Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Mercedes Schneider: What Happened to New Orleans?

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2016 //
5

You may have read that Louisiana’s famous, controversial, ballyhooed Recovery School District has been dissolved. Eleven years after Hurricane Katrina, the district comprised of charter schools is being returned to the districts from which they were drawn. Most are in New Orleans and will be returned to the Orleans Parish School Board.

 

Can it be true? Are the charter champions really giving up their struggle? John White knows. He is the State Commissioner who regularly boasts about the miracle of the RSD. But he is not telling.

 

Michael Klonsky has his doubts. So does Karran Harper Royal.

 

 

Mercedes Schneider has written two versions.

 

Here is a brief overview.

 

Here is her close analysis of the law. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Louisiana, New Orleans

Our Blog Poet on Corporate Reform (with Apologies to Robert Frost)

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
6

Thanks to Some DAMpoet:

“The Path Not Taken” (apologies to Robert Frost)

Two paths diverged in a public school,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, help and tool
I looked down one, like a teaching fool
To how it lent to the student growth

Then took the other, as much more fair,
And having for taps the better claim
Because it was psycho and wanted power,
And as for empathy and care,
Had torn the students apart for game,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this for the Fates
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two paths diverged in a school, and for Gates,
I took the one of Norman Bates,
And that has made all the difference.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform

Former Charter Employee: Sue These People!

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
6

I posted recently about the indictment in Florida of leaders of an Ohio-based charter management company.

 

This reader reacted:

 

 

“As a previous employee of Newpoint, I hope North Carolina school district opens their eyes and stops allowing NEP to open schools there. Look what has happened in Florida. In Pensacola the Director of Newpoint Academy and Newpoint Pensacola High School Mr. John Graham told us our bank account was swiped clean at the end of every month which left us with nothing to work with financially. We had terrible internet service for our technology based middle school and high school. This left our high school students unable to do class work since their whole curriculum was on line. We had no money, a dirty school, high teacher turnover, and were fed stories of how things were going to get better for four long years. From reading the newspapers from south Florida, this story of no money, high teacher turnover… repeated itself in their counties where Newpoint had schools.

 

 

 

“Now we find out, NEP is charged with grand theft, money laundering, and white collar crime in our county. NEP should have to pay Escambia County that money back. Why does the owner get away with such theft ? If you steal a blouse from a store, you get arrested and thrown in jail for it, but if you steal hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax payers Federal funds, you pay a fine and get away with it? All of these counties should tie that owner up in court with law suits for the next ten years!”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud

Video: How Charter Schools Hurt Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2016 //
22

Do you have 3 minutes towatch a video?

 

Watch this graphic video and share it with your friends when they ask you what a charter is.

 

It explains in clear visuals how charters operate and how they hurt public schools by draining away the students chosen by the charter and the resources that previously funded the community’s public school.

 

The he video was commissioned by the Network for Public Education. Help it go viral. Share it. Tweet it. Put it on Facebook.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding

New Study: How Charter Schools Affect Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2016 //
39

As the charter industry grows, many observers have wondered how their expansion affects the public schools in the same district. A new study published by the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, addresses that question.

 

Policymakers have assumed that the charter sector would provide healthy competition for district public schools. The promise originally was that they would spur innovation and efficiency, and at the same time would be accountable for results. We know from the example of Milwaukee, which has had charters and vouchers for 25 years, that none of these promises were true. Nonetheless, the claims still are repeated and all too often believed by a gullible media and public, which seldom if ever hears critical views.

 

The present study should be distributed to every news outlet, so they understand the collateral damage that charters inflict on public schools.

 

“Little scholarship has been devoted to the impact of charter schools on, one, how much revenue school districts collect through local property taxes and, two, how school districts budget that revenue.

 
“With “The Effect of Charter Competition on Unionized District Revenues and Resource Allocation,” Jason B. Cook fills this void. Cook, a doctoral student in economics at Cornell University, focuses on Ohio, home to a high concentration of both online and brick-and-mortar charter schools, and examines school budget data in the state from 1982 through 2013. In addition to confirming in detail that charter competition has reduced federal, state, and local support for district schools, Cook finds that charter competition has driven down local funding by depressing valuations of residential property and has led school districts to redirect revenue from instructional expenditures (in particular, teacher salaries) to facility improvements. Cook complements these two important findings with thorough explanations.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Ohio, Teacher Pay

The Latest News from the Privatization Sector

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2016 //
18

Politico reports on the latest news from school choice advocates:

 

 

 

STUDIES OF SCHOOL CHOICE: Two advocacy groups are out with papers today expounding on the benefits of school choice. The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice says in its effort that more than a dozen empirical studies have found that school choice improves student outcomes. And nine out of 10 studies say school choice can improve racial segregation, moving students from more segregated schools into less segregated ones. The report: http://bit.ly/1TiRZzn. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council is introducing three tools – peer reviews, branding and consumer reports – that parents can use to optimize education savings accounts. The paper: http://bit.ly/1TeOVcP.

 

 

Don’t expect to learn from either the Friedman Foundation (so-named for libertarian economist Milton Friedman, a voucher advocate) or ALEC (the far-right corporate-funded group that promotes deregulation of every government function) to say anything about Milwaukee. Milwaukee has had vouchers and charters for 25 years. There is no evidence that the children of Milwaukee have benefited by their choices. Despite the failure of choice to improve education, Governor Scott Walker wants to expand school choice and eliminate public schools altogether. The irony is that the students in public schools repeatedly have outperformed the students in choice schools, even though the public schools have a disproportionate share of students with disabilities and others that are not chosen by the choice schools. Chances are that Walker and the legislature will keep some public schools to use as a dumping ground for the students unwanted by the charters and voucher schools.

 

 

– On a related note: The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation named the finalists for the 2016 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools today: Success Academy in New York and IDEA Public Schools and YES Prep Public Schools in Texas. The $250,000 award will be given to the best-performing charter management organization on June 27 at the National Charter Schools Conference in Nashville, Tenn.

 

 

Isn’t that great news? I am rooting for Eva and Success Academy charters. If she wins, she can use the money to buy a four-year supply of beanies or T-shirts for future political rallies. The $250,000 won’t be enough to pay for both. Or she can hire a private investigator to track down the high-level official inside her organization who leaked important documents to the media, including the internal report that alleged cheating, teacher churn, and central staff turnover.

 

The spending included $71,900 for the beanies and $62,795 for the T-shirts, according to receipts submitted to Success’s board of directors.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Harlem Success Academy, Milwaukee, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers, Walker, Scott

Militant Union Leader Re-Elected in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2016 //
8

Barbara Madeloni, the firebrand insurgent who won the presidency of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, was re-elected last week on a platform of fighting high-stakes testing and charters.

 

Madeloni first rose to prominence in 2012 when she fought the EdTPA, the Pearson test required for certification. She refused to administer it to her students and lost her job (she later regained it, then took an unpaid leave, then lost it again, but may be rehire again, or maybe not.)

 

At that time, she said about teacher certification:

 

““This is something complex and we don’t like seeing it taken out of human hands,” said Barbara Madeloni, who runs the university’s high school teacher training program. “We are putting a stick in the gears.”

 

Last week, the MTA filed an amicus brief as part of a lawsuit to stop the legislature from lifting the cap on charter expansion.

 

Charter advocates filed a lawsuit last year claiming that the state’s cap on charter schools violates the civil rights of students who could then not have an opportunity to attend a charter. The state attorney general, Maura Healey, filed a motion to dismiss and the Massachusetts Teachers Association just filed an amicus brief in support of the AG’s motion to dismiss. The MTA brief confronts the lie behind the charter advocates’ ‘civil rights’ argument.

 

For her fight for public schools, students, teachers, education, and democracy, I am glad to place Barbara Madeloni on the honor roll.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Honor Roll, Massachusetts, Privatization, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Support for public schools, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Denis Smith: Ohio’s Voodoo Economics Benefits Charter Schools, Hurts Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2016 //
20

Denis Smith, who previously worked in the Ohio Education Department’s charter school division, writes here about the Byzantine school finance system of the state, which enables charters to be funded at the expense of public schools.

 

He writes:

 

Last fall, the Columbus Dispatch published an article, Are local school taxes subsidizing Ohio Charters? that confirmed the Byzantine nature of Ohio school finance and the complexities surrounding the calculation of state school aid. If comprehending how the formulas work which allow districts to receive state aid is enough of a challenge, readers also learned that the state was adding insult to financial injury by sending extra money to charters by calculating the amount of local support in the charter aid formula. This calculation method further assists charters by using the local share amount (viz., local property taxes raised by the district for its schools) in the formula to determine charter payments at the expense of public education.

 

How novel: starve public schools of state funds for years but use local support dollars to calculate the level of state charter payments. So much for local control.

 

Let’s get back to that word Byzantine again. Consider this one example of how state school aid works.

 

“When a student living in the Columbus district attends a charter school, the state subtracts nearly $7,800 on average from the district’s state funding. But the state is giving Columbus only an average of about $3,900 in basic aid per pupil,” the Dispatch’s Jim Siegel reported. “Once charter-school money is subtracted, the district gets just $2,604 for each student who is left, a $1,312 loss that is also, by far, the highest in the state,” he explained.

 

As we’ve read before on these pages, voodoo public policy begets voodoo economics which begets voodoo accounting. In the Dispatch story, Sen. Peggy Lehner, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, confirmed the perfidious nature of state school aid when it comes to charters. “It’s kind of a shell game with the money,” she said. “It’s state dollars, but you have to use local dollars to backfill the state dollars. I think it’s pretty clear that these kids are getting local dollars.”

 

School boards and voters are starting to catch on to the shell game that causes the dollars to flow out of their public schools and into the coffers of privately managed charter schools.

 

The situation is bringing financial distress to many districts, which explains why dozens of districts have invoiced the state for the money they have lost to charters.

 

Scam. Voodoo public policy. Shell game.

 

How long will the voters of Ohio stand for this financial undermining of the public schools that educate more than 90% of the state’s children?

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Funding, Ohio

Ohio: Reformster Chosen As State Superintendent

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2016 //
17

Paola DeMaria, an apologist for Ohio’s floundering, politically powerful, corrupt charter industry, has been named as State Superintendent. He is not an educator and proud of it.

 

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says he is a strong supporter of school choice and Common Core. Does he care about the public schools that enroll more than 90% of Ohio’s children? That’s not clear.

 

Stephen Dyer notes that DeMaria has defended charters when school boards claim that they are draining resources from public schools.

 

“DeMaria also is of the opinion that more money doesn’t improve student performance. This is a classic fallacy employed by many in the free market reform movement. The problem is it compares dollars spent with increases in test scores, claiming that if test scores don’t go up at the same rate as the spending, then clearly spending more doesn’t matter.”

 

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy posted the new superintendent’s background:

 
“Profile of the new Superintendent of Public Instruction

 

“Statement in letter of application:

 

“Second, I love education policy and practice. My love is not rooted in the fact that I’m a professional educator-because I’m not.”
“Academic credentials:
1984 Furman University B.A. Political Science/Economics
1996 The Ohio State University M.P.A. Public Administration

 

 

Question 2 on the application:
Are you eligible for a superintendent license for this position? NO
Work Experience:

 
2010-present Principal Consultant, Education First Consulting, LLC

 
2008-2010 Executive Vice Chancellor, Ohio Department of Higher Education (formerly Ohio Board of Regents)

 
2004-2008 Associate Superintendent for School Options and Finance

 
2000-2004 Chief Policy Advisor/Director of Cabinet Affairs-Office of the Governor

 
1999-2000 Senior Resident Advisor-Barents Group, LLC

 
1998-1999 Director-State of Ohio/Office of Budget and Management

 
1991-1998 Assistant Director-State of Ohio/Office of Budget and Management

 
1988-1991 Senior Fiscal Analyst-State of Ohio/The Ohio Senate

 

 

Bill Phillis writes:

“Departure from tradition:
“Since the position of state superintendency was established in 1913, it has been filled from the ranks of professionals in the field of public education.
“A new era has begun. Steve Dyer, Policy Fellow with Innovation Ohio, made some observations today. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article also provides some interesting insights.”
William Phillis
Ohio E & A

 

 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform

Thomas Ultican: Time for A Moratorium on New Charter Schools in California

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2016 //
12

Thomas Ultican teaches high school mathematics and physics in San Diego, in a school where more than 50% of the students are English language learners and 75% are Title I. In this article, he calls for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter sector in California. That state happens to have more charter schools and more students in charters than any other state. This is no accident. The charter school legislation is extremely permissive. If a charter applicant is turned down by the local district’s board of education, he can appeal to the county board of education. If he is turned down by the county board of education, he can appeal to the state, which does not review the reasons that the local board rejected the application. If the applicant has trouble writing his application, he can turn to the California Charter Schools Association, one of the most powerful lobbies in the state. Its staff will help newcomers develop a proposal that it is likely to get adopted somewhere along the line.

 

California has had many charter scandals, financial and academic. The charter schools are virtually unsupervised, as the state lacks the administrative staff to watch what they are doing. The charter schools claim to be “public schools” when they seek funding but they are exempt from many laws and regulations that apply to public schools. When a couple of charter operators were indicted for misappropriation of funds, the California Charter Schools Association filed an amicus brief, which contended that charters are not really public schools and not subject to the same criminal laws as public employees. The charter operators are “private entities.” Their plea failed; the couple were convicted and sent to jail.

 

Ultican lists the reasons why a moratorium is past due. The sector is growing “explosively,” without transparency or accountability. Schools open quickly, but at the same time, other charter schools fold, creating instability in the lives of their students. The charter industry is riddled with fraud and profiteering.

 

Ultican quotes distinguished professor Gene V. Glass, who wrote:

 

“A democratically run public education system in America is under siege. It is being attacked by greedy, union-hating corporations and billionaire boys whose success in business has proven to them that their circle of competence knows no bounds.”

 

Ultican concludes:

 

Let’s heed the words of real experts. It is time to put a halt to the privatization of public education long enough to see what we have wrought before we do further damage.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools
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