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Shanker Institute: Race, Discipline, and Eva Moskowitz’s Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2015 //
22

Leo Casey, executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute, notes that numerous authorities warn about the adverse effects of suspending students from school. He notes that Eva Moskowitz, by contrast, believes that suspending students teaches them important lessons and makes it less likely that they will need to be suspended in the future. She belittles the New York City public schools for reducing suspensions.

Casey compares the suspensions that Success Academy charter schools reported to the U.S. Department of Education to the suspensions that SA reported to the New York State Department of Education and finds that the reported rates are different.

Here is the executive summary of the Shanker Institute report:

Success Academy Charter School CEO Eva Moskowitz has taken up the issue of school discipline recently, defending the practices in her own schools and criticizing the efforts to reform student discipline in the New York City public schools. A close inspection of available data shows that: first, Success Academy has misrepresented its suspensions to the U.S. Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, reporting only two suspensions while reporting hundreds of suspensions to the New York State Education Department; second, that when students of the same age groups are compared, Success Academy charter schools suspend their students at roughly seven times the rate of New York City public schools; and third, that the suspended students are overwhelmingly African American and Latino. Moskowitz’s attacks on New York City public schools reform efforts is designed as a shot across the bow of the U.S. Education Department and U.S. Justice Department, which has advised that excessive suspensions of students of color is a violation of U.S. civil rights law.

Moskowitz defends suspensions as a valid disciplinary tool and mocks the public schools for minimizing suspensions:

The New York City public school policies that Moskowitz derides are part of a national reform effort, inspired by a body of research showing that overly punitive disciplinary policies are ineffective and discriminatory. Based on this research evidence, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and School Discipline Consensus Project of the Council of State Governments have all gone on record on the harmful effects of employing such policies. The U.S. Education Department, the U.S. Justice Department, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, consortia of researchers, national foundations, and the Dignity in Schools advocacy coalition have all examined the state of student discipline in America’s schools in light of this research.1

Their findings? Suspensions and expulsions, the most severe forms of school discipline, are being used excessively in American schools, often for such minor infractions such as “talking back” or being out of uniform. Further, these severe punishments are being applied disproportionality to students of color, especially African-American and Latino boys, students with disabilities and LGBT youth.

As a result of these data, the U.S. Education Department and U.S. Justice Department issued guidance to schools, based on their finding that discriminatory uses of suspensions and expulsions were in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since this guidance came from the federal agencies that are charged with the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, it added the force of the law to the powerful moral arguments for addressing the problem of discriminatory discipline. School districts and schools, public and charter, took notice. The more progressive minded, such as the new de Blasio administration of the New York City Department of Education, began to reform their disciplinary practices in accord with these regulations. As a consequence, the suspensions and expulsions from New York City’s public schools have been dramatically reduced.

It will be interesting to see if the new Secretary of Education John King, himself a leader in the “no-excuses” charter movement, will require Success Academy charters to abide by Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Harlem Success Academy

BREAKING: CMD Report Reveals Charter School Diversion of Federal Funds and Abuses

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2015 //
51

Center for Media and Democracy federal charter grant report RELEASED TODAY

http://www.prwatch.org/charter-school-black-hole

“Charter School Black Hole” – CMD Special Investigation Reveals Huge Info Gap on Charter Spending

Madison, WI (CMD) – Today the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is releasing a special report on its year-long investigation into charter schools spending in the United States. You can access the full report “Charter School Black Hole” here.

CMD, a national investigative group that conducts in-depth investigations into the influence of corporations, trade groups, and PR firms on media and democracy, found that the public does not have ready access to key information about how their federal and state taxes are being spent to fuel the charter school industry since charters began almost 25 years ago.

Indeed, no one even knew how much the federal government had spent on its program designed to boost the charter sector. So CMD reviewed more than two decades of federal authorizations and appropriations to calculate the sum, which is now more than $3.7 billion—as noted in this new report. CMD also found that the federal government was not providing the public with a list of all the charter schools that received federal tax monies and how much.

CMD also found that many states have not provided the public with ready information about the amounts of federal funding each charter has received under the federal “Charter School Program” (CSP) for state education agencies (SEAs), and that most states have not provided the public with information about the amounts in state and federal tax dollars that have been diverted to charters rather than spent strengthening traditional public schools.

What is even more troubling is how difficult it is to find essential information on how some charters have spent federal and state tax dollars, even as governments continue to increase funding for charters while slashing funds for traditional public schools. Unlike truly public schools that have to account for prospective and past spending in public budgets provided to democratically elected school boards, charter spending of tax monies is too often a black hole.

This is the largely due to the way the charter industry has been built by proponents, favoring “flexibility” over rules. That flexibility has allowed an epidemic of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that would not be tolerated in public schools. Charters are often policed—if they are really policed at all—by charter proponents, both within government agencies and within private entities tasked with oversight as “authorizers” of charters.

In this investigation, CMD pursued numerous open records requests under federal or state law about how much federal CSP money had been given to charters and how that money was spent in 12 states. As a result, CMD found that public information about funds received and spent by charters is severely lacking. It also documented how little is known about spending by closed charters, and identified “ghost” schools, where federal grants were awarded to charters that never opened.

“The bottom-line is taxpayers know far too little about how much their federal tax dollars are being used to fund charters and there is far too little information provided by states about how tax monies are being spent by charters or by for-profit firms they are tied to,” said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of CMD. “Neither the federal government nor the states require charters to publish that information on their websites and neither the federal or state governments we examined publish that information themselves. Even aside from serious questions about academic performance by charters—especially online charters—the lack of real accountability remains a real problem for kids and families, as more and more people and corporations have sought to get a piece of pie, a revenue stream from taxpayer money, to operate or assist charters.”

Below are a few key findings from the report:

Michigan: In 2011 and 2012, $3.7 million in federal taxpayer money was awarded to 25 Michigan “ghost” schools that never even opened to students. The organizations behind these schools received at least $1.7 million, according to the state expenditure database. WestEd—a private company that contracts with the U.S. Department of Education to monitor how states comply with federal regulations—flagged this as a potential problem, but the agency did little to address the problem. After verbal assurances that this would not happen again, the federal agency assured the Michigan Department of Education “that there will not be any additional follow-up.”

Ohio: Out of the 88 schools created by planning and implementation grants under CSP between 2008 and 2013, at least 15 closed within a few years; a further seven schools never even opened. These charters received more than $4 million in federal taxpayer money. Despite this track record, Ohio landed the biggest one-year grant by far in the 2015 competition for federal funding: $32.6 million. CMD can reveal that part of the reason Ohio won the grant was a glowing endorsement from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA)—an organization that had previously referred to the charter system in Ohio as “broken.” But NACSA was more than willing to take that back as long as the Ohio Department of Education signed a $40,000-a-year deal. The deal was brokered by former NACSA senior executive and lobbyist David Hansen only days before he resigned as head of the Ohio Office of Quality School Choice amid accusations of having manipulated charter school performance data.

California: More than $4.7 million in federal taxpayer money was handed out to create charter schools that subsequently closed within a few years. CMD’s investigation found that California’s record on charters is marked by continued failures, including squandering of taxpayer money, along with deference to unaccountable authorizers and resistance to federal efforts to mandate better state oversight.

Wisconsin: More than $2.5 million in CSP money was used to create charter schools that shuttered shortly thereafter. In addition to the school closings, at least one of the schools created by federal charter school money was a former religious school that has since “converted” to charter status so as to be eligible for funding, an audit obtained by CMD shows. There appears to have been no regular evaluations about whether such conversions in Wisconsin–and also Texas–affect the content of the instruction or not.

Indiana: At least $2.2 million was awarded to charters that either closed or never opened. In addition, emails obtained by CMD through a public records request to Gov. Pence’s office found troubling examples of how the private charter sector, notably for-profit chain Charter Schools USA, influences on policy-making.

New York State: CMD discovered that almost every single application for the New York subgrants was written by the same multi-million-dollar charter consultancy firm: Charter School Business Management. The nature of CSP funding competition means that charter schools relying on private contractors for services, such as grant-writing and budgeting, can gain a competitive edge.

Colorado: State leadership responsible for managing the federal charter school grants fought legislation that would have advanced charter school oversight and accountability, emails obtained by CMD show.

The report also reviews federal charter spending in Arizona, District of Columbia, Florida, Texas and Utah. Read the full report here. http://www.prwatch.org/files/new_charter_school_black_hole_report_oct_21_2015.pdf

Open the full report for a complete state-by-state list of charter schools that were created by CSP SEA seed money in the 2010-2015 grant cycle. Dozens of these “schools” never opened to students in the first place, and many of the schools that did open have since closed. For an updated tally of the $3.7 billion disbursed under the CSP umbrella since the inception of the program, click here. Click here for emails from Ohio’s Office of Quality School Choice, detailing the role NACSA and David Hansen, who resigned in July amid accusations of having manipulated data on charter school “success,” played in securing the biggest federal charter grant in 2015. –

See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/charter-school-black-hole#sthash.BG877tYw.dpuf

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

Gene Glass: “Outrageous” Class Rolls at Virtual Schools

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2015 //
6

Renowned researcher Gene Glass reports that teachers at some virtual charter schools are responsible for more than 1,000 students at a time. 

I’m willing to bet that the school in question operates for profit. 

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Education Reform

Politico.Com: Look Deeper Before You Opine

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2015 //
17

Politico.com posted about the fight over vouchers in D.C. and about the charter teachers’ rally for “equality” (meaning more charter schools in New York City):

OUTSIZED FIGHT OVER D.C. VOUCHERS : Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner has one swan song that’s guaranteed to be a hit among even his most bitter Republican critics: picking a fight with the president over private school vouchers. The House is expected to pass a bill extending the life of Washington’s school voucher program today, setting up an outsized fight with the White House over a small, $45 million program that allows students from low-income families in the nation’s capital to attend private schools on the taxpayer dime. Maggie Severns has the story: http://politico.pro/1LJCos7.

– School vouchers have united even the angriest factions of the GOP : The day after Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the race for speaker and the chamber descended deeper into turmoil, some of Boehner’s fiercest critics gathered to wax poetic about vouchers during a markup. Democrats have criticized the program as ineffective and harmful to public schools – and an ironic Republican cause celebre given the GOP’s frequent calls for transferring more power to states.

– The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program allocates funds directly from Congress for D.C. students to use at a private school of their choice. About 6,200 students have used the vouchers over the last 10 years, and the average household income of enrolled students is about $20,575. The fight over Washington’s vouchers, which has raged for more than a decade and even earned a plot line on the television show “The West Wing,” is a proxy for lawmakers debating if – and when – the government should pour resources into helping poor kids escape failing public schools.

– The White House strongly opposes the bill, but didn’t say whether President Obama would veto it: http://politico.pro/1M6O5eu….

– And speaking of school choice: More than 1,500 New York City teachers will rally in Manhattan this afternoon to decry Mayor Bill de Blasio and his policies that ignore “the depth of inequality in the classroom while opposing charter schools – some of the only city schools that have narrowed the achievement gap,” according to the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools. The group and other advocates have held a number of similar rallies over the last year.

Now, here are the nits I have to pick. Paragraph 3 describes vouchers in GOP rhetoric as a way for “the government [to]…pour resources into helping poor kids escape failing schools.” Not a word about the fact that multiple evaluations by a researcher from the Walton-funded Department of Educational Reform at the University of Arkansas has never found any achievement gains in voucher schools in D.C. (or anywhere else) for “poor kids” trying “to escape failing public schools.” The studies show no achievement gains but a higher graduation rate, which may reflect the huge attrition rate of these schools. In Milwaukee, for example, nearly half the students who started in a voucher school left before high school graduation.

D.C., like Milwaukee, now has three publicly funded sector: the shrinking public schools, the charters, and the voucher schools. Milwaukee, having had this tri-part division of public funding for more than 20 years, is one of the nation’s lowest performing school districts on the Urban NAEP. Writers for Politico.com should know this.

In addition, Politico.com refers to a “rally” by 1,500 teachers, without mentioning that they are teachers in charter schools (most of whom will be gone within 2-3 years due to teacher churn in NYC charters) and does not explain who the “Families for Excellent Schools” are. These are not poor black and brown families seeking more charter schools. FES consists of a handful of billiionaires, the same hedge fund managers who raised millions of dollars in a few minutes to attack de Blasio with a barrage of TV commercials in 2014 when he gave Eva Moskowitz only 8 of the 11 new charters she wanted, the same hedge fund managers who gave some $800,000 to Governor Cuomo to turn him into a charter school champion.

Please guys, some in-depth reporting is needed here, as opposed to quoting press releases.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Privatization, Vouchers

Editorial in Murdoch’s New York Post Promoting Charters

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
32

I hesitate to post this editorial because it is such flimsy propaganda.

Two weeks ago, the charters in New York City held a mass rally of parents and students to demand more charters for their corporate boards. Now, teachers from the charter schools will hold their own rally. Will they dare to mention the high churn of charter teachers? Surely no one will acknowledge, as the New York Post does not, that the turnover rate of charter teachers is staggeringly high. Will they rally for a 40-hour work week? Not likely, since they have no union. They rally now, but in two-three years,  most will be gone.

Categories Charter Schools

Mike Klonsky: Getting Ready for Another Duncan Miracle

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
9

Mike Klonsky notes that Arne Duncan is paving the way for his return to Chicago by ladling out millions to charter schools. 
Remember when Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools in one day because they were under enrolled?  It turns out that charter schools are also under enrolled, but that’s no reason to stop opening more of them!

“Just as Arne Duncan was announcing his retirement and his plans to return to Chicago to “spend more time with his family,” he dropped another $8M in fed dollars on pal Mike Milkie’s Noble charter school chain. This on top of another $42.2M coming to IL with the lion’s share going to Noble and Lawndale Educational and Regional Network.
“Milkie says Noble (which I lovingly call the Billionaires; Charter Network) needs the money in order to open 8 new schools to meet the growing demand and shorten its “waitlist.” But the Raise Your Hand parents group just made a few phone calls and found out that at least 5 Noble schools can’t fill the seats they have. They wonder, “Where’s the waitlist?”
“RYH asks some great questions:
‘Why is the charter community rallying for more schools when there are plenty of openings in existing charter schools across Chicago, including Noble, and CPS’ enrollment has been declining for years, down roughly 14,000 students just since 2012? RYH found last year that there are over 12,000 open seats in charters across Chicago. How and why are taxpayers expected to fund eight new schools when there are plenty of open seats in Noble schools right now?'”

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform

Peter Greene on Eva’s Demand for an Apology

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
30

I get the impression, reading Peter Greene’s latest post, that he doesn’t think Eva Moskowitz deserves an apology from John Merrow or PBS.

He says she has created an empire of her own, and she can’t brook any criticism.

Success Academy works for some kids, but not for all kids. That is, if you think that the ultimate measure of a school is test scores, she has them. Public schools are supposed to work for all kids. Granted, there are magnet schools and special schools, but there are supposed to be public schools where no one is turned away, no one is counseled out.

Eva says that the little boy–age 5 or 6–was a very bad behavior problem. Peter–and many readers of this blog–think that he couldn’t handle the pressure.

Peter finds documentation for everything John Merrow said about attrition rates.

Moskowitz also demands a retraction for the reporting of a high attrition rate, claiming, “Our attrition rate is actually lower than the average for either district or charter schools.” This is an exceptionally ballsy claim. You can look at these charts from Democracy Builders, a pro-charter group in NYC, showing that for eighty-eight students starting in third grade, Success ends up with thirty-one in eighth grade. In 2014, the Daily News reported that the first graduating class at Harlem Success was just thirty-two of the original seventy-three– and despite their awesome test scores, none of them qualified on the entrance exam for the top high schools in the city.

Maybe those kids were just a bad fit for Eva’s academy.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Four Billionaires Hope to Buy Control of the Louisiana State Board of Education

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
25

Mercedes Schneider writes here about the latest campaign filings of funds received.

Four billionaires have donated huge sums to purchase seats on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The board under Governor Bobby Jindal has avidly supported charters, vouchers, for-profit virtual charters, and attacks on teachers.

But the chairman of the board stepped down, and there are several highly credible candidates.

To make sure that the anti-public school, anti-teacher privatizers retain control, the following billionaires have funded a super-PAC to overwhelm the middle-class educators and other citizens who are running for the state board:

Michael Bloomberg (New York): $800,000

Eli Broad (California):$250,000

John Arnold (Texas): $625,000

Walton Family (Arkansas):$400,000

An ordinary person might be able to raise $40,000-60,000 to run for state board. The billionaires are destroying democracy with their obscene donations and their goal of buying control of a democratic institution.

You will note that none of them lives in Louisiana yet they feel okay about determining the future of public education for the people of Louisiana and their children.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Louisiana, Privatization, Vouchers

Charter Teacher: Is Eva Fighting Against Inequality?

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2015 //
5

A teacher in a New York City charter school sent me this article.

He said he was fed up with the claim by charter boosters that they are trying to end inequality. Actually, the opposite is true. He also wanted teachers to know about the website where his article appeared: school building.org, because it is written and edited by teachers.

Here is an excerpt from his post:

“According to the New York City Charter School Center, charters serve less than 9% of the 1.1 million children in the New York City school system. Although FES claims that school funding does not affect a school’s efficacy, it seems obvious that Success owes its achievements in part to its incredible wealth. These two organizations command an overwhelming amount of political attention and financial support, all to benefit a very small percentage of the city. Allowing more charters to open may or may not be a good thing, but it’s clear that it will not significantly impact the inequality of New York City schools.

“Now this may all be old news to people who pay attention to this sort of thing. But the first thing that bothers me about this rally is that Success and FES must be well aware that their work will not significantly affect these “two school systems” that they so resoundingly condemn. Even if we let alone the fact that FES has drawn this division in the public schools for a rhetorical purpose and accept their definition of the problem, it’s obvious that charters like Success only introduce a new form of inequality into the system. That the benefactors of this new network are mostly low-income students doesn’t take away from the fact that the organization functions as a separate entity with better access to philanthropy and political protection than the “tunnel to failure” schools. In this sense, charters are actually the cause of a separate and unequal system; the kind of system that this rally is pretending to fight.

“And yet, Success and FES have mobilized teachers and families with false information and an incomplete portrayal of their role in our unequal society. This leaves me with a few questions. What does it mean for a privileged school to use the voices and bodies of their families to push an agenda that contradicts the message that these families have been told they are supporting? What does it mean for a charter school to use disadvantaged families to further expand their privileges? What does it mean for a school to pretend to support equality while it pushes an agenda that only benefits the few?

“(And of course I’m leaving aside a number of very important concerns. The verdict is still out on whether or not the public should support policies to expand charter schools. It’s also not clear that this particular school, Success Academy, really does have great schools by anyone’s standards other than their own. A lot has been written about the school, and the most reliable report from Kate Taylor portrays what many would feel is not a school they would call great. I’m also ignoring the fact that charter schools, whose selection process affects their population, should not be lazily compared with public schools who have no selection process. Or whether it is ethical for a school that receives public funds to close for the day and pay to bus it’s teachers and students to a political rally. These concerns are worthy of deeper investigation, but that must be for another post.)”

Categories Charter Schools, Equity, Harlem Success Academy

Eva’s Charters Refuse to Sign Pre-K Contracts: Public Money with No Public Oversight?

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2015 //
27

Some charter operators claim they are public schools, but refuse to be audited or subject to any public accountability for the public funds they receive. As you might expect, Eva Moskowitz is leading the battle to prevent public oversight as she earlier led the charter battle to prevent public audits.  The legislature passed legislation allowing New York City’s Comptroller to audit NYC charters, and the State Comptroller to audit charters outside of New York City. The legislation blocked State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli from auditing Success Academy, as he had intended. The City Comptroller is now conducting an audit that includes Success Academy charters.

But now Eva is fighting oversight of publicly sponsored pre-K in her charters.

New York City Mayor de Blasio made universal pre-K a major goal of his administration. The city set up nearly 300 new pre-K sites. All but one signed a contract with the city. Guess who that one is.
Eliza Shapiro reports at Politico New York:
“The Success Academy charter school network has refused to sign mandatory contracts granting the city Department of Education oversight over its pre-kindergarten program, deputy mayor Richard Buery said Thursday, signaling the latest showdown between the charter network and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration….

“If Success does not sign the contracts, the city will withhold payment. Success will technically be able to provide its own pre-K programs — just without city funds.

“The charter network, New York City’s largest and most controversial, was approved to offer five pre-K classes in three locations under de Blasio’s universal pre-K program earlier this year. But Success’ legal team has told the city they will not sign the contract, according to city officials, because it would authorize DOE oversight over the privately operated network.

“All the other 277 pre-K providers that have been sent contracts have signed them, according to the administration, including nine charter schools. …The DOE first sent Success its contracts on August 4, according to the letter, and followed up with the network’s legal team on August 27.

“The letter says that the city would be in violation of its city-mandated contracting rules if it did not provide a signed contract for Success, and would violate its state pre-K grant by not inspecting pre-K programs. ”

Oversight, transparency, and accountability are for “the little people,” as billionaire Leina Helmsley once memorably said about paying taxes.

One can’t help but wonder whether the four-year-olds will be suspended as often as the five-year-olds. According to Eva’s philosophy, the sooner litte kids are suspended, the less likely they are to require suspension later. Of course, if they are suspended frequently, they won’t be around later. They will be back in public school. You know, those places that accept all children and that get inspected and audited.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy
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