Archives for category: Charter Schools
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Chiara: Do Reformers Know that Public Schools Exist?

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2016 //
1

Our reader Chiara has often observed that when the charter industry decided to expand in a state or district, the subject of charters dominates public discourse. Even though only 5% of a state’s children are enrolled in charters, the legislature and the media become obsessed with charters. The 95% of children enrolled in public schools disappear. It is as though public schools no longer exist.

In the corporate reform echo chamber, she notes, public schools do not exist, except as places for testing,’z

She wrote recently:

“In “today in the ed reform echo chamber” news, here’s The 74:

Home

“Charters, charter politics, teacher union politics and testing.

“The only time actual, existing public schools are even included is when they’re promoting testing public school students.

“The consistent omission of anything positive or even substantive regarding public schools except for 1. denigration of unions or 2. promotion of testing is really pretty remarkable when you think about it, and it’s like that on all the ed reform sites.

“If you arrived from another country and read only ed reform sites you would believe all US schools are charter schools and the number one priority of US lawmakers is testing.

“It would be okay if this were just a bunch of lobbyists or some fringe political group, but ed reformers dominate DC and most state governments. This echo chamber IS the status quo.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Privatization

Tampa Bay Times: Charter Schools Rip Off Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2016 //
5

The Tampa Bay Times published an editorial expressing their disgust with the wheeling and dealing of charter school operators. This suggests an awakening. Enough is enough. Thanks to Jeb Bush, Florida is one of the charter-friendliest states in the nation. It has more than 600 charters. They open and close like day-lilies.

 

The editorial board writes:

 

Florida has invested heavily in privately run charter schools for years, and the payoff for taxpayers has been uneven at best. While some successful charter schools fill particular needs in local communities, too many have failed and research shows they have not outperformed traditional public schools in the state. Taxpayers also have lost millions in construction costs and other capital investments when charter schools have closed, and state lawmakers should revisit the oversight and funding for these schools.

 
The state has lost as much as $70 million in money for construction, rent and other costs when charter schools have closed over the last 15 years, a recent Associated Press analysis found. In Broward County, 19 now-closed charter schools received $16.5 million. In Hillsborough County, 17 now-closed charter schools received more than $5.4 million. In Pasco County, three now-closed charter schools received more than $900,000, and in Pinellas County three received almost $550,000. In Miami-Dade County, the Liberty City Charter that Jeb Bush helped establish before he ran for governor in 1998 received more than $1 million in capital money from the state before it closed with financial problems. Why should taxpayers be shouldering such financial risk and eating these losses for privately run schools?

 

 

It would be one thing if traditional public schools were flush with cash with no need for new construction or maintenance. In fact, the state’s 67 school districts received no new construction money for three years before finally dividing a modest $50 million last year (a handful of rural counties got another $59.7 million). Those facilities are used by more than 2.7 million students, yet far fewer charter schools that served about 230,000 students split $75 million. This year traditional schools and charter schools each received $50 million, and Gov. Rick Scott recommends public schools and charter schools each get $75 million for construction and maintenance for 2016-17. But a 50-50 split of the money is hardly fair. Pinellas County schools alone have more than $400 million in construction and capital needs over the next five years, yet the district has received just $8.1 million in construction and maintenance money from the state over the last five years.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Florida, Hoax

Bernie Sanders: I Oppose Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
152

At a meeting in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders said the following:

 

“I’m not in favor of privately run charter schools. If we are going to have a strong democracy and be competitive globally, we need the best educated people in the world. I believe in public education; I went to public schools my whole life, so I think rather than give tax breaks to billionaires, I think we invest in teachers and we invest in public education. I really do.” – Bernie Sanders (Quote begins at 1:48:32)

 

That is: go to one hour and forty-eight minutes on the video to hear his quote.

 

Will Hillary Clinton pledge to oppose the privatization and destruction of our nation’s public schools?

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Politics, Privatization

BREAKING NEWS: Rahm Appoints Supporter of Charters and TFA to School Board

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
27

This just in from the Chicago Teachers Union. With a teachers’ strike looming, Mayor Emanuel decided to stick his thumb in the CTU’s eye.

 

 

STATEMENT

IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ronnie Reese

January 6, 2016 312-329-6235
Illinois Charter School Commissioner Appointed to Fill Seat on Chicago Board of Education
CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union finds it unfortunate that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has chosen to replace one of the most independent voices on his appointed Chicago Board of Education with Jaime Guzman, an Illinois Charter School Commissioner, and someone who led the Office of New Schools for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) at a time when hundreds of students had their education disrupted by school closures and turnarounds orchestrated by his department. Additionally, Guzman is an alumnus of Teach for America, an organization that has contributed to the massive loss of Black teachers and experienced educators both in Chicago and nationwide.

 

With the mayor’s selection of Guzman, more than half of the Board of Ed’s members are now unabashed charter supporters. Considering that charter schools only serve 15 percent of CPS students while taking in 18 percent of the district school-based funds—not to mention the additional funding and support received from CPS’ Central Office—it is clear that the mayor and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool intend to greatly expand charter schools in Chicago. The public, on the other hand, has shown time and time again that it chooses publicly run neighborhood schools over privately run charters.

 

“Through overwhelming voter support for an elected school board, it’s clear that the public wants a democratic board of education that represents the diverse interests of students and parents across the city,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “While Mr. Guzman does have teaching experience, which is a rarity for members of the mayor’s handpicked Board, our students and their families do not need another pro-charter, politically connected rubber stamp who will continue the decimation of our neighborhood schools through charter expansion.”

 

###

E

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Education Reform

Breaking News: Arizona Governor Appoints Libertarian to Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
9

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute to the Arizona Supreme Court. Ducey bypassed many experienced jurists by choosing Bolick.

 

Bolick has litigated many cases to fight government regulation of all kinds. He strongly supports vouchers and charters. He defended vouchers in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Vouchers

Nebraska: Say NO to Charters, Again

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
9

Nebraska is a remarkable state. It is one of the few states in the nation that has not authorized charter schools. All of its publicly funded schools are public schools. Yet now there is a renewed push by far-right extremists to introduce charter legislation. This is a terrible idea.

 

Charters are based on false promises. They do not “perform” better than public schools.

 

Charters divide communities and erode public support for public education.

 

Nevada doesn’t need charters. It is one of the top-performing states in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. On the latest NAEP, Nebraska came in 9th in the nation in fourth grade math, 12th in the nation in eighth grade math, and 11th in the nation in reading in both 4th and 8th grades. Nebraska had higher scores on NAEP than all but one of the 18 states that won Race to the Top funding (Massachusetts).

 

The low-performing schools in Nebraska are the schools with the poorest children. Please, Nebraskans, direct your reforms at root causes and do not destroy your state’s effective public schools.

 

Don’t be lemmings. Stay independent from the crowd that is rushing to privatize and destroy your treasured public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Nebraska, Resistance

Success Academy “Got to Go” Principal Takes a Leave

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2016 //
20

The New York Times reports today that the charter school principal in New York City who created a list of students who had to be removed from the school (the “got to go” list) has taken a leave of absence.

 

The school is part of the high-performing Success Academy charter chain, which has often been accused of excluding or removing students who might get low test scores.

 

The acting principal will be the school’s fourth principal since it opened in 2013.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy

Wisconsin: Right-Wing Bradley Foundation Spent $108 Million to Privatize Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2016 //
7

A major new report from the progressive One Wisconsin Institute finds that the right-wing Bradley Foundation spent more than $108 million, working with 130 partner groups, to privatize public schools in Wisconsin between 2005 and 2014. During the same period, the state’s public schools experienced dramatic budget cuts.

 

Key findings of the updated “P Is For Payoff” report include:

 

 

Bradley Foundation head Michael Grebe, a political insider who chaired Gov. Walker’s presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, continues to orchestrate a massive propaganda campaign to advance the privatization of public education;

 
An analysis of IRS Form 990 records and Bradley Foundation reports reveals over 130 organizations supportive of their education privatization agenda and working to advance their cause have received over $108 million from 2005 through 2014;

 
Bradley’s tactics have continued to evolve, now featuring litigation to advance their privatization agenda and intimidate opponents. Leading the effort is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty which since its inception in 2011 has been larded with over $2 million from Bradley;

 
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the voucher program will cost Wisconsin taxpayers over $1.1 billion from 2011 through the end of the 2015–17 budget cycle. Meanwhile, a new report found that Wisconsin schools have suffered the 4th biggest cuts in in the nation through 2014.

 

The Bradley Foundation is one of the nation’s most active reform organizations. It hopes to reform public education out of existence. Watch how skillfully the Bradley Foundation followed the usual reformer script:

 

Original research by One Wisconsin Institute in 2013 first exposed the Bradley Foundation as a leading player in the campaign to gut public education and promote the unaccountable, radical privatization of K-12 education. The Milwaukee-based group spent millions to support organizations, think tanks, journalists and right-wing academics. They engaged in a campaign that manufactured a crisis, singled out their enemies, generated a cure, justified their scheme with pseudo-science, broadcast their message through the media, helped elect politicians to advance their agenda and kept them in line with high-powered lobbyists and well-funded pressure campaigns. [Emphasis added by me.]

 

Ross concluded, “Wisconsin families and public schools are left paying the price as billions of dollars that could have been used for public education are siphoned off for the Bradley Foundation’s ideologically driven experiment. Until a majority of policy makers are willing to stand up to the Bradley Foundation’s millions, Wisconsin’s tradition of great public schools will remain under assault.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers, Wisconsin

EduShyster: Why Charter Schools Are the New Subprime Mortgages

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2016 //
27

EduShyster has a fascinating and important interview with Preston Green, the John and Carla Klein Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, who explains why charter schools are the new subprime mortgages. Green says he used to be a strong charter supporter, but he has become wary because of the excesses of deregulation. He predicts that just as the subprime mortgage bubble burst, the same is likely to happen to the charter school bubble. Just like subprime mortgages, charters are expanding rapidly without oversight. Promoters of charters, often with the best of intentions, seek multiple authorizers so that oversight is slack. Parents in urban communities line up on the hope that they will get better education, but they often (usually?) don’t.

 

Green says:

 

Promoters of charter school expansion are calling for an increase in independent authorizers, such as nonprofits and universities. Supporters of charter school expansion believe that multiple authorizers will issue more charters, in part, because they are less hostile to charter schools than school districts. However, our research suggests another reason that multiple authorizers result in more charter schools: multiple authorizers are like mortgage originators with no skin in the game. In other words, these authorizers don’t assume the risk of charter school failure. That means that if something happens with the charter school, the authorizers don’t have to clean up the mess. Multiple authorizers may also weaken screening by giving charter schools the chance to find authorizers who *won’t ask questions.* In fact, CREDO has found that states with multiple authorizers experienced significantly lower academic growth. CREDO suggested that this finding might be due to the possibility that multiple authorizers gave charter schools the chance to shop around to find authorizers who wouldn’t provide rigorous oversight….

 

 

Where I see this playing out is that if you have too many charters or options that aren’t public having a negative impact on the education system as a whole, you may start seeing challenges in these communities saying that the state is failing to provide children with a system of public education, or that the options provided aren’t of sufficient quality to satisfy the state’s obligation to provide a public education. The assumption is that if kids fail to get an education in a charter school they can return to the traditional system. But what happens if you don’t have that option? You may soon see that develop in all of these urban settings. The really scary scenario that I could see happening is that you end up with all of these options that aren’t traditional public schools with insufficient oversight by the authorizers and no real pressure to get these schools to perform well….

 

If we’re going to have multiple authorizers, we have to impose standards to ensure that they do a good job, because without those standards there is really no incentive for them to ensure that these schools are operating in an acceptable manner. I should also mention putting sanctions in place to prevent the really squirrely practice of *authorizer hopping,* where schools are closed by one authorizer and then find another authorizer, which has happened quite a bit in places where oversight has been really weak, like Ohio. Further, authorizers should guard against predatory chartering practices, including fining students for discipline violations.

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

With Chicago in Turmoil, Rahm’s School Board Wants To Expand Charters

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2016 //
9

Despite declining enrollments, despite the closing of 50 public schools, the Chicago Public Schools board (hand-picked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel) is seeking to expand the number of charter schools. The great advantage of charters, from the Mayor’s point of view, is that they are mostly non-union. So think of it as payback to the Chicago Teachers Union for its insistence on adequate resources for the public schools.

 

Despite declining student enrollment and dozens of dramatically under-enrolled schools, Chicago is seeking potential new charter schools for the city.

 

 

In a Request for Proposals issued Wednesday, CPS says it’s looking for dual language schools, “Next Generation” schools that would blend technology and traditional teaching, and—in a first—it wants a “trauma-informed school,” where staff would get training to support students with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or exposure to trauma.

 

 

The district is prepared to give charters that already run schools approval for up to four additional campuses. And it’s poised to grant approvals now for campuses that wouldn’t open for several years, to allow more time for planning a school’s opening, the district says in a press release.

 

 

In recent years, the district had named Neighborhood Advisory Councils where community members could give input into charter proposals. Those are now scrapped, saving roughly $170,000, CPS says. Instead, charter schools themselves will “directly engage residents in obtaining the support of their desired school community,” according to the release.

 
“It looks like they’re making it even less democratic,” said Wendy Katten, director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, which has had members serve on the advisory councils.

 

 

Katten says many considered the NACs “flawed” because CPS seemed frequently to ignore the advice of the councils, but “at least it was an opportunity to look at the proposal, to really scrutinize it as a community. To take (that) away—and to have the charter operators do the community engagement—that’s even more of a sham than what currently has existed. The real question is, our city needs a massive debate about opening any kind of new schools in a city that has just hemorrhaged students,” said Katten.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions
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