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Feds Give More $$ to L.A. Charters than to Higher-Performing Magnets

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
35

The U.S. Education Department, which was once a defender and supporter of public education, has now become a major investor in privately managed charters.

 

The lobbyist for the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District reported that larger amounts of federal funding was directed to the city’s charter schools than to the city’s magnet schools. The city’s magnet schools are far more successful than the charters.

 

As the LA School Report says:

 

“For all the successful magnet schools in LA Unified and elsewhere, they are not attracting as much federal support as charter schools.
That was a stark message from the district’s federal lobbyist, who told a district board committee this week that Washington is increasing national support for charter schools by nearly 32 percent but by only 6 percent for magnet schools, a difference that surprised some of the school board members.

 
“We never imagined this would ever be this much of a discrepancy,” board president Steve Zimmer said at a meeting of the board’s Committee of the Whole.

 
“The money for charters rose to $350 million from $270 million while the magnet school support increased to $96 million from $91 million, according to Joel Packer, of the Raben Group, which lobbies for the district in Washington.

 
“Charter schools have big bipartisan support in Congress,” Packer said. “They got a big increase. Magnet schools don’t have the same political clout.”

 

Who lobbies for magnet schools? No one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Los Angeles

BREAKING NEWS: Civil Rights Lawyers Intervene in Mass. Charter Battle

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
8

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights jumped into the battle in Massachusetts over whether to lift the charter school cap.

 

 

The Republican governor Charlie Baker wants more charters, as does state education board chairman Jim Peyser, a long-time charter advocate.

 

 

“The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice Education Lawyers’ Committee Moves to Intervene in Charter Cap Case on Behalf of Students of Color, Students with Disabilities, and English Language Learners

 

Boston, MA – Students of color, students with disabilities, and English language learners, together with the New England Area Conference of the NAACP, moved today to intervene in the pending litigation over the cap on charter schools, arguing that the cap is necessary to preserve educational opportunities for students in traditional public schools. The would-be intervenors cite evidence that charter schools divert millions of dollars from traditional public schools each year, yet serve proportionately far fewer students with disabilities and English language learners and impose harsher discipline on students of color.

 

“It is critical that the voices of students in traditional public schools be heard in this lawsuit,” said Matthew Cregor, Education Project Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice and one of the lead attorneys for the student intervenors.

 

“Traditional public school students – particularly those who are underserved by charter schools – suffer immense harm as more and more funds are diverted to charter schools.” He noted that earlier this year, Boston Public Schools announced that it expects to cut $50 million from its 2016-17 school year budget, citing shifts in enrollment as one of the key reasons for the shortfall.

 

“This diversion of funds is doubly harmful to the students of color, students with disabilities, and English language learners we represent,” stated Scott P. Lewis, partner at Anderson & Krieger LLP, which is representing the proposed intervenors pro bono. “These are the students who are disproportionately excluded from charter schools. Moreover, when funds are diverted from traditional public schools to charter schools, these same students experience devastating cuts to services they desperately need.” He cited the case of B.H., one of the would-be intervenors, an 8th grader with significant developmental disabilities, who attends Boston Public Schools but, because of inadequate funding, is being denied needed services.

 

“The NAACP is firmly committed to high quality, free, public schools for all,” said Juan Cofield, President of the New England Area Conference of the NAACP. “All available dollars for education should be used to improve public schools and close the education gap. Public policy which siphons funds from traditional public schools and expands a dual education system is not a constructive solution, and it will lead to the erosion of traditional public schools.” He noted that many charter schools are not welcoming environments for students of color, citing evidence of charter schools that suspend Black students at far higher rates than traditional public schools.

 

“Charter schools do not serve all students equally, and do a particularly poor job of enrolling and educating English language learners,” stated Roger Rice of Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy, another of the students’ counsel. “In 2014, charter schools enrolled English language learners (ELLs) at approximately half the rate of traditional public schools, and the number of ELLs with the lowest levels of English language proficiency is a small fraction of the few ELLs enrolled by charter schools. Charter schools drain funds from traditional public schools, but then fail to educate all our youth on an equal basis.”

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Massachusetts

California: The Emperor of Charter Schools Faces a Felony Charge

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
4

I earlier reported that Steve Van Zant, superintendent of a small district, had been charged with conflict of interest for helping districts authorize charters in other districts (which is legal under California law), then getting contracts with the charters for his private business.

 

Now, crack reporter Maureen Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports the story (reprinted in the Los Angeles Times):

 

By the time Steve Van Zant left the Mountain Empire Unified School District in 2013, he had overseen the authorization of more than a dozen charter schools to operate in other districts throughout San Diego County — with several going on to hire his education consulting firm.

 

All the while, Van Zant coached at least one other district on how to approve out-of-town charters, according to emails obtained by the San Diego Union-Tribune. As more districts approved far-flung charters, Van Zant’s EdHive consultant business took on some of the schools as clients.

 

The San Diego district attorney’s office arraigned Van Zant on Jan. 15 on a felony conflict-of-interest charge from an undisclosed incident in May 2010 while he was superintendent of Mountain Empire.

 

The district attorney’s office declined to disclose details of its investigation, and it is unclear whether the charge relates to his work with charter schools. According to the criminal complaint, Van Zant violated laws that prohibited him “from being financially interested in contracts made by him in his official capacity.”

 

The Union-Tribune has tracked a charter empire built by Van Zant by taking advantage of what some call a shortcoming in state law that gives districts a financial incentive to place charters in other school districts. By placing charters outside its boundaries, a district can raise new funds — up to 3 percent of a charter’s revenue — without any threat to enrollment or state attendance funds.

 

More than 80 out-of-district charters have been approved in San Diego County, the vast majority of which were authorized by small East County districts — several with help from Van Zant, who includes a list of charter clients on his LinkedIn professional network profile…

 

When Van Zant accepted the job in 2013 as superintendent of the Sausalito Marin City School District, he was positioned to devote even more time growing his consulting business. He would commute from his Mission Bay home for the three-day-a-week position in Northern California with a starting salary of $165,000 and still run EdHive, which recently opened an office in Symphony Towers in downtown San Diego…

 

 

California secretary of state documents show that Van Zant’s wife, interior designer Ingrid Van Zant, registered the corporation in 2011. Steve Van Zant listed himself as both president and vice president of EdHive in 2015 on financial disclosure forms filed with Marin County

.

After leaving Mountain Empire in the summer of 2013, Van Zant helped usher through another charter in the Pine Valley-based district.

 

You are a charter God. Like Matt Damon in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ – Former Alpine Superintendent Tom Pellegrino in an email to Van Zant
The former superintendent personally petitioned the Mountain Empire school board to authorize the County Collaborative Charter School. Van Zant would go on to serve as director, and he listed his EdHive consulting firm as the provider of back-office services in charter petition documents.

 

By soliciting business from the district so quickly after leaving office in Mountain Empire, Van Zant has raised questions about whether he violated the Political Reform Act, which calls for a one-year “cooling off” period before government officials can lobby their agencies — or do business with them — after leaving.

 

The County Collaborative charter enrolled 201 students in the 2014-15 school year, and lists Van Zant’s downtown San Diego EdHive office as the school’s address on a California Department of Education website. Van Zant is listed as the charter’s director, a position missing from financial disclosure documents filed in Marin after taking office in Sausalito.

 

 

 

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

Peter Greene on Jeb! Bush’s Education Plan

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
22

Jeb Bush hasn’t made much headway in the polls but he is hanging in there, the favorite of the GOP establishment and the best-funded.

 

He recently announced his plan for reforming American education, and it is a paean to school choice. He just doesn’t like public education, period.

 

Peter Greene has performed a public service for us by reviewing Jeb’s proposals. He does so in part 1 and part 2.

 

i will give you some pithy excerpts and encourage you to read the whole thing by yourself.

 

This is from part 1:

 

“For all the conservative love for choice and freedom, it never seems to include the choice and freedom to do things that conservatives believe are Very Wrong, or to say, “We will pick our own choices to choose from, thanks.” That’s in part because the very idea of school choice is fundamentally flawed.

 

“First, nobody wants choice. Rich kids don’t have an advantage because they have choice– they have an advantage because they have access to an excellent education. People want a good school. That’s it. If someone gets a restaurant meal that is undercooked and cold, they don’t say, “Bring me a dozen mediocre meals to chose from.” They want what they want, done right.

 

“Second, choice is not “budget neutral.” When facing a tight budget, no school district says, “No need to shut down any buildings. It wouldn’t save us any money.” You can’t operate several sets of schools (with several sets of administrators) for the cost of one. Anybody who tries to set up a choice system without a plan to fully fund it is smoking something.

 

“Third, choice as currently conceived, disenfranchises a huge part of the electorate and cuts social responsibility out of the picture. If you don’t have a child, you don’t have a say in how tax dollars are spent. Choicer “it’s the family’s choice” rhetoric only goes so far– nobody is seriously suggesting that vouchers be literal vouchers that students can use to go to school, buy a car, or take a vacation in Europe. Choice never seems to include “I choose no school at all.” Choicers haven’t suggested doing away with compulsory education, but they can’t admit that it’s because the students have a level of responsibility to the country that’s paying for their education, because that would mean admitting that families are not the only stakeholders in education, which would conflict with the “the money belongs to the family” theory.

 

“But even if we get past those, we arrive again at the conservative conundrum– if you allow freedom and choice, you have to accept that people may choose things you don’t like, including NOT having a bunch of choices. Conservatives– and Bush is no exception here– keep calling for a system of imposed choice, which is a big screaming oxymoron.”

 

This is from part 2:

 

Bush wants more money for more charter schools, although he reminds us that money is not the answer.

 

Greene goes through the various proposals and here is the bottom line:

 

“Bush is being direct and clear– he would like to get rid of traditional public education. He thinks schools still work like they did two generations ago (there is no excuse for this belief). And he likes blended learning and competency based education, which means he is destined to meet the same people who hammered him over Common Core, only they’ll be carrying different signs.

 

“Also, remember– it’s important to give parents and students a choice, as long as they choose the choices that Bush chooses for them. Under Bush, you can have lots of choices– except for a traditional public school.”

 

 

 

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Reform, School Choice, Vouchers

BREAKING: North Carolina May Turn Over Low-Performing Schools to For-Profit Charters

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
15

NC Policy Watch reports that legislation is advancing that would permit for-profit charter operators to take over the state’s lowest-performing schools, the great majority of them in low-income minority communities. The models for the takeover is the Tennessee Achievement School District, the Michigan Educational Achievement Authority, and the elimination of public schools in New Orleans. However, sponsors of the legislation say that the North Carolina would be the same only different. It would be done the North Carolina way.

 

N.C. Rep. Rob Bryan, the Republican from Mecklenburg County who chairs the committee and the leading proponent for achievement school districts in the legislature, said that the districts—pioneered, to mixed results in states like Louisiana, Michigan and Tennessee—could be phased into North Carolina as soon as the 2017-2018 academic year.

 

“We are neither Tennessee, nor are we New Orleans,” said Bryan. “But what I’m looking to do here is do what’s right for North Carolina.”

 

Bryan authored a much-discussed draft of legislation last year that would have funneled five of the state’s lowest-performing elementary schools into the state-controlled achievement districts as a pilot program, although the notion did not gain any significant traction during the General Assembly’s long budget debates last summer.

 

The draft Bryan unveiled Wednesday had few differences from last year’s prospective bill, potentially ceding the power to hire and fire teachers and administrators to private, for-profit charter leaders. Pilot schools would be placed into a special state-run district, with a superintendent chosen by the State Board of Education who would have the power to negotiate operation contracts with private companies, effectively seizing control from local school boards.

 

The charter operators would be expected to help turn around academic performance in the schools.

 

As N.C. Policy Watch reported last year, lobbying for the movement was financed by Oregon millionaire and conservative private school backer John Bryan (no relation to Rep. Rob Bryan).

 

One of the researchers at Vanderbilt who studied the Tennessee ASD model and found it ineffective was in town to speak to a public education group about his study, but the legislative committee did not invite him to address them about what his group learned.

 

The state superintendent said that the public schools should lead any turnaround effort; the Tennessee study from Vanderbilt showed that the iZone schools, created and led by the public schools, outperformed the ASD charter schools:

 

“I believe that the taxpayers of North Carolina would get a better return on their investments by going with a model that has proven positive results,” North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson told N.C. Policy Watch Tuesday.

 

To Atkinson, that means pursuing public school-led initiatives, offering low-performing schools greater support, access to preschool programs and more flexible calendar years.

 

As Atkinson points out, students in low-performing schools can lose two to three months of reading development during traditional schools’ summer break.

 

“We have to address these root causes or we’ll continue to have these conversations 10 years from now,” said Atkinson.

 

And then there was a startling statement, startling because it was plain common sense, which has been in rare supply since 2010 in North Carolina:

 

Meanwhile, Rep. Ed Hanes Jr., a Democrat from Forsyth County, blasted state officials during Wednesday’s committee meeting for failing to do enough to address the societal and economic causes of low-performing schools.

 

As Barbour pointed out Wednesday, low-performing schools in the state are disproportionately serving low-income and minority children.

 

“It sounds like a lot of talk,” said Hanes. “It sounds like we don’t really dig into what the real issues are. … And it sounds to me like we really don’t care a whole lot about poor people.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Tennessee

Jersey Jazzman Compares the Differences in Newark between Charter Schools and Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
4

Jersey Jazzman gets irked by those who boast about the superior results of charter schools in Newark. He wrote a critical review of Dale Russakoff’s book The Prize, because she ignored basic data about charter schools and she wrote that the charter schools operated with a leaner administration and more services. Not true, says JJ, who in his real life is a teacher and a graduate student at Rutgers University named Mark Weber.

 

In this post, JJ lays out in easily comprehensible graphs, using state data, what the real comparisons are.

 

First, he compares the results of a highly-touted charter school in Newark to a suburban public school and shows that the charter school lags. But wait, you think, that’s not a fair comparison, and that is his point.

 

I don’t point this out to suggest either that Montclair’s schools are superior, or that TEAM/KIPP’s schools are inferior. Without adequately controlling for at least the observed variations in each district’s populations (and acknowledging that there are likely many unobserved variations), any comparison between the two systems is utterly pointless. My point here is that facile, a-contextual, cherry-picked factoids like these are completely meaningless, and that people who bring them up time and again show themselves to be fatuous. 

 

Using state data, he demonstrates that Newark public schools spend more on instruction than the city’s charter schools; that NPS spends far more on student support services — guidance counselors, nurses, librarians, psychologists — than the charters; that NPS spends more on support personnel than charters; that NPS has lower administrative costs than ANY charter in Newark; that the costs of administrative salaries is lower in Newark public schools than most Newark charters.

 

Jersey Jazzman has a refreshing impatience with false claims. How long can “reformers” get by on propaganda?

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New Jersey, Privatization

Here Are All the Links on ESSA Series: Ask Your Own Questions

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
3

The series about the new Every Student Succeeds Act is concluded. I want to thank Senator Lamar Alexander and his staff, especially David P. Cleary, chief of staff, for responding to my questions. I know that readers have additional questions or want clarifications of some of the statements. The new law is the result of negotiations between the two parties. Questions will inevitably arise as the new law is implemented. Meanwhile, feel free to submit your questions and you can be sure that Senator Alexander’s staff will answer them as best they can. Let me add that there are things in this law I like, and things I don’t like. I will spell those out in a separate post.

 

Here are the links to each of the posts written by Senator Lamar Alexander’s staff.

1. ESSA and Testing

2. ESSA and Teacher Evaluation

3. ESSA and the Bottom 5% of Schools

4. ESSA and Opt Outs

5. ESSA and Special Education

6. ESSA and Teacher Education

7. ESSA and Charter Schools

8. ESSA and the Federal Role

9. ESSA and Common Core

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Privatization, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Dayton, Ohio: Most Charters Fail to Teach K-3 Reading

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2016 //
10

Most Dayton charter schools received an F grade from the state of Ohio for failing to teach children in grades K-3 to read.

 

Most local charter schools got F’s in K-3 Literacy on the recently released state report card, failing to help struggling kindergarten through third-grade readers make adequate improvement.

 

Of the 15 Montgomery County charter schools that were graded in K-3 Literacy improvement, 13 received F’s. Charter schools accounted for eight of the 10 worst K-3 Literacy improvement scores in the county (of 69 graded schools), with two Dayton Public Schools also on that list.

 

State Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, wondered whether smaller charter schools are making the changes required by the state’s new K-3 requirements, as well as larger public districts that have more infrastructure. She also advised patience with any new measure.

 

“K-3 Literacy is a new metric, and I think the jury is still out on exactly what it is telling us,” said Lehner, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “But this is troublesome. We’ll have to look at this much closer, and hear from the charters why they think we’re seeing this.”

 

The two top scoring charters managed to teach half their students to read.

 

While top charters scored better than DPS, the worst charters scored worse than the public district. Only two of Dayton Public’s 19 graded schools scored below 15 percent on the K-3 Literacy measure, while more than half of charters (eight) scored that poorly. The only graded Greene County charter, Summit Academy, also received an F.

 

Meanwhile Governor John Kasich–and every other Republican candidate– is in New Hampshire and Iowa, touting the success of charter schools. When will our elected officials be honest and admit that there is no secret recipe in charter schools? In Ohio, public schools outperform charter schools, yet state officials are obsessed with charters, charters, charters.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Ohio

Latest from Seattle: Why Gates Will Lose

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2016 //
6

This is a comment by a reader in Seattle who read the post about the State Senate’s 27-20 vote to offer public funding to charter schools, after the state’s highest court ruled that charters are not public schools. This is Bill Gates’ highest priority, ignoring a court decision to fund the schools equitably, which the legislature has not done.

 

 

“Before anyone decides it’s time to jump off Galloping Gertie, (which is really a lovely bridge here in my town) we can take heart that: 1) Republicans may have the state Senate but they don’t have the House. Won’t pass there and I suspect Chairman of the House, Frank Chopp, won’t let any similar legislation see the light of day on the floor. 2) Our Guv. ain’t gonna sign any charter legislation. No. Way. So the whole thing is an optics play going nowhere. Billy will throw more money, perhaps big, big, money at future Supreme Court races but right now Billy doesn’t have the votes there either. King County Superior Court Judge William Downing just ruled that Initiative 1366, another Tim Eyeman anti-tax measure, was unconstitutional and void. Schadenfreude Alert! Congratulations, Tim, on winning the quadfecta of unconstitutionality! Whee! Love ya Judge Downing!

 

 

“We’ve got some firewalls. We can be assured that all future district legislative seats will be big $$ races. I’m working with a small funding group building the bench on the hyperlocal level…county, city and school board races. This is happening in several places in Western Washington. Doing what we can..working the refs when we can. Some stealth, some bigger efforts. Lots of different players playing to keep the charter gazillionaires on the outside. It’s been self-evident we wouldn’t get the McCleary decision funded when our Guv. didn’t call legislators back to a special session last summer. As they say in the south, “Oh honey, bless your heart!” November’s election might shift things a bit…we’ll have to see.

 

 

“Gov. Jay Inslee will take the Guv’s mansion in the re-election. His opponent…who? Some guy named Bill Bryant, who has *no* name recognition outside of King County, home of the City of Seattle. Me to future doorbeller, “What did you say your name was? Aaand..who are you with? Wait, who is your candidate again? Hmmm…let me Bing that.” Bwaahahaha! Yeah, zilch. Not enough Republicans statewide to counter three counties that dominate elections west of the Cascade range.

 

 

“The bottom line is our State Constitution tells us funding K-12 public education is a paramount duty and the Supremes ruled against Billy’s charter initiative. They still don’t have a foothold anywhere in the state to steal a dime of public money and the opt-out movement is gonna show how much it’s grown in a couple of weeks. We’re ready to expose any OSPI candidate that’s a charter shill. Anyhoo…we’re ground zero and we hope you’ll follow our little state funding drama. Defense is strong….parents and families are fighting. Think rebel alliance. Washington State progressives and many conservatives who support public schools have some serious juice out here. We’re chipping away at it. Stay tuned. Hey Billy! I hope you like reading Diane’s comment section! We love ya Diane. Thank you for helping us keep at it. Dog. Bone. etc.”

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

You Can Enter Seattle Parents’ Coloring Book Contest

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2016 //
10

Seattle education activists are holding a contest and you can enter! 📚
It is a coloring contest.
It is about a very important court decision, the McCleary decision, in which the state’s highest court ordered the legislature to fully fund the public schools attended by 1,070,000 children. The legislature hasn’t acted.

 

However the state senate passed a bill to help Bill Gates’ charter schools, attended by about 800-900 children. He loves those charters so much he should pay for them and let the legislature do their duty to the state’s children.

http://www.king5.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/23/parents-raise-awareness-education-funding-through-coloring-contest/79216580/
More at https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-color-of-money-mccleary-crime-scene-coloring-contest/.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform
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