Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Thomas Ultican: Time to Abolish Charter Schools!

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2016 //
15

Thomas Ultican is a teacher of physics and mathematics at a high school in California. The students in his school are 50% English language learners and 75% Title I (poor).

 

He writes here that the charter experiment has been a disaster for public schools. California was second in the nation to pass a charter law in 1992, and now 9% of the children are in charter schools. While the charter schools have a rich and powerful lobby, the public schools suffer from underfunding and overcrowding. The charters get to choose their students, and some charters are located in affluent communities, where they serve the children of the rich. This is very far from what charters were supposed to be when they were first proposed in 1988. Ultican writes that it is time to change the law in California and ban charters outright.

 

Ultican writes:

 

Today, twelve percent of all schools in California are charter schools with 9% of all state supported students attending charter schools. In these more than two decades; charter schools have enriched some people – have harmed public schools – have not improved publicly financed education – have increased segregation – have increased the cost of publicly financed education – have paid foreign based entities to operate schools in California – have generated massive fraud.

 

The California charter school experiment should be ended and these undemocratic publicly financed institutions should be carefully transitioned into the public schools system.

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Study Finds Many Charter Schools Give Disparate Discipline to Black Students and Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2016 //
16

The UCLA Civil Rights Project faulted many charter schools for harsh disciplinary policies towards black students and students with disabilities. These practices, the study concluded, contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. The new study is called Charter Schools, Civil Rights, and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review.

 

The comprehensive analysis by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the UCLA Civil Rights Project identified 374 charter schools across the country that had suspended 25% or more of their entire student body during the course of the 2011-12 academic year. The comprehensive review also revealed:

 

Nearly half of all black secondary charter school students attended one of the 270 charter schools that was hyper-segregated (80% black) and where the aggregate black suspension rate was 25%.
More than 500 charter schools suspended black charter students at a rate that was at least 10 percentage points higher than that of white charter students.

 
Even more disconcerting, 1,093 charter schools suspended students with disabilities at a rate that was 10 or more percentage points higher than that of students without disabilities.

 
Perhaps most alarming, 235 charter schools suspended more than 50% of their enrolled students with disabilities.* (*This count includes schools with at least 50 students enrolled and excludes alternative schools, schools identified as part of the juvenile justice system, virtual schools and schools that enrolled fewer than 10 students with disabilities. Any school where rounding of the data or another error produced a suspension rate of more than 100% for a subgroup also was excluded.)

 
“It’s disturbing to see so many of these schools still reporting such high suspension rates because that indicates charter leaders continue to pursue ‘broken windows,’ ‘no excuses’ and other forms of ‘zero tolerance’ discipline,” said Daniel Losen, the Center’s director and the study’s lead author. “And we know from decades of research that frequently suspending children from school is counter-productive.”

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Education Reform, Race, Special Education

EduShyster Interviews Preston Green on Whether Charter Schools Are Public

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2016 //
16

EduShyster interviewed Preston Green, who has studied the legal status of charter schools and published scholarly articles on the subject.

 

Green points out out in the interview that a major difference between public schools and charter schools is the rights of students. The constitutional rights of charter students are significantly less than those of students in public schools.

 

Dr. Green points out that charter schools have a different legal status than public schools.

 

EduShyster writes:

 

“Dr. Green warns that both state and federal courts have issued rulings stating that students in charters do not have the same due process rights as public-school students. So what does this mean for cities like Los Angeles where a dramatic expansion of charter schools is on the table? *Half of the publicly-funded schools in Los Angeles might be legally permitted to ‘dismiss’ students without due process.* says Dr. Green. *We have to ask ourselves if such a scenario is acceptable.*

 

 

“I asked Dr. Green to explain some recent court rulings on student rights, and how they relate to the larger debate over whether charter schools are public or private entities. Take it away, Dr. Green. Court is in session…

 

 

By Preston Green
“Charter advocates claim that charter schools are *public schools* because *they are open to all, do not charge tuition, and do not have special entrance requirements.* But what about student rights? State and federal courts have issued rulings suggesting that students attending California charter schools do not have the same due process rights as those enjoyed by public-school students. In Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of Arts, a state appellate court found that charter schools were exempt from due process procedures that applied to public-school expulsions. In reaching this conclusion, the court observed that the state education code generally exempted charter schools from rules that applied to traditional public schools, and the expulsion statute was one of those rules.”

 

In short, students check their constitutional rights at the charter school door.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Students

Jan Resseger: The Truth About John Kasich

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2016 //
31

Jan Resseger, a social justice advocate in Cleveland, warns us to beware John Kasich’s calm and mild-mannered approach. He presents himself as the responsible, sensible candidate, not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative like Trump and Cruz. Although Resseger doesn’t mention it, Kasich tried to eliminate  collective bargaining, but the law passed by the legislature was repealed by a referendum. Kasich is a strong proponent of privatization, including charters, vouchers, and cyber charters.

 

Resseger writes:

 

“You do have to give Kasich credit for one thing. He has been honest about his priorities: he is a tax slasher and a charter school supporter. He is also delusional about his accomplishments as Ohio’s governor since 2010. He claims the state has turned around economically. If there has been a turnaround, it hasn’t yet come to Ohio’s Rust Belt cities. He continues to claim he has turned around the Cleveland schools, but that isn’t true either. To his credit, he did, against the wishes of those in his own party, expand Medicaid.

 

“He has also slashed the income tax, eliminated the estate tax, and eliminated a reimbursement the state had created for local governments and school districts when a previous administration summarily eliminated a local tax on inventories and equipment. The Plain Dealer reminded us last Friday that local governments have been busy trying to pass local taxes to make up for enormous losses of state revenue because of Kasich’s “sharp reductions in the state’s Local Government Fund, which was created during the Depression when the sales tax was enacted to share money with the cities and villages.” Under Kasich, according to Friday’s Plain Dealer, state funding in Cleveland this year is down by $21 million, in Columbus by $27 million, and in Cincinnati by $28 million, and the big cities are not the only losers. The inner ring suburb where I live is down over $2 million this year. School districts across the state are struggling to pass levies at the same time they are increasing class size and charging students large fees to play sports.

 

“In a stunning piece published yesterday by Politico, Kimberly Hefling summarizes Kasich’s troubling record of flawed oversight of Ohio’s charter school sector, despite that Kasich has made charter school regulation “a priority.” She quotes Kasich in 2014 claiming: “We are going to fix the lack of regulation on charter schools. There is no excuse for people coming in here and taking advantage of anything.” That was the claim. And to give the governor credit, Kasich signed a law at the end of 2015 that, Hefling explains, “improves the state’s ability to revoke the rights of the poorly rated charter school sponsors and makes it more difficult for schools to switch sponsors.” (It has been a practice in Ohio that if an authorizer tries to shut down a charter school for academic or financial reasons, the school could merely “hop” to a new sponsor.)

 

“Here, however, are some realities described by Hefling, that demonstrate the seriousness of Ohio’s problem with charter schools and that undermine Kasich’s claim that he has led the way to better regulation: “Ohio ranks among the top five states in the number of charter schools. It has more than 370 charters that enroll 132,000 students… but the sector has been plagued with problems including mid-year school closures, allegations of financial improprieties and charter schools ‘sponsor shopping’ to avoid scrutiny. Ohio has more than 60 charter school sponsors, or authorizers, that open and oversee the schools… A 2014 study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes paid for by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute found students in the state’s charter schools perform worse on average in reading and math than their peers in traditional public schools.

 

“And then there are the notorious online charters. “A big player among Ohio online charters is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which enrolled 14,000 students last year and was founded by longtime GOP booster William Lager. Another longtime Ohio charter school backer is David Brennan, founder of White Hat Management, who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Kasich over the years. Innovation Ohio has estimated that since charter schools first opened in Ohio in the late ’90s, $1.8 billion of the $7.3 billion the state has spent on the sector has gone to schools run by Lager and Brennan—or $1 out of every $4 spent. Then, there’s the 11,000-student Ohio Virtual Academy, run by K12 Inc., that donated $100,000 in 2014 to the Republican Governors Association.”

 

“Finally, Hefling reports, there was the scandal that began last summer when David Hansen, then head of the charter schools office at the Ohio Department of Education, submitted a federal charter school expansion grant application that painted a rosy picture of the performance of Ohio’s charter schools and mysteriously omitted the horrible ratings of Ohio’s online charter schools. This whole mess is very much connected to Kasich, because Hansen’s wife was then the governor’s chief of staff and is now the head of Kasich’s presidential campaign. When the U.S. Department of Education responded by awarding what is a $71 million grant to expand charters—and to take over and charterize the Youngstown City Schools—a firestorm broke out. David Hansen was fired for his flawed rating system, and the federal government has demanded documentation that charter school regulation is being improved. As Hefling reports, “(T)he state took the embarrassing step in January of updating its application figures to say that instead of having nine charters schools that are poor performing, 57 are in that condition.” But even in the updated federal application, Ohio’s amended figures rate only brick and mortar schools and omit the politically connected virtual academies….

 

“Hefling summarizes her concerns about Kasich and the charter schools he loves: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich is an avid proponent of school choice, but his home state’s notoriously problematic charter school sector is often held up as an example of what can go wrong.”

 

Resseger includes links to all her statements. Open the post to see them.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Unions, Vouchers

Kamenetz v. Skeels: Are Charter Schools “Public” or “Private”?

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2016 //
42

Senator Sanders said in Ohio that he supports “public charter schools” and opposes “private charter schools.”
His statement left many people wondering what he meant. All charters claim to be “public,” because they get public money. Even for-profits call themselves “public,” as do corporate charter chains, like KIPP and Success Academy.

 

Anya Kamenetz reported at NPR about Bernie Sanders’ statement during the Ohio Town Hall.

 

Kamenetz writes:

 

Here’s the contradiction: Charter schools are all public. And, each has some element of private control….

 

Charter schools, by definition, are publicly funded schools, free to students and paid for by taxpayers. They are also subject to public oversight and control; for example, they have to employ licensed teachers and administer state-mandated tests, which private schools do not. They can also be closed by districts for underperformance.

 

However, also by definition, charter schools maintain a measure of independence from public oversight. They have freedom from certain district and union rules; for example, they can have a longer school year or school day, require uniforms, or incorporate different topics in the curriculum. They are also governed by privately appointed boards.

 

This is not entirely accurate. Some states, like North Carolina, do not require charter schools to employ only licensed teachers. And while it is true that charters may be closed for underperformance, most are controlled by their authorizers, not by their district; in some states, the governor appoints a commission to authorize charters that can overrule the local district (this is an ALEC model statute). In many states, charters completely avoid accountability of any kind by making political contributions to legislators and the governor (see, Ohio and Florida).
Robert Skeels, a teacher who is earning a law degree, disagrees with Kamenetz:

 

 

He writes:

Addressing Anya Kamenetz’s confusion on charter schools

Journalist Anya Kamenetz provides the charter school industry’s public relations definition of “public” in her NPR piece on Senator Sanders and charter schools. ( http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/03/15/470376273/bernie-sanders-says-he-opposes-private-charter-schools-what-does-that-mean ) As a Juris Doctor candidate whose specialty is education law in the era of neoliberalism, allow me to present the legal arguments both on why Kamenetz’s definition is incorrect, and on how privately managed charters are not at all “public.”

Generally charter schools are not public schools. This has been long established by both existing case law and public policy. The Washington State Supreme Court (2015) held that charter schools are not “common schools” because they are governed by appointed rather than elected boards. The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (2010) ruled that charter schools are not “public actors.” The California Court of Appeals (2007) ruled that charter schools are not “public agents.” Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) joined scores of other government agencies in unequivocally determining that charters are, in NLRB’s words, “private entities.”

By definition if a charter school is operated by a for-profit company, or by a 501c3 non-profit corporation (e.g. Harlem Success Academy), then it is not a public school. The United States Census Bureau frames this latter issue best:

> “A few “public charter schools” are run by public universities and municipalities. However, most charter schools are run by private nonprofit organizations and are therefore classified as private.” (US Census Bureau. (2011). “Public Education Finances: 2009 (GO9-ASPEF)”. Washington, DC: US Government Printing O ce. Print. vi).
Because these lucrative charter schools are not public, and therefore not subject to even a modicum of public oversight, they are able violate the constitutional rights of their students. The decision in Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of the Arts saw scholar Rosa K. Hirji, Esq. write:

> “The structures that allow charter schools to exist are marked by the absence of protections that are traditionally guaranteed by public education, protections that only become apparent and necessary when families and students begin to face a denial of what they were initially promised to be their right.” (American Bar Association https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/childrights/content/articles/winter2014-0114-charter-schools-upholding-student-rights.html )

===

Robert D. Skeels is a Los Angeles based social justice writer, public education advocate, and immigrant rights activist. He holds a BA in Classical Civilization from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and is currently a Juris Doctor Candidate at Peoples College of Law (PCL).

I hope both Sanders and Clinton give a speech soon on K-12 education and explains their views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools

A Washington State Legislator Joins the Honor Roll

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2016 //
6

The Washington State legislature is bending itself into pretzels to protect the 1,000 students who attend privately managed charter schools. Meanwhile, the legislature has failed to attend to the court-mandated full funding of the public schools attended by more than 1 million students.

 

Why do 1,000 students matter more than 1 million students? What kind of future will Washington State have if it protects 1,000 students and ignores the needs of 1 million students? Which billionaire or billionaires hired the 22 lobbyists who worked the Democrats who control the House in the legislature?

 

Representative Mike Sells of Washington State responded to this post about the Democrats who betrayed public schools; he describes what has happened in the state legislature in the following comment. For supporting the 1 million students in Washington State who attend public schools, I add Mike Sells to this blog’s honor roll:

 

 

What is not mentioned here, is the proponents literally disappearing when it comes to full funding for the public schools. Despite their protestation during the regular session that they believed that the funding should take place, they are nowhere to be found or even commenting much on blogs other than bragging about their coup. The 22 highly paid lobbyists brought in cleared the halls the day after the vote and are nowhere to be seen on the funding of public schools issue.

 

The bragging by proponents of spending on two six figure ad buys has not translated over to helping the public schools. You know big money was being spent when Strategies 360 lobbyists were outside the door plunking for a vote along with the usual ‘astroturf’ groups.

 

A number of us raised amendments on the charter school bill that were turned down. Rep. Drew Hansen suggested temporary funding for the current 8 [charters] until we could figure out the funding issues. That was a no. I proposed that charter schools use the same Teacher/Principal Evaluation Programs that we passed in 2010 for the public schools, if we believed in the importance of teacher quality. (You can find roll calls on many of these amendments) That was a no. Suggestions to make the governance more transparent and open were also turned down, which I believe will only add to the unconstitutionality of the new bill.

 

Only those that had pre-acceptance by charter school proponents seemed to make it through out of the 27 amendments on the House floor. Even proposing that charter school board members file public disclosure forms like other appointed public officials do was at first opposed on the House floor, but actually made it through, when opponents realized that appointed Board members in this state do file them already in other areas. We are now in special session with the supplemental budget, and it has been complicated by the millions slated for charter schools. No more funding is pointed toward settling the court ordered funding for the public schools, and we are facing possible cuts due to a so-called levy cliff.

 
Rep. Mike Sells, 38th Legislative District

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Honor Roll, Washington State

Jeff Bryant: Why Schools Should Not Operate Like Walmart

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2016 //
13

This is a must-read article. Share it with your friends who don’t understand the corporate assault on American public schools.

 

Jeff Bryant writes here about the Walton family’s effort to impose the Walmart business philosophy on public education. I have called it the Walmartization  of public education. The he family collectively is worth about $150 billion.

 

When Walmart enters a community, the local businesses can’t compete with its low prices and vast inventory. The local businesses close down. Main Streets across America are filled with empty stores and a dying commercial core, thanks to Walmart’s cutthroat competition. Walmart doesn’t care about community. It has only one purpose: profits for Walmart.

 

Central to to its business philosophy is cost-cutting. It wants the lowest-paid employees. It wants the lowest price products, so it buys wherever labor costs are lowest. I would be surprised if anything sold by Walmart is American-made.

 

To to achieve its goal of low prices and high profits, Walmart is anti-union.

 

When Walmart recently announced that it was closing more than 150 stores, many people lost their jobs, and many communities awoke to realize they had no grocery store, no hardware store, no toy store, no shoe store, no drug store. Walmart had killed them all.

 

The Waltons are doing to education what they have done in business: killing off beloved community schools and replacing them with privately managed charter schools that have no roots in the community. These schools are almost always non-union. They are staffed by Teach for America recruits, who will be gone in two or three years.

 

Instead of local community schools staffed by career teachers whose parents and grandparents lived in the community, the new charters are transient, filled with transient teachers and administrators. If they don’t enroll enough students or if they see a better market niche elsewhere or if their scores are disappointing, they will close and move on, leaving a shattered community behind.

 

As I write this, I suddenly remembered my third-grade teacher in Houston, Miss Doty. Years later, I read that she became principal of an elementary school. A deranged father entered the school grounds while the children were at recess. She rushed out, shooed the children inside, and stood between him and the school entrance. He set off a homemade bomb, killed himself, and Ms. Doty lost a leg.

 

Nothing transient about Ms. Dory or her school. Now Houston is awash in charter schools. They siphon money away from public schools, as well as the motivated parents and children. One of the purposes of public education–building community–is sacrificed to the market.

 

Walmart represents the predatory face of capitalism. As Bryant asks, why should a handful of billionaires reshape public education?

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools

Mercedes Schneider: Save Detroit’s Children from Predatory Reformers

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2016 //
8

Mercedes Schneider, relentless investigator, here analyzes a proposal to turn Detroit public schools into an all-charter district.

 

Detroit is drowning in debt, most of it incurred since the state took control of the district. In particular, state-appointed superintendent Robert Bobb added $300 million in debt during his brief tenure.

 

The district’s schools are in terrible physical condition, unfit in many cases for children or adults.

 

The reformer proposal: fix everything by turning every school into a charter. Open and close charters at will.

 

Only a corporate reformer could come up with a plan that completely ignores the needs of students and teachers. Students need stability and security, not churn. Teachers need an environment conducive to teaching and learning, one where they get to know their students and can plan ahead and work together as a team.

 

Mercedes checks out the fellow who made this dumb proposal. It turns out he is affiliated with the Mackinac Center, Governor Rick Snyder’s favorite policy tank, which enjoys funding by the Koch brothers.

 

He is also associated with groups sponsoring charters in Ohio. Mercedes documents the multiple embarrassments of the scandal-ridden charter sector in Ohio.

 

Why would anyone want to inflict disruption on the children of Detroit? It is not for their benefit. Who does benefit?

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Detroit, Education Reform, Ohio

John Thompson: Why No-Excuses Can Never “Scale Up”

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2016 //
6

 

John Thompson, historian and teacher, disagrees with Elizabeth Green about the future of  “no excuses” charter schools. In the previous post, I referred to Green’s account of the arguments for and against such charters.

 

Thompson writes that Green balances the pros and cons, and then “concludes that no-excuses schools “are capable of changing, and that they can do this, to borrow their own language, ‘at scale.'”

 

Thompson wonders what persuaded her “that no-excuses proponents can scale up their current model, much less a more sensitive version of it. After all, I wonder if she’s seen a KIPP that serves the same high-challenge students that we do in high-poverty traditional public schools.

 

“Even the best of “high-performing, high-poverty” charters only retain as many suffering kids as they can handle. We in neighborhood schools serve everyone who walks in the door. The gap between those two realities is huge. And, the result of those two very different approaches is that the highest-poverty schools face even greater concentrations of kids from generational poverty who have endured extreme trauma, and bring their pain with them to school….

 

“All of Green’s observations are valid in terms of the questions she asks. But, how many educators demand that society “abandon” no-excuses schools? In my childhood, I would have despised such schools, and I wouldn’t send my own child to one. Its hard to imagine many parents choosing no-excuses instruction if they had any alternative. Unlike many reformers, however, my colleagues and I haven’t anointed ourselves as masters of the education universe. It’s not up to us to micromanage parents’ decisions.

 

“What we should abandon, however, is the willingness to ignore the elephant in the room. Can’t we acknowledge that it is a terrible tragedy that conditions exist where some educators and patrons embrace no-excuses behaviorism as the lesser of evils?

 

 

“What we should abandon is the idea that poor children of color should settle for a second class education because society won’t attempt to provide a humane, holistic, and high-quality education for all. We must abandon the idea that all poor children of color learn the same. We must abandon the corollary idea that all kids are supposed to conform to the ethos of test, sort, reward, and punish in order to be prepared for the global marketplace. We must also abandon the idea that corporate reformers are entitled to determine what rights of students and teachers must be abandoned in order to reinvent (or blow up) school systems.

 

 

“While I would never tell parents that their ability to choose no-excuses schools must be abandoned, I contend we must abandon the edu-politics of destruction. We must abandon the idea that no-excuses schools must be scaled up in order to replace neighborhood schools that are closed due to the mass charterization of school systems that corporate reformers see as targets to be destroyed by “disruptive innovation.” We must abandon the idea that children can be treated as lab rats as no-excuses charters are given even more time to heal themselves and, supposedly, figure out a way to successfully scale themselves up.”

 

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Education Industry

Elizabeth Green Debates “No Excuses” Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2016 //
46

Elizabeth Green of Chalkbeat discusses the arguments for and against “no excuses” charter schools like Success Academy, KIPP, and Achievement First.

 

She begins with the example of the video in which a first grade teacher at a Success Academy charter chastises a child, sends her to the “calm down”corner, and rips her paper in half.

 

Green acknowledges that there are charters where harsh discipline is common practice.

 

She reviews the critics’  view that such punitive discipline is unnecessarily humiliating and that it is fundamentally racist. The children are likely to explode or have psychological melt downs in response to strict control.

 

Those who defend “no excuses” discipline say that it teaches children appropriate behavior and self-control. Far from being racist, they believe they are rescuing poor children from a life of poverty, gangs, and drugs.

 

Is the “no excuses” regime an exercise in colonialism or is it the path to liberation? Can the demand for strict conformity produce people who are capable of initiative and self-reliance?

 

What do you think?

 

PS: Schools Matter dismissed Green as a shill for the corporate reform movement. I didn’t see this critique until after I posted.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Reform
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