already commenced. We are eager to work closely with you and the SBE staff during the coming months and years to ensure that the intent of the initiative – which includes giving priority to opening public charter schools that serve at-risk student populations or students from low-performing public schools – is realized.

Today you have also talked about what to include in the Accountability Index. The WRT and Partnership for Learning strongly believe that a performance-based accountability system is absolutely essential to ensure our state’s implementation of a 21st Century education system and to secure support for adequately funding basic education. We believe that Washington’s accountability system must include: 1) transparent and accessible district and school report cards that include scale scores and status updates on meeting the outcomes delineated below; 2) a statewide growth-based accountability index that establishes key school performance indicators, targets, and the line between success and failure; and 3) statewide capacity and authority for incenting and rewarding school innovation; for establishing timelines for progress to occur; and for supporting, intervening in, and taking over struggling schools.

We believe that a 21st Century statewide education system – and thus the index’s indicator – in Washington will result in the following:

1. Closing student achievement gaps among students in K-12 mathematics, English Language Arts, science, and social studies – based on actual performance and growth measures.
2. Increasing overall academic achievement for all student groups for K-12 mathematics, English Language Arts, science, and social studies – based on actual performance and growth measures.
3. Increasing the overall graduation rate of high school students – documented in terms of four- and five-year rates – and the college and career readiness graduation rate.
4. Reducing remedial rates in two-year colleges and in four-year universities.
5. Increasing four-year post-secondary participation within one year of students’ high school graduation.
6. Increasing two-year post-secondary participation within one year of students’ high school graduation.
7. Increasing two- and four-year post-secondary graduation rates.
8. Increasing participation rate in post-secondary STEM programs (this includes workforce training, industry certification, and/or credit bearing two- and four-year postsecondary coursework).”

© PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING | 520 PIKE STREET, SUITE 1212 SEATTLE, WA 98101
INFO@PARTNERSHIP4LEARNING.ORG | P: (206) 625.9655 | F: (206) 447.0502 | PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS

You can also read about the work of the Partnership on the website of the rightwing PIE Network.

Look, if someone wants to work for the charter movement, that’s fine, that’s their right. But they shouldn’t apply to work in a district that rejects charters while scrubbing their resume to hide their sympathies. That’s not honest.

Categories Charter Schools, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Nashville, Washington State

Peter Greene: Reformers Offer $100,000 to Prove John Oliver Was Wrong

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2016 //
48

Peter Greene received a notice from the Center for Education Reform, which has led the fight against public schools for almost 25 years, promising a reward to the charter school that created a video showing how great charter schools are. This was in response to John Oliver’s devastating critique of the charlatans who have profited off the deregulation of public money for nonpublic schools.

Right after the John Oliver piece appeared, the CER asked its followers to write Oliver and tweet him to tell him he was wrong. Apparently this didn’t do the job, so now it is offering a prize of $100,000 for a video showing the awesomeness of privately managed schools.

Greene writes:

I, too, would be interested to see what opportunities charters offer that wouldn’t exist without charters. Perhaps some videos will highlight charter-only perks like “getting away from Those Children” or “enjoying a constantly churning staff of underpaid unretained teachers” or “the delightful mystery of what exactly is being done with our tax dollars” or “the warm glow of knowing that we’ve helped some investors make a buck or ten” or even “the suspense of never knowing when my school might suddenly close.” Please, somebody, make that video…The “Our School Is Great” video is a common genre. Public schools all across the country make them– for free– all the time. But it’s completely in keeping with the charter school industry that, having failed to raise a groundswell of grass roots anger over the Oliver piece (which is now over a week old and yet the righteous indignation over it seems largely confined to people who make their living shilling for charters), the charter cheerleading squad must now pay somebody to stand up for them and help them fight back against this PR disaster.

When I read the CER announcement (I am on the CER mailing list), I was aghast that a school-related organization had that kind of spare money to hold a contest. The Network for Public Education certainly doesn’t. That kind of money represents a large percentage of our annual budget. It must be nice to have that kind of money. But I feel far better having the right principles, even though it doesn’t enhance our bank account. It is good to wake up every day knowing that you are on the right side of history, fighting to create better schools for all. I feel sorry for people fighting for better schools for a few kids, while sucking resources out of the schools that enroll the majority o kids. This is akin to providing 50 life vests for a ship that holds 1,500 passengers. The donor can feel proud of saving 50 lives, while ignoring the other 1,450 passengers. I want a safer ship, a well-trained pilot and crew, and life vests for all.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

PDK Annual Poll: Same Old, Same Old

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2016 //
40

Phi Delta Kappa released its annual poll today. Nothing new except that Gallup is no longer the polling company. No headlines. The only obvious conclusion: the American public is confused about why we have schools and what they should be doing and whether they are doing it well.

The public doesn’t agree on what the purpose of public schools is. 45% says it is to teach academics. About a quarter think they should teach career readiness. Another quarter think they should prepare students for citizenship.

Just to be clear, the reason that public schools were first established and treated as a community responsibility was to prepare good citizens to sustain our society into the future. There are many subdivisions under the goal of preparing to be good citizens, which would include the academic skills needed to read, write, think critically, be informed about issues in science and history, and be in good health. Somehow, the central purpose has been lowered in status. When people lose sight of the central purpose of education, then they fall prey to bogus claims about choice, charters, and vouchers, about which sector can do a better job of teaching academic skills or career skills. We have public schools as a public responsibility to teach young people to become active and informed citizens. All the rest follows.

In reading through the inconclusive public opinion on almost every subject, one question caught my attention because of its wording:

Q. Charter schools are public schools that are run without many of the state regulations placed on other public schools. Do you think it’s better for charter schools to meet the same educational standards as other public schools or to set their own educational standards?

The answer was a split decision. 48% said meet the same standards, 46% said no.

The question assumes that charter schools are public schools.

But charter schools are NOT public schools. Whenever charter operators are sued, their defense is that they are not public schools. They are privately managed schools that receive public funding. As the NLRB ruled last week, and as federal courts have ruled, charter schools are not held to the same standards as public schools because they are NOT “state actors.” Public schools are state actors. Charters themselves plead that they are not public schools. In 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a charter operator in Arizona ran a private nonprofit corporation, not an agency of the state, in response to a lawsuit by a former teacher. In 2011, the staff at the New Media Technology Charter School wanted to form a union. They appealed to state law. The charter owner, however, said the school was not public and was not governed by state law; he said it was a private school subject to the NLRB. In the same year, teachers at the Chicago Math & Science Academy also wanted to form a union. There, too, the charter operator rebuffed them by saying the school was a “private” entity, not a public school, and was not subject to state law. (See pp. 163-164 of Reign of Error). Charter schools are run by private entities that receive government contracts. The receipt of public funds does not make an entity public. If it did, then every major defense contractor would be public, not private.

The answer is troubling as well as the question. If nearly half of the respondents think that charter schools do not have to meet the same standards as public schools, what is it they believe? Do they believe that charter schools should not be held accountable for student test scores? Do they think that charter schools should be judged by some other metric?

I have been reading PDK polls for years. I learned nothing new from this one, other than that the public has lost sight of why we have public schools. That may be the consequence of propaganda from the privatizers. If there is no agreement on why we pay taxes to support public schools, then any alternative will do, including schools run by churches and schools run by foreign nationals.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Opinion Polling, Privatization

It’s Official:NLRB Says Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2016 //
23

Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College in Wisconsin, alerted me to an important decision by the National Labor Relations Board.

The NLRB ruled that charter schools are private schools, not public schools. This echoes several previous rulings by the courts and the NLRB, which concluded that charter schools are private corporations that contract with government and are not “state actors.” Public schools are “state actors.” Charter schools are not.

The ruling was reported by a blog for the Albany Times-Union:

Here’s an interesting item that touches on the semantics as well as labor issues surrounding New York’s charter school movement.

A recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), concludes that charter schools are private and efforts to start teachers unions in them should fall under their purview, rather than the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) which oversees the public sector.

The decision stemmed from efforts by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to unionize teachers at the Hyde Leadership charter school in Brooklyn.

PERB had asserted jurisdiction over the school, but the union ended up arguing that organizing efforts should be overseen by the NLRB which administers labor law in the private sector.

The NLRB in its decision, concluded that “Hyde was not established by a state or local government, and is not itself a public school.”

I describe previous rulings by federal courts and the NLRB that charter schools are “not state actors” in Reign of Error. In a criminal case in California a few years ago, the California Charter School Association entered an amicus brief in defense of charter operators accused of fraud and claimed that charter schools are not subject to the same laws as public schools. They are not state actors.

The appropriate analogy would be a corporation like Boeing, which works for the government, is funded by the government, but is not a state actor. It is private.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Leonie Haimson: A Bad Week for the Charter Privateers and Their Orwellian Rhetoric

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2016 //
18

Leonie Haimson, parent activist in New York City, crusader for reduced class size and student privacy, lays waste to the charter privateers in this hilarious post!

First came the devastating resolution passed by the national convention of the NAACP, calling for a charter moratorium.

Then came the attack on charters by Black Lives Matter.

And the topper was John Oliver’s funny and accurate portrayal of charter school graft.

But the privateers (or privatizers, as I usually say) continue their assault on public education with propaganda and lies.

In Massachusetts, they claim that expanding charter schools will “improve public education,” when in fact it will drain money from neighborhood public schools and take away local control.

In Georgia, a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November authorizes the creation of a state district that will eliminate local control, like the failed Tennessee ASD, yet says it will empower communities.

This is Orwellian. That means when you say one thing but mean the opposite. Another word for lying. Like saying “reform” when you mean “privatization.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization

Carl Peterson: A Jaw-Dropping Report on the LAUSD Hearings on El Camino Real Charter High School

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2016 //
21

Carl Petersen, an education activist in Los Angeles, attended the school board meeting in Los Angeles where the plight of El Camino Real Charter High School and its ethics-challenged leaders was discussed. Peterson is running to defeat Monica Garcia, a charter cheerleader, in the next school board elections.

It is astonishing. Several defenders of the charter school spoke, and they said the board was picking on the school. No defense of the extravagant charges to the school’s credit car. Just attack the board for daring to investigate this school.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Privatization

Los Angeles: Board Gives Charter School with Financial Scandals Another Month to Clean Up the Mess

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2016 //
8

The El Camino Real Charter High School was a successful public high school; in 2011, it converted to charter status, and it is now a successful charter school.

But it has a big problem. Its principal and other top employees charged many thousands of dollars to the school’s credit card for expensive dinners, luxury hotels, and first-class air travel while moonlighting as a scout for a professional basketball team.

The school has been warned repeatedly, and now the school board is giving it one month to clean up the mess.

The case is one more example of tensions between the nation’s second-largest school system and its charter schools, which manage their own public funding and are free from some rules that govern traditional campuses. El Camino Real Charter High School was run by the district until 2011.

At last week’s meeting, board member Scott Schmerelson said El Camino as a charter remains “an excellent school.”

But it “is not a private school,” said Schmerelson, who represents the west San Fernando Valley area where the school is located. “It is a public school. They have to go by the same rules we do.”

The El Camino case could test the limits of that assertion. El Camino, for example, has declined to tell the district whether it has taken disciplinary action against Executive Director Dave Fehte, who has come under internal and external scrutiny. Such action could be considered a confidential personnel matter, to be kept even from L.A. Unified.

A report from the district’s charter school division accuses El Camino of demonstrating “an inability to determine how public funds are being used,” adding that “fatal flaws in judgment … call into serious question the organization’s ability to successfully implement the charter in accordance with applicable law and district requirements.”

According to L.A. Unified, a sampling of 425 credit card expenses from five El Camino employees, including Fehte, revealed that “countless expenses were incurred without adherence to any uniform procedure, and without verification of the necessary details.”

Apparently the charter school board thought that the school’s autonomy extended to its financial affairs. We will watch what happens.

Is it a public school or a publicly funded private school?

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Mercedes Schneider: New Group to Start Charter Schools Lands Its First Contract in Charter-Happy Michigan

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2016 //
14

Mercedes Schneider here describes a new entity that has joined the corporate reform movement. It is called SEN, the School Empowerment Network. It seems to be funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the billionaires who want to privatize all of public education and get rid of teachers’ unions. It is based in Brooklyn, New York, but gained its first contract in Michigan.

Michigan is the state where 80% of the charters operate for-profit. It doesn’t really need more charters. It does need accountability and transparency. The Detroit Free Press published a week-long series in 2014 about taxpayers being fleeced by the charter industry, which gets $1 billion a year and is never held accountable.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization, Walton Foundation
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