Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Idaho Students to Albertson Foundation: “You Don’t Know What You Are Talking About!”

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2016 //
20

High school students in the West Ada school district made a 3-minute video to respond to the Albertson Foundation’s attack on public education. (Read here about the Albertson Foundation’s attacks and its plan to open enough charter schools to enroll 20,000 students.)

The Albertson Foundation is leading a mean-spirited attack on public education in Idaho. They have underwritten television ads saying that the public schools are no good and 80% of the graduates are not prepared for college or careers. Attacks like this are always the prelude to demands for privatization and for replacing public schools with charter schools, vouchers, and virtual charters.

The students got tired of hearing these stale and erroneous complaints from a handful of billionaires who don’t like public education, so they made their own video. Of course, they can’t afford to put it on television, but they can put it on social media.

Let’s hear it for the kids! They are alright in Idaho!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Idaho, Privatization

Three Cleveland Charter Schools Join the AFT

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2016 //
20

Teachers at three Cleveland charter schools signed a contract to create a union and join the AFT. This must be a shock to charter organizers, because one of the goals of the charter industry is to get rid of teachers’ unions. The Walton Family Foundation has underwritten the start-up costs of one out of every four charter schools in the nation, and the Waltons (Walmart) are known for their hatred of unions. More than 90% of charters nationwide are non-union. As the AFT press release points out, there are now 228 charter schools that have unionized. That is about 4% of the nation’s charter schools. While it is great to see that teachers in 228 charters have organized to defend their rights, let’s hope that their presence does not cajole the unions into embracing the charter industry.


Contract Creates Labor-Management Committee, Guarantees Planning Time, Rewards Experienced Teachers

WASHINGTON—Teachers and support staff at three I Can-managed charter schools in Cleveland have overwhelmingly ratified an historic contract, making them the first organized charter schools with a collectively bargained contract in Cleveland. The educators are members of the Cleveland Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Cleveland ACTS), an affiliate of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

The contract covers three high-performing charters that educate more than 900 students in the Cleveland metropolitan area. The new contract creates a labor-management committee to increase teacher input, guarantees planning time, and rewards experienced teachers who make a commitment to the school and advance their own education. This contract makes strides toward meeting teachers’ and the community’s goals of reducing teacher turnover and providing a voice for professional educators. The contract also contains a commitment from I Can to allow for other I Can schools in Cleveland to join Cleveland ACTS, if the educators so choose, without intimidation or harassment.

Abi Haren, a second-grade assistant teacher at University of Cleveland Preparatory School, said, “Yesterday, we ratified a strong contract that gives my co-workers and me a voice in making I Can Schools better for our students and for educators. This agreement will allow me the freedom and autonomy to speak up for the needs of my students without fearing for my job security. We look forward to building a partnership with the I Can administration to strengthen our schools.

“This has been a long road to win a real voice in our school, and it would not have happened without the support of Cleveland Teachers Union President David Quolke and our fellow educators in the CTU. Their support, along with I Can families’ and community members’, sent a clear message that we are professional educators who deserve respect for our commitment to Cleveland students.”

Sean Belveal, a middle school social studies teacher, said, “This contract shows the voices of teachers and students have been heard. Our contract will help to reduce turnover and increase stability for our students. I am very excited to see this new partnership between students, teachers and administration come together as we work to close the achievement gap in Cleveland.”

Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper, who is an AFT vice president, said “I Can teachers and staff stood together for the last three years to speak up for greater classroom stability, respect and a true partnership with their school’s administration. This contract is a step in the right direction to achieve those goals. The Ohio Federation of Teachers welcomes the new members of the Cleveland Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff to our union. We are a stronger union with the voices of teachers and staff at charter schools.”

CTU President David Quolke, who also is an AFT vice president, said, “On behalf of the 4,500 members of the CTU, we congratulate I Can teachers and staff on winning a strong contract that recognizes their professionalism and commitment to their students. Whether you work for the district or in a charter school, those closest to the education process must have a voice in education policy and practice. We look forward to working with Cleveland ACTS members to raise the voices of educators, students and their families in Cleveland.”

“As a union, we’ve focused on reclaiming the promise of public education,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “This contract helps do just that by allowing these educators not simply to advocate for the schools their students deserve, but to negotiate the tools and conditions needed to help get there. This contract is historic for the state of Ohio, and these teachers deserve a round of congratulations for wanting the voice to help their students succeed. What we’ve seen at I Can and across the country is teachers forming unions and negotiating contracts to have a real voice in the education of their students.”

Educators at 228 charter schools across 15 states are represented by the AFT. This agreement offers hope for teachers and staff at charter schools who are committed to improving their schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Unions

Valerie Strauss Interviews Me about National Standards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2016 //
20

Valerie Strauss conducted a written Q&A exchange with me over the weekend.

She asked good questions. She wanted to know what I had changed in the revision of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

She asked me what I would say to President Obama if I had the chance to sit down with him.

She asked what I thought Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would do.

I thought it was a good opportunity to sum up what is happening right now.

As an aside, readers of this blog might be interested to note that our old friend Virginia SGP comments and claims that he was “censored” on my blog. Happily, a reader of this blog pointed out that he was limited to only four comments a day, which is not censorship. If I posted everything he sent in, he would have had 10-12 comments a day. And then there was the problem that he often used his space to slam and slander people he disagreed with. Not me, but others. He has left us, sadly. I no longer have to read a dozen comments of his daily and decide which to post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Peter Greene on Jeb Bush’s Stale Vision to Disrupt, Privatize, and Monetize Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2016 //
21

Jeb is back, writes Peter Greene, with the same old snake oil. Having lost the GOP presidential nomination, he has returned to his favorite song: Public education is failing, and we (the reformers) need to disrupt it, monetize it, privatize it, and sell lots of technology to it.

As Peter shows, there is nothing new in what he has on offer. The same overworked and faulty statistics about massive educational failure (we would now be a fourth world nation if any of this baloney were true). The same claims about the wonders of technology. The same empty claims for privatization and profiteering. Merit pay. No unions. Test scores as the be-all and end-all of education.

Peter writes:

Jeb loves him some vouchers. In his perfect future, the money will follow the child. I always think this is a bold choice for a nominal conservative politician, since it is literally taxation without representation– taxpayers who don’t have kids get to pay for schools, but they have no voice in what kind of schools they get. And if the money follows the kid, why can’t the kid just have a big party?

But I have to take my hat off to somebody who still believes in vouchers. It’s the kind of devotion you usually find only in members of the Flat Earth Society, an adherence to a long-debunked belief that doesn’t have a speck of evidence to support it.

Float Free as a Bird

But why have a school at all, says Bush. Why not just get your AP Calculus from this on-line provider, and get your English from some other provider. Watch for the Amazon.com of homeschooling. Let students move through coursework at their own personal speed. Assess student mastery of skills through the year, and never social promote. Yes, we’ll have Competency Based Education, but we’ll call it something else.

Jeb’s answer to everything: get rid of public education.

Jeb Bush is the Ivan Illich of the right.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Online Learning, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Paul Thomas: Closing Schools, Opening Schools: Why Not Look at the Evidence?

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2016 //
6

Paul Thomas reacts to an editorial in the Charleston (S.C.) “Post and Courier,” which recommended closing a high-poverty school with low test scores and turning it over to private operators.

Thomas asks a few questions:

So there are actually some very important questions that the editors at the P&C are failing to ask:

Why have some students been allowed ever to languish in school conditions that are subpar when compared to vibrant schools and opportunities for other students in the same city? Burns Elementary with a poverty index of 96 is but one school that represents a long history in SC of how negligent we have been as a state in terms of providing anything close to equity in the opportunities poor and racial minority children are afforded.

Why does any public school board need a private partnership to do what is needed to offer these students the sort of school all children deserve? If what is needed is so obvious, and so easy to do (which is a subtext of the editorial), the truth is that the school board simply does not have the political will to do what is right for some children.

And this is very important: What third party, not invested in the Meeting Street Academy, has examined the claims of academic success in the so-called “successful” schools that are being promised as fixes for Burns? I cannot find any data on test scores (setting aside that test scores aren’t even that good for making these claims), but I have analyzed claims of “miracle” charter schools in SC—finding that these claims are always false. Always. I do not trust that Meeting Street is going to prove to be the first actual miracle school in a long line of those that have been unmasked before.

He notes that politicians are easily bamboozled and follow the crowd, without asking where they are going.

SC political leaders have pushed for school choice, charter schools, VAM evaluations of teachers, ever-new standards and high-stakes testing, exit exams, third-grade retention, and now takeover policies for so-called “failing schools”—yet all of these have no basis for policy in the body of research refuting the effectiveness of each one.

For the editors of the P&C, as well as our political leaders and the public, the real questions are why do we persist in ignoring the stark realities of our inequitable society, why do we then continue to play politics with our schools that are just as inequitable as our society, and then why do we refuse to consider the evidence about addressing social and educational inequity directly in our policies?

Why do politicians continue to push for policies that have failed elsewhere, again and again? Because they don’t care. Because they are happy to maintain the status quo. Their eager embrace of “school choice” and other failed policies is a smokescreen. They know such policies will change nothing.

Closing schools, renaming schools, shuffling students—these are the practices of those who are invested in the status quo regardless of the consequences for “other people’s children.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, South Carolina, Testing

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2016 //
11

Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, writes in the Los Angeles Times that progressives in California should stay involved in state politics and join to defeat the power of big money.

As he shows, the big money interests have combined to elect conservative Democrats and defeat progressive Democrats. Because of the state’s “top-two” primaries, regardless of party, the big-money guys are picking malleable conservative Democrats and pouring millions into their campaigns to pick off progressive campaigns.

Bernie Sanders’ keystone issue was to limit the role of money in politics. In California, the moneyed interests are saturating legislative races with donations that their opponents can’t match.

Over the past two years, oil companies and “education reform” billionaires have been funding campaigns for obliging Democratic candidates running against their more progressive co-partisans under the state’s “top-two” election process. In this week’s primary, independent committees spent at least $24 million, with most of that money flowing to Democrats who opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to halve motorists’ use of fossil fuels by 2030, and a substantial sum going to Democrats who support expanding charter schools.

Six years ago, according to the Associated Press, just one legislative primary race had more than $1 million in outside spending, and four had more than $500,000. This year, eight races saw more than $1 million in such spending, and 15 more than $500,000.

In a heavily Democratic district outside Sacramento, a November state Senate runoff will pit Democratic Assemblyman Bill Dodd, who opposed Brown’s legislation, against former Democratic Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada. Dodd has already benefited from one independent campaign funded by Chevron and other energy companies to the tune of more than $270,000, and from an education reform campaign funded by charter school proponents such as billionaire Eli Broad in the amount of $1.68 million.

Since progressives can’t match their millions, they should do their best to expose them and their surrogates as the puppets they are.

Public education in California is a plum for the billionaires. They want to privatize it. Who are the biggest spenders in the self-named “education reform movement”? Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, and Alice Walton. None is a parent in public schools. None has children in public schools. Two do not even live in California.

This is NOT what democracy looks like.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Ohio Outrage: GOP Leader Celebrates Wor$t School in State

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2016 //
30

The New York Times wrote a front-page expose of ECOT only weeks ago. The online charter school has an on-time graduation rate of 20%. Students get credit for “participation” if they log in for only one minute. It is very profitable for its owner, William Lager. Despite its dismal results, the Republican speaker of the House was its graduation spoke at its graduation ceremonies. William Lager is the state’s biggest donor to Republican politicians. They have been good to him in return. He has been awarded nearly $900 million in public funds for his low-performing e-school since 2002. Pending in the legislature is a bill to regulate ECOT and similar institutions just a little bit. The chances of its passage are slim to none. Lager is a very generous man.

From 2000-2013, Lager has donated $1.4 million to Republican politicians in Ohio. Of course, he has given more since then.

This is what ECOT–the state’s lowest performing school–has received from the legislature (data supplied by Bill Phillis, former deputy state commissioner of education and now retired and relentless watchdog of education spending):

2004
$28,768,914.97

2005
$38,139,918.73

2006
$39,762,863.11

2007
$44,540,366.08

2008
$50,475,630.27

2009
$57,233,338.72

2010
$59,990,773.55

2011
$67,510,732.17

2012
$78,850,259.14

2013
$88,358,002.78

2014
$99,180,328.91

2015
$104,380,709.86

2016
$107,517,808.16

total
$864,709,646.45

How cool is that? He gives $1.4 million to politicians, and he gets $864 million to run a school with a graduation rate of 20%, with no accountability or transparency. Now that is what you call a terrific “return on investment”!

Here is the latest from Bill Phillis of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition:


A post on the Facebook page of the chairman of the House Education Committee, Andrew Brenner

“I attended the ECOT graduation today. Cliff Rosenberger was the keynote speaker. It was impressive.”

Bill Lager, the ECOT man, certainly knows how to gain the favor of state officials. The June 5 ECOT graduation speaker was Cliff Rosenberger, the Speaker of the House. Senator Coley introduced the speaker. Senator Coley is on the Senate Finance Committee where SB 298 was blocked from passage this spring. This bill requires online charters to verify they are serving the students for which they receive funding.

The ECOT graduation ceremony VIP lineup probably sealed the doom of SB 298 [the bill to require charter school transparency].

Former governors, even Jeb Bush, state superintendents and other state officials have graced the stage of previous ECOT graduation ceremonies.

The Plunderbund article of June 6 provides some startling insights into the ECOT industry. This article should create a sense of urgency in the public education community.

Is there no no in the Ohio legislature who can stop this waste of taxpayer dollars?

Does anyone care?

William Phillis

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Hoax, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Steven Singer: Selling Segregation to Blacks and Latinos

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
33

Steven Singer writes about the slickest con job of our time. He calls it the “Charter School Swindle.” It is a triumph of marketing and propaganda. Would you believe that charlatans sold the idea of segregation to Black and Latino parents and got away with it? Would you believe they sold these families on the claim that entry into a charter school was a ticket to success, with no evidence?

 

Singer writes:

 

 

Segregation now!

 

Higher suspension rates for black students!

 

Lower quality schools for Latinos!

 

These may sound like the campaign cries of George Wallace or Ross Barnett. But this isn’t the 1960s and it isn’t Alabama or Mississippi.

 

These are the cries of modern day charter school advocates – or they could be.

 

School choice boosters rarely if ever couch their support in these terms, but when touting charter schools over traditional public schools, this is exactly what they’re advocating.

 

According to the Civil Right Project at UCLA, “The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure.”

 

It’s choice over equity.

 

Advocates have become so blinded by the idea of choice that they can’t see the poor quality of what’s being offered.

 

Because charter schools DO increase segregation. They DO suspend children of color at higher rates than traditional public schools. And they DO achieve academic outcomes for their students that are generally either comparable to traditional public schools or – in many cases – much worse.

 

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is Unconstitutional to have “separate but equal” schools because when they’re separate, they’re rarely equal. Having two parallel systems of education makes it too easy to provide more resources to some kids and less to others.

 

Who would have ever thought that some minority parents would actually choose this outcome, themselves, for their own children!?

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Hoax

California: Big Money and Slimy Tactics by Charter Advocates Prevail in Legislative Races

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2016 //
13

Awash in contributions from billionaires, the California Charter Schools Association claimed victory in several contested legislative elections.

Its candidate in the 43rd Assembly District, Laura Friedman came in first, bolstered by more than $1 million in campaign gifts by the powerful lobby.

The charter lobby, as usual, ran under false colors, pretending to be “all about the kids” and fighting for high-quality schools.

But Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, called them out, saying it was all about contracts and money.

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer railed Wednesday against the tactics used by the CCSA Advocates in the hotly contested 43rd Assembly District race and compared its spending in that race, at least $1.2 million, to special interest spending from oil and tobacco industries, which lobby for deregulation.

“This is no longer about choice. This is no longer about kids. It’s certainly not about civil rights,” he said. “It’s about deregulation. It’s about privatization.”

An independent expenditure committee called Parent Teacher Alliance sponsored by CCSA Advocates, the political arm of the CCSA, spent $910,791 on mailers supporting Glendale City Councilwoman Laura Friedman and $304,355 to oppose Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, as of Friday, state campaign finance records show.

Friedman won the primary race, earning 31.9 percent of the vote total, capturing 24,372 votes, according to preliminary election results. Kassakhian finished in second place with 24.3 percent, receiving 18,618 votes. The two Democrats topped the eight-candidate ticket to replace outgoing Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Burbank, who could not seek re-election due to term limits. They will likely compete in the Nov. 8 general election. The election results will not be finalized until mail-in and provisional ballots are counted. Voter turnout in the district was about 29 percent.

Zimmer denounced the negative mailers sent by CCSA Advocates that flooded voters’ mailboxes in the district that includes Glendale, Burbank, La Canada Flintridge and parts of Los Angeles.

“It is base thuggery, no more or no less,” Zimmer said.

He called Kassakhian, whom he endorsed, the target of the mailers, an “innocent bystander” and said Kassakhian’s only crime was having a mother who was a public school teacher and support from teachers’ unions.

“I aspire to be half as decent a guy as Ardy Kassakhian is,” Zimmer said. “To take him out the way they did, to use the hate in those mailers, it’s a new standard of low. It has no rules, no boundaries, no ethics, no morals.”

The spending by charter school supporters in this race could be a preview of what will happen in March, when three seats on the LA Unified school board will be contested. Zimmer is up for re-election in what is sure to be a highly contested race. A challenger has already announced in the race. In 2013, Zimmer’s last re-election bid, millions were poured into the three races by outside groups. He captured 52 percent of the votes to defeat his opponent, Kate Anderson, who was backed by CCSA.

Friedman and Kassakhian will have a run-off in November as the top two finishers in the race.

The charter industry continues to descend into a pit of slime in its drive for money and power and its desire to cripple public education.

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

California in the Grip of Charter Fever: This is NOT Democracy in Action

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2016 //
10

Rocketship Charters, which puts kids on computers and cuts costs by hiring Teach for America kids, applied to open a charter school in the Mount Diablo School District in California. The local school board voted no, unanimously. The Rocketship corporation appealed to the Costra County School Board, which also rejected their petition. The corporation then took their appeal to the State Board of Education, which overturned the local board and the county board and granted permission to the charter to open in the Mount Diablo district.

Of course, this means that the public schools in the district will have fewer resources, and will have to lay off teachers and cut programs so that the charter can thrive. The district, which serves most children, will suffer to feed the charter.

Another illustration of California’s willingness to sacrifice public schools and local control for the sake of the charter industry. Once again, the 1% get their way, regardless of the will of the local community and its elected board.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Democracy
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