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

Peter Greene: Something Surprisingly Good Happened to the Democratic Platform Language on Charters

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2016 //
21

Peter Greene watched the discussion of education by the Democratic platform committee, and he was surprised by a good turn in the language used for charter schools.

The original platform language had squishy rhetoric about charter schools. Thanks to the behind-the-scenes work of Troy LaRivere (the elementary school principal who was pushed out of his school by the Chicago Public School leadership, most likely for his outspokenness against high-stakes testing and charter schools as well as his endorsement of Bernie Sanders in the primary); Chuck Pascal, a Sanders delegate from Pennsylvania (this blog helped to raise money to pay his way to Orlando for the platform meetings); and Christine Kramar, a Nevada delegate who is devoted to public education. These activists had the support of Randi Weingarten, and some of their platform changes were accepted.

Peter Greene writes about the most important of them: the charter language. The original platform spoke out against for-profit charters, but Peter has shown in other posts that the difference between for-profit charters and non-profit charters is often a distinction without a difference.

He writes:

Randi and this amendment do make a new kind of distinction– that when charters disrupt and displace traditional public schools, that’s a Bad Thing. Which is a remarkably direct challenge to the modern charter model, which says that disruption and displacement of the public school system is the goal. It’s the closest I think I’ve heard a national union leader get to saying, “The goals of charter proponents are bad, destructive, wrong goals.” So I’m happy for that….

But the original platform definition of Bad Charter was just “a for-profit charter” which seriously overlooked the point that non-profit charters are just as bad (and profitable) as the for-profits. This new language defines a Bad Charter as one that does not have democratically-elected governance, does not serve the exact same population as the the local public school, and that destabilizes or damages the health of that local public school.”

In other words, the new language offers a much broader understanding of when a charter school is Not Okay than the draft did.

Peter would have preferred language that recognized that charters by nature undermine public schools, but he was pleased that the Democratic party moved to recognize the damage that charters inflict on neighborhood public schools and to propose that this damage should no longer be permitted.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Clinton, Corporate Reformers, Democrats

Jack Hassard: Georgians, Open Your Eyes, You Are About to Be Swindled

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2016 //
14

Jack Hassard, emeritus professor of science education at Georgia State University, warns his fellow Georgians about a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that will allow the state to cancel local control.

This is Governor Nathan Deal’s so-called “Opportunity School District,” modeled on Tennessee’s failed “Achievement School District.”

Read the language of the proposed amendment:


Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?

( ) Yes

( ) No

If we posit that the state of Georgia does not know how to improve student achievement in “chronically failing public schools,” then what is the amendment really proposing? Let the state take control of schools away from their local school district and give them to out-of-state corporate charter chains. Even though this was tried and failed in Tennessee, let’s do it in Georgia too.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Georgia, Privatization, Turnaround

Dan Mihalopoulos: Two Years After FBI Raids, Gulen Schools in Illinois Still Funded by Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2016 //
15

Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Sun-Times followed up on an important story: Two years ago, the FBI raided the offices of Concept Schools, which runs charter schools in Illinois. They also raided one of its charters.

Chicago Public Schools’ officials were aware of the raid, and they exchanged emails about what to do. They decided to do nothing.

More than two years since the FBI raids brought the still-ongoing federal investigation involving Concept to light, the charter operator has continued to do business with contractors identified in court documents as allegedly having been involved in defrauding a U.S. Department of Education grant program, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The charter-management organization — which runs four taxpayer-funded charter schools in Chicago and dozens more across the Midwest — has paid more than $519,000 since the raids to companies federal authorities said were involved in the corruption probe and their subsidiaries, according to documents the newspaper obtained from individual Concept schools.

There has been no correspondence between CPS and Concept Schools — which gets millions of taxpayer dollars a year to operate its Chicago schools — regarding the federal probe, according to CPS and the charter operator.

A CPS spokeswoman declined to comment Friday, citing the ongoing investigation.

Three years ago, Mihalopolous investigated the number of trips to Turkey that Illinois legislators have taken, paid for by the Gulen organization. Michael Madigan, Speaker of the House. is the Gulenists’ best friend in Illinois.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

Anita Senkowski: A Big-Time Charter Fraud in Michigan

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2016 //
13

Anita Senkowski is a blogger in Michigan who has been closely following the unraveling of Grand Traverse Academy, a charter chain founded by optometrist Steven Ingersoll. Ingersoll developed a new pedagogy, he said, based on “visual learning,” and he gathered a governing board of other optometrists to lead the charter venture. Unfortunately, no one kept close watch on the financial affairs, and Dr. Ingersoll transferred millions of dollars from the schools’ account to his personal bank account. The members of the board were not troubled by this minor oversight, but federal prosecutors were not so understanding. Ingersoll was indicted and convicted. But the saga continues.

Anita Senkowski wrote to me:

File this one under “I thought I’d seen everything”: Steven Ingersoll’s optometry license may be yanked (revoked) by the Michigan Board of Optometry, and guess who sent letters of recommendation? [Board members] Mark Noss and Brad Habermehl:

http://glisteningquiveringunderbelly.blogspot.com/2016/06/mark-noss-brad-habermehl-write-letters.html

In addition, in late March, federal prosecutors revealed a former Noss accountant blew the whistle as he exited the place and revealed a years-long pattern of cash payments:

http://glisteningquiveringunderbelly.blogspot.com/2016/03/breaking-news-full-spectrum-managments.html

However, using the accountant’s information, federal prosecutors later substantiated two previously undiscovered Ingersoll bank accounts and ID a total of (wait for it!) $627,624.14 was paid to Ingersoll by Noss. Although it’s later claimed that one of the payments was a reimbursement for an early payroll payment made by Ingersoll during the transition from his Smart Schools Management to Noss and Full Spectrum, that’s still a hell of lot of money. And did Ingersoll report the money on his taxes? According to the government, nope!

http://glisteningquiveringunderbelly.blogspot.com/2016/04/full-diaperfilled-with-money-complete.html

At the start of each fiscal year (July 1), beginning in 2007 and continuing for six years until 2013, Grand Traverse Academy (GTA) manager Steven Ingersoll advanced his entire annual Smart Schools Management, Inc. fee from the Traverse City, Michigan charter school’s bank account before it had been earned — and before he was contractually entitled to receive it. Although based on a percentage of the GTA board’s approved preliminary budget figures, Ingersoll’s management fee was adjusted downward after actual budgets were calculated.

However, Ingersoll never really repaid the difference between the amount he’d advanced himself and the actual management fee he received.

How did the receivable grow from $538,864 on June 30, 2007 to $3,551,328 on June 30, 2012 if Ingersoll, as he claimed to the GTA board, booked each year’s fee overpayment as a receivable and paid it off at the beginning of the next fiscal year?

Simple: after Ingersoll had paid the previous year’s receivable balance using Michigan state aid money provided to the Grand Traverse Academy, he transferred that money back from the Academy’s bank account to one of his Smart Schools accounts, and created a new, and even larger, receivable balance. (Ingersoll finally admitted the scheme on December 9, 2015 while testifying during his ongoing sentencing hearing).

Representatives of the GTA board, including its then-president Mark Noss, met with attorneys from the Thrun Law Firm and Steven Ingersoll on May 20, 2013. During the meeting, Ingersoll admitted owing the charter school at least $3.5 million but asked to have the debt classified as a “loan”.

According to the May 30, 2013 Thrun Law Firm legal recommendation to Noss, the issue before the Board “relates to funds withdrawn from the Academy’s general fund by Steven Ingersoll and/or representatives of SSM, which exceed the amount appropriated or authorized by the Board to be paid to SSM for either management fees or the reimbursement of Academy expenses.”

The letter estimated Ingersoll’s debt to the Traverse City charter school at $3,548,319 (based on information provided by Ingersoll’s handpicked CPA, Tony Henning). As Henning had relied solely on “financial reports and representations of Steve Ingersoll” to determine the amount, Thrun repeatedly urged the GTA board to “independently verify the full sum due” instead of merely accepting Henning’s number.

Representing the interests of the GTA and its board, not Steven Ingersoll and Smart Schools Management, Thrun affirmed in its May 30, 2013 letter that “Steven Ingersoll openly admitted, when asked by us during the May 20th meeting, that a conflict exists between his personal interests and the interests of the Academy.”

However, the Academy Board ignored Thrun’s recommendation to verify Ingersoll’s numbers, instead using CPA Henning’s exact $3,548,319 amount in its June 13, 2013 “demand letter” to Steven Ingersoll.

On June 30, 2013, the GTA board and Ingersoll agreed on a “repayment plan”, revealing the details in the Academy’s 2013 financial statement. The agreement allowed Ingersoll to “work off” his balance by foregoing management fee payments over the remaining three fiscal years of his management contract.

GTA board president Mark Noss oversaw an early morning meeting on March 19, 2014 where the board voted unanimously to officially “withdraw from the management contract with Smart Schools Management, Inc.”

Minutes later, the board accepted the resignation of “Mark Noss as the President of the Board.” Although Noss tendered his resignation during this meeting, the resignation was not effective immediately.

GTA records reveal Noss continued to serve in a dual role as a board member until its May 2014 meeting, nearly two months after signing a multi-year, multi-million dollar management contract.

Steven Ingersoll was indicted on April 9, 2014.

Ingersoll was charged with three counts of wire fraud, two counts of tax evasion, one count of conspiracy to defraud the government, and one count of attempted conspiracy. (Four co-defendants, including Ingersoll’s wife Deborah, were also charged on various fraud and conspiracy counts).

An April 24, 2014 superseding indictment further charged Steven Ingersoll with tax evasion regarding his attempt to “disguise the money allegedly received from Grand Traverse Academy” —which was also named by the government as the motive for the bank fraud conspiracy and tax evasion conspiracy.

Steven Ingersoll was convicted of three counts of fraud and tax evasion on March 10, 2015.

Ingersoll’s sentencing hearing began on October 21, 2015 and is scheduled to resume July 11, 2016.

On March 15, 2016, an accountant formerly employed by Mark Noss at Full Spectrum Management reveals to the GTA board and the charter school’s authorizer, Lake Superior State University, Noss had been making $12,500 monthly payments to Ingersoll since April 2014, shortly after Noss assumed control of the GTA.

Using information provided by the whistleblowing accountant, (who resigned shortly after making his revelations public), federal prosecutors were able to substantiate that between April 8, 2014 and March 1, 2016, Steven Ingersoll received a total of $627, 624.14 from Full Spectrum Management, the educational services provider owned by Mark Noss and holder of the management contract for the Grand Traverse Academy or Grand Traverse Academy itself. All of that money went into accounts owned by Steven Ingersoll and his solely owned entities.

An excerpt from the April 29, 2016 document: “In assessing the credibility of Habermehl as a witness and Noss as an affiant in this matter, the court must consider the relationships they have with Ingersoll and how their financial and personal relationships with Ingersoll have influenced the representations that Habermehl and Noss have made to the court.

The evidence discussed above casts doubt on the credibility of Ingersoll, Noss and Habermehl.”

Stuff like this, which seldom are noticed by the mainsteam media, can drive bloggers crazy. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Michigan, Privatization

California: The Pushback Against Charters and Privatization, in Defense of Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2016 //
10

California has more than 1,000 charter schools. When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in charge, he filled the state school board with charter advocates, even though students in charters were only 5% of the enrollment. Today, the California Charter School Association is one of the richest, most powerful lobbies in the state. They don’t lobby for all children. They lobby only for charter expansion and continued deregulation.

Because the State Education Department lacks the staff to supervise so many charters, each of which is akin to an independent district, the charters regularly produce stories of graft and corruption. The exposes roll out almost daily of theft of public dollars. The CCSA thinks that is just fine. They oppose any regulation or oversight of these unaccountable schools.

Here is your chance to join with others who are defending public education in California. Learn about the all-day seminar on July 30, 2016, at Richmond High School in Richmond, California.

See the flyer with information about the event here.

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

EduShyster: What is the Match “Graduate School of Education”?

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2016 //
52

The new federal law titled “Every Student Succeeds Act” encourages states to welcome newcomers to the field of teacher education, such as the Relay Graduate School of Education and the Match Graduate School of Education. Relay and Match have much in common. They do not have scholars or researchers on their “faculty.” At last check, neither had anyone with a doctorate in any subject on their faculty. They do not appear to teach cognitive development, child study, the history or economics of education, the uses and misuses of testing, early childhood education, or any other subject normally found in a typical graduate school of education. These “graduate schools” consist of charter teachers teaching future charter teachers how to raise test scores and how to maintain strict discipline. They might appropriately be called a “program,” but they are not “graduate schools of education,” nor should they have the right to award master’s degrees. Going to Match or Relay is akin to taking classes in computer programming or cooking or going to a trade school.

I discovered that EduShyster explained the Match “Graduate School of Education” a few years back. Read this short piece to understand what Match is and why so many of its ill-prepared teachers don’t last.

And remember, the Congress of the United States wants to promote more of these sham teacher-preparation programs.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Fraud, Teacher Education, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

New Orleans: Why History Matters

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2016 //
8

Al Kennedy, PH.D., of the University of New Orleans contends that it is important to understand the history of public schools in New Orleans. Reformers think they were writing on blank sheet of paper with no history. Not so. The history of white supremacy is the context in which control of the schools must be understood.

He writes:

“Ten years after the flood waters from negligently constructed federal levees inundated New Orleans, public education reformers have unhitched their narrative from the pre-Katrina history of the Crescent City. They cleverly placed the blame for the condition of the schools on the backs of the teachers–and their union. The reformers contend that New Orleans was a “blank sheet of paper” upon which they put in place a successful system of charter schools. Perhaps the reference to the “blank sheet of paper” makes more sense as an effort to paper-over a long and painful history that includes the lingering effects of white supremacy.”

Reform began by firing 7500 teachers, mostly African American, and blaming their union for the failings of the schools. They lost their livelihood and their health insurance. Kennedy writes: “An immoral action became the foundation of reform.” The public schools were taken over by white-led organizations, renamed, obliterating their history.

His paper, 24 pages long, is worth reading because there is no escaping the past. We ignore it at our peril. Ignorance is not bliss.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Race

San Francisco Mime Troupe Skewers Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2016 //
13

The San Francisco Mime Troupe performs free in parks across northern California all summer. Their current performance satirizes what is called “education reform.”

In “Schooled,” the San Francisco Mime Troupe argues that the purpose of education is to build citizens, to prepare young adults to make informed decisions in their civic life. The company’s free summer show of its 57th season also makes a compelling case that art is foundational to a healthy democracy.

As is tradition, the troupe will stage this show in parks throughout Northern California until Labor Day, so the context of each performance will vary greatly. But as performed in Dolores Park on the Fourth of July, “Schooled” juxtaposed stark extremes.
The Mime Troupe is run as a collective, with “The Communist Manifesto” required reading for all members. All its shows impart that work’s philosophy. “Schooled” is no different. It pillories the flaws in the U.S. education system, especially its dependency on digital technology as a Band-Aid for deeper structural problems — underfunding, the achievement gap — and, in tandem, its overreliance on the corporations that profit from that technology.

In “Schooled,” the evil corporation is Learning Academy of Virtual Achievement, or LAVA, which seeks to “spread” to Eleanor Roosevelt High School. LAVA’s emissary is Fredersen J. Babbit (Lisa Hori-Garcia), a dead ringer for Donald Trump, complete with the hair and mucus-ridden vocal cords. He peddles learning tablets, cleverly rendered by the props department with an iridescent surface, so that as an actor rotates one, its screen shimmers in the sun.

Public schooling is not a Communist idea; it is a democratic idea. It is the way the entire community takes responsibility for the learning of the children of the community.

The bad guys are not just the guys peddling technology and wanting to make a buck. The bad guys are the ones who insist on privatizing what belongs to the public and use their money to buy support.

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

Jonathan Pelto: Who Are the Billionaires Determined to Privatize Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
34

Jonathan Pelto wrote an illuminating and informative post about the members of the “Billionaire Boys Club,” or should I say the “Billionaire Boys and Girls Club,” since Alice Walton, Laurene Powell Jobs, Penny Pritzker, and several other women belong.

Pelto writes:

The colossal and disastrous effort to privatize public education in the United States is alive and well thanks to a plethora of billionaires who, although they’d never send their own children to a public school, have decided that individually and collectively, they know what is best for the nation’s students, parents, teachers and public schools.

From New York City to Los Angeles and Washington State to Florida, the “billionaire boys club,” as Diane Ravitch, the country’s leading public education advocate, has dubbed them, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars via campaign contributions, Dark Money expenditures and their personal foundations to “fix” what they claim are the problems plaguing the country’s public schools.

These neo-gilded age philanthropists claim that the solution is for parents, teachers and education advocates to step aside so that the billionaires and their groupies can transform public education by creating privately owned and operated – but taxpayer funded – charter schools.

In addition, they pontificate that students learn best when schools are mandated to use the ill-conceived Common Core standards so classrooms become little more than Common Core testing factories and the teaching profession is opened up to those who haven’t been burdened by lengthy college based education programs designed to provide educators with the comprehensive skill sets necessary to work with and teach the broad range of children who attend the country’s public schools.

The billionaire’s proclaim that the solution to creating successful schools is really rather simple.

They say that public schools run best when they are run like a business…

Cut through their rhetoric and the billionaires want us to believe that by introducing competition and the concept of “profit” they can turnaround any school, no matter the challenges it or its students may face….

Privatization, they argue, will lead to greater efficiencies while opening up the public purse to those who have products that they seek to sell to our children and our public schools.

John Dewey famously wrote that what the best parent wants for his child is what we should want for all children, but the billionaires have flipped that sage advice on its head. They say, “My kids need small classes, experienced teachers, and beautiful schools, but your children don’t.”

Jon Pelto has an exhaustive list of the billionaires who are out to undermine public education.

He identifies them by name, by their net worth, and by their pet causes.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

A Cruel Hoax: Mississippi Honored for “Innovation”

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
16

The Education Commission for the States, a once reputable organization, recently decided to honor Mississippi with the 2016 Frank Newman Award for State Innovation.

Among other things, Mississippi was honored for expanding charter schools, prioritizing early literacy, and adopting an A-F grading system for schools (invented by Jeb Bush), which closely tracks the family incomes of students. Maybe Jeb Bush and Arne Duncan should have gotten the Frank Newman Award for Innovation. Mississippi was just going with the flow.

Unmentioned in the award was that the Governor and State Legislature of Mississippi fought successfully just a few months ago to block an increase in state funding for the public schools of Mississippi.

Also unmentioned is that Mississippi has adopted the strategy of not promoting third graders unless they pass a standardized test, which has no evidence of success. About 15% of students do not pass, although some will qualify for a “good cause exemption.” The law was amended this year to raise the bar and flunk more children.

The ECS statement says that Mississippi saw “historic gains” on NAEP at both 4th and 8th grades. But this is not true. The state registered no gains in eighth grade, in either mathematics or reading. There were gains in fourth grade, but Mississippi is nonetheless one of the lowest performing states in the nation.

What kind of standards does ECS have for making this award? Is the award meant to recognize states that refuse to fund their schools adequately and that enact legislation to privatize the public schools and to penalize students?

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Mississippi
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »