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Boston: Mayoral Control Is the Wrong Answer

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2022 //
31

Retired teacher Christine Langhoff calls out the editorial board of The Boston Globe, which advocates for mayoral control of the schools, despite the wishes of the citizenry. Langhoff is right. Mayoral control is undemocratic, and it does not have a record of success. The mayor is not an educator. She or he may stack the leadership of the school system with cronies or—best case scenario—clueless business-school graduates. Mayoral control was tried and failed in Detroit and Chicago. New York City has had mayoral control since 2002 and that political arrangement has increased the number of charter schools, closed scores of schools, destabilized neighborhoods, and produced no notable improvements.

Langhoff writes:

Last year, 80% of Boston voters approved an elected school committee (a campaign that owes much of its organizing to a presence on Twitter, by the way). Now the process is underway, as the state would have to approve such a move.

This morning, the Boston Globe has published a disgusting editorial, calling for the abolition of any school board in the capital city. Reed Hastings would be proud. Who cares what citizens want, when the billionaires hellbent on privatization want something else?

“There are certainly problems with the city’s current school governance system, in which the mayor appoints all members of the seven-person school committee. But if the city is to overhaul school governance, the way forward shouldn’t be to switch to a popularly elected school committee — an antiquated way of managing schools in the 21st century. Instead, Boston should get rid of the body and centralize control of the schools in the mayor’s office.” (Boston Globe)

And while the Supreme Court looks to originalism to undermine our rights, The Globe (or more likely the Barr Foundation, to whom the newspaper of record outsources its education coverage) would throw out centuries of history of governing public schools in Massachusetts:

“Ending a school committee may seem radical, since local school board elections are so ingrained in American tradition. But the local school board, and its considerable power over the education of children in a geographic area, is a particularly North American phenomenon, and something of an accident of history. The colony of Massachusetts required towns to establish and pay for schools in 1647, in a law known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, and local control of schools — and local responsibility for funding them — has endured since.” (Boston Globe)

Funny, I doubt the same people would call for dissolving all school boards across the state, especially not in those wealthy towns where these writers likely live, and whose elected school boards they serve on.

Categories Accountability, Boston, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Reform, Massachusetts

Dr. John Walcott Debates DeVos’ Ideas at Her Alma Mater

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2022 //
15

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently spoke at Calvin University in Michigan. As one of the university’s most prominent graduates, her remarks were received with respect.

Dr. John Walcott, a professor of education at Calvin University, wrote an article for the school newspaper in which he expressed respectful disagreement with her ideas. The full article is worth reading. It takes courage for a professor to take issue with a state and national leader such as DeVos, especially in a religion-focused university.

Be sure to open the link and read the comments.

He began:

On Nov. 17, Calvin University hosted an event with Betsy DeVos. DeVos served as Secretary of Education during the Trump administration and is a graduate of Calvin University. In making the announcement, President Boer described the event as part of efforts “to hear from people who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives to important conversations.”

DeVos served as Secretary of Education during the Trump administration and is a graduate of Calvin University. In making the announcement, President Boer described the event as part of efforts “to hear from people who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives to important conversations.”

I understand and respect the desire of our university to welcome to our campus a distinguished alum who has a long history of involvement at local, state and national levels. Furthermore, I agree that it is important to provide space for “diverse perspectives” and “important conversations.” We must strive to be a community willing to ask tough questions and engage deeply with important issues in our world.

I believe that an opportunity for additional engagement with these issues is especially necessary because of the problematic nature of much of what Secretary DeVos proposes when it comes to education. For example, her call to support “students and not systems” fails to recognize that student learning can be supported by teachers, curriculum, financial resources, school administrators and, yes, in many cases may even require a building conducive to learning. It is easy to demonize systems, but the use of this sort of false dichotomy is ultimately unproductive.

In that spirit, I suggest that we continue the conversation started at this event. The event used an interview format that did not provide opportunity for the sort of conversation and debate that are required to dig deeply into important issues related to educational policy and the state of education in our nation. Near the close of the event, Secretary DeVos stated her ongoing desire to “debate and advance” the policies for which she advocates. I agree that we need to debate these policies and, as a university community, think deeply about issues that relate to education and political engagement and how God calls us to seek justice and be agents of renewal in our world.

I believe that an opportunity for additional engagement with these issues is especially necessary because of the problematic nature of much of what Secretary DeVos proposes when it comes to education. For example, her call to support “students and not systems” fails to recognize that student learning can be supported by teachers, curriculum, financial resources, school administrators and, yes, in many cases may even require a building conducive to learning. It is easy to demonize systems, but the use of this sort of false dichotomy is ultimately unproductive.

We also need to carefully consider Secretary DeVos’ focus on parental choice and individual rights as the basis of her calls to change our educational system. This perspective ignores the function of our schools as a public good, an institution at the core of our desire to promote democratic values and the flourishing of all students. We need to think carefully about the purpose of education in a democratic society and about the role of public schools that have been part of our nation’s commitment to education since before the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Our call to seek justice and be agents of renewal in our world may push us to prioritize the needs of our community and of the most vulnerable in our society over individual rights.

As an educational scholar and researcher, I recognize the need to carefully examine the impacts of policies that use the language of choice and freedom on student learning and on public schools. For example, advocates for school vouchers, which allow parents to use public education funds for tuition in private schools, argue that these policies can be the key to improving student outcomes while ignoring research that does not support these claims. For example, Dr. Christopher Lubienski (Director of the Center for Evaluation and Policy Analysis at Indiana University), summarizing research since 2015, states that “every study of the impacts of statewide voucher programs has found large, negative effects from these programs on the achievement of students using vouchers.”

A thorough discussion will explore the impact of DeVos-supported policies on school funding. Recent reports from Florida note that this year, school vouchers will divert $1.3 billion from public schools, and reports from states like Arizona, New Hampshire and Wisconsin show that the overwhelming majority (80%, 89% and 75%) of students utilizing vouchers were already in private schools before the programs began. We need to ask if public funds should be given to schools that are in some cases not required to comply with regulations related to special education, federal civil rights laws and curriculum standards. We should engage critically in questions regarding the role of teachers’ unions before dismissing out of hand their role in public education. And we should critically examine the rhetoric that is currently a part of the so-called “culture wars,” especially as it relates to education. I am concerned that Secretary DeVos has contributed to a misrepresentation of critical race theory and may be perceived as aligning with groups and individuals that have advanced a harmful narrative directed at the LGBTQ+ community.

These are just a few of the many complex and vitally important issues that need to be a part of a deeper conversation. I am not criticizing the decision to host Secretary DeVos, a distinguished graduate with years of activism in the public sphere. However, as a faculty member in the School of Education, it is important to me that the broader educational community understands that this does not signal an endorsement of her policies and perspectives by the School of Education. And I remain hopeful that we, as a community, will embrace the opportunity to not only offer diverse perspectives, but also engage deeply in important conversations of what it means to think deeply, act justly and live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reform, Courage, Democracy, Education Industry, Equity, Funding, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

William Phillis: Charters Are a Step Backward in Ohio

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2022 //
15

William Phillis, former deputy state superintendent of education in Ohio, is appalled by the waste and corruption in the charter sector. The state constitution requires a common school system, and charter schools and vouchers violate the state constitution. Ohio has had some of the biggest financial scandals in charter world (think ECOT), yet the Republican legislature continues to demand more funding for charters and vouchers. In this post, he likens charters to the one-room schools that were closed down long ago. He also notes that half of the 600 charters authorized in Ohio have closed.

William Phillis writes:

Charter Schools Conceptually and In Practice Are a Scourge on the Education Landscape In Ohio

Not all charter schools and their management companies are rife with fraud and corruption. Nor are all charters low-performing. Nor do all of them shortchange students to stack-up shameless profits. Nor do all of them practice nepotism in hiring, cherry-picking students, and closing without notice. However, the charter industry, as a whole, is rife with all of the above. Even if the charter industry would be free of all these negatives (and more), the concept and practice of chartering is wrong-headed.

The charter industry is inefficient within its own parameters and causes the whole of provisions for education to be inefficient. Historically the state has allocated between 34 to 45 percent of its General Revenue Fund (GRF) to K-12 education. Currently, about 40% of the state GRF is allocated to K-12 education.

Due to the demands of other state programs and services, the percentage of the state General Revenue Budget allocated to K-12 education will not likely increase substantially in the future.. Tax funds siphoned away from school districts for charters (and vouchers) duplicates facilities and programs which causes inefficient use of tax funds and reduces educational opportunities for students in both districts and charters.

Since 1900, the state forced school districts to consolidate to expand educational opportunities and to use tax dollars more efficiently. In 1900 there were about 3500 school districts. Ten thousand one room school buildings were in operation. Now there are 612 districts and no one room schools in operation. However, the state has issued more than 600 charters to private individuals, 300 or so of which have closed. Most charters serve less students than the school districts that the state forced to close. If smaller is finer, then why doesn’t the state force deconsolidation of school districts?

The smaller charter enrollments typically reduce breadth of programs and opportunities for students. The charters duplicate programs and services which exacerbates the inefficiencies. What are state officials thinking?

Charter schools are largely deregulated. For the sake of students and taxpayers there is no justification for a differential between public schools and charters in the matter of regulations. The original idea of chartering was that some teachers and parents would propose to a board of education that they would create innovative, creative programming and demonstrate better results in exchange for reduced regulations. As an industry, charters have been neither creative nor innovative. Nor has the charter industry outpaced traditional public schools in academic performance; however, reduced regulations have spawned fraud and corruption coupled with little or no accountability and transparency.

Charter schools have no constitutional basis.

The charter school experiment in Ohio has been rife with fraud and corruption and low performance. Billions in tax funding has been stolen and wasted. The experiment is a failure. There is no justification for this experiment to continue.

Learn more about the EdChoice voucher litigation

Learn About Vouchers Hurt Ohio
8 Lies About Private School Vouchers

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OhioEandA

VOUCHERS HURT OHIO

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 |ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://ohiocoalition.org

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Education Industry, Failure, Ohio

New Orleans: The Great Charter Experiment Is a Farce! A Failure! A Mirage!

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2022 //
26

The New Orleans Tribune pulled the mask off the charade of reform in New Orleans. The much-heralded experiment of turning every public school into a charter school is a failure. In the latest state ratings, more than half the schools received a grade of D or F.

The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

It has been said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

Well, NOLA Public Schools must be certifiably insane; because here we are — 17 years deep into a so-called education reform movement; and this year’s recently released school performance scores continue to reveal the what we have long known — this reform was and is a farce and a failure.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, laws were rewritten to make the takeover of public schools in Orleans Parish easier. The minimum school performance score needed to escape being considered a failing school was raised from 60 to 87.4 so that more public schools in New Orleans could be taken over by the Recovery School District. Veteran teachers were summarily fired without cause. School buildings and resources were turned over to quasi-private charter management organizations. Our children were and still are bussed all over the city.

Then in 2019, the reformers really dug in, and the Orleans Parish School Board got out of the business of operating schools all together, turning over every campus to a charter operator and an unelected and unaccountable board.

And all of this for what?

If any of this maneuvering would have resulted in success, we would have nothing to say.

But there are 65 charter schools loosely operating under the cavalier control of the Orleans Parish School Board, and based on the 2022 school performance scores released in November by the Louisiana Department of Education, more than half of them are D and F schools. In other words, they are failing or close to it. In fact, if the SPS of 87.4 that was purposefully raised to take over public schools in 2005 were applied right now all but four of the 65 NOLA public schools could be taken over TODAY!

Let’s say it again, another way — if the same standard that was intentionally changed to takeover and destroy public education in Orleans Parish in 2005 were applied to the 65 public charter schools operating under NOLA Public Schools today, a full 61 of those schools would be considered failing by the state RIGHT NOW!

All of the teachers and administrators should be fired without cause; their buildings and resources should be turned over to the RSD; their students and the money that follows them should be scattered to the wind.

Of course, that’s not going to happen. In order to mask the failure of this corporate takeover of public education masquerading as a reform movement, the minimum SPS has been lowered over the last decade and half, indicative of the fact that this so-called reform has never been about improving educational outcomes for our children.

And the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has refused to revisit its accountability policy.

That is because this reform is and has always been about power and control over resources, contracts, assets and the dollars that follow every student. It was never about the students….

So we ask: Where’s the reform . . . the change . . . the miracle results touted as the public school system in Orleans Parish was pillaged and plundered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?

We know the truth. The miracle was a mirage…It’s time to recall this reform! It is time to return public education in New Orleans to real local control so that another generation of children are not left by the wayside.

The New Orleans Tribune is an African American newspaper, so its views will be ignored by the powers that control the legislature and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Louisiana, New Orleans

Two Top Executives Leave Twitter

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2022 //
42

I’m sorry to post so much about Elon Musk,, but it’s fascinating in a horrifying way to see the nation’s richest person, a man celebrated for his business acumen and technological genius, take over a social media platform with 400 million followers and proceed to disrupt it, frighten advertisers away, and create chaos. After I wrote this post, I read this morning that Musk warned employees that bankruptcy was a real possibility. And more of his top leadership team left.

NBC News reported:

Twitter’s chief information security officer and chief compliance officer resigned late Wednesday night as the company started implementing changes that would allow users to more easily impersonate major brands and government officials.

The departures came just hours before the company’s new CEO, Elon Musk, sent his first email to Twitter employees, titled “difficult times ahead,” and implementing a mandatory return-to-work policy.

Lea Kissner, the chief information security officer, confirmed they had left in a Twitter post Thursday morning. Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty has also left the company, according to a person familiar with the situation who asked to remain nameless because they were not authorized to speak publicly.https://www3.nbcnews.com/news/embedded-newsletter/rcna56597#amp=1

“I don’t watch Game of Thrones. I certainly don’t want to play it at work,” Fogarty tweeted Monday.

A spokesperson for the Federal Trade Commission said in an emailed statement that it is keeping watch on the situation.

“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” the spokesperson wrote. “No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

On Wednesday, Twitter rolled out the new Twitter Blue, which allows any user to purchase a verification badge for $7.99 per month as long as they joined Twitter before Nov. 9. As feared by cybersecurity professionals, users immediately used the pay-to-play feature to impersonate public figures and brands. One user impersonating LeBron James demanded a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers.null

The resignations add to what has already been a chaotic two weeks with Musk at the helm of Twitter, where he recently said the company “will do lots of dumb things in coming months.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reform, Disruption

Good News from Ohio!

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2022 //
15

With the help of the teachers’ unions, the people of Ohio elected three new members of the state board of education who support public schools. This is great news because the politicians in the State House and the Legislature have been frantically diverting public funds to charter schools and vouchers, as well as endorsing extremist policies on race and gender. The state constitution explicitly authorizes a system of public schools and forbids public funding of religious schools. Ohio’s charter schools are among the lowest-performing in the nation and are lower performing than the state’s public schools. Half of those authorized by the state have closed.

 

Anti-culture war candidates win three seats on Ohio State Board of Education, with big boost from teachers’ unions

By Laura Hancock, cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Voters elected three candidates to the Ohio State Board of Education on Tuesday who oppose fights over LGBTQ students in bathrooms and attempts to control how American racism is discussed in social studies classes. The Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Ohio Education Association contributed tens of thousands of dollars to help the campaigns of former state senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo, Tom Jackson of Solon and Katie Hofmann of Cincinnati, who each won their races against more conservative candidates. Candidates the unions did not support, including one who ran unopposed, won races in two districts.

The unions were involved in recruiting the three candidates. Fedor and Hofmann are each former teachers and members of OFT. Jackson, a businessman, is a volunteer coach at Solon High School and serves on the Solon City Schools Strategic Planning Team. Their members volunteered to knock on doors and spread the word about the candidates.

They also gave their candidates a big fundraising boost. In addition to writing checks for each candidate’s campaign — OEA gave $13,700 to each candidate’s campaign and the OFT gave $12,000 to Fedor and Jackson and $13,700 to Hofmann — the unions spent at least $100,000 to get them elected through an independent super PAC called Educators for Ohio. The PAC is normally controlled by OEA, but OFT this year was also involved in it, said Melissa Cropper, president of the OFT.

The super PAC spent money only on the three state school board candidates, said Scott DiMauro, president of the OEA. “The three individuals who won those contested races are all strong advocates of public education, they have strong records on that,” DiMauro said. “I would anticipate they would work closely with other members of the state board who have been pushing back on some of those (culture wars) attacks. How everything is going to play out still remains to be seen, because you still have an extremist faction that is pushing some of those resolutions. Some of those members are still there.”

Fedor defeated Sarah McGervey, a Catholic school teacher who talked about parental rights against perceived liberal bias in education and keeping LGBTQ protections out of Title IX. Jackson defeated incumbent Tim Miller and Cierra Lynch Shehorn, who was ran further to the right of Miller. Hofmann defeated conservative incumbent Jenny Kilgore.

Hoffman, Jackson and Fedor vastly outraised their opponents. Kilgore individually raised $5,800 in 2022. Hofmann raised nearly $44,000. Jackson raised $53,000 this year, compared to Miller’s $7,600 and Lynch Shehorn’s $4,800.

Fedor’s and McGervey’s campaign finance reports are more complicated. McGervey ran for the Ohio House in August. After she lost that race she ran for the state board. Her total fundraising haul was $15,000. Fedor was a sitting senator in 2021, the beginning of the two-year funding cycle, and she raised $95,000 during the two-year period.

Other candidates who won but were not supported by the unions include incumbent member John P. Hagan, a conservative on the board, who beat a challenge from Robert R. Fulton. Neither candidate in that race received the unions’ endorsement. Ohio State Board of Education President Charlotte McGuire won reelection unopposed. Ohio Value Voters, a conservative Christian organization, backed the conservative slate of candidates, including Hagan.

As Ohio students fell academically behind from remote learning during the pandemic and Ohio has been without a permanent state superintendent for more than a year, conservatives on the state school board pressed to take on several controversial issues over the last year.

Last year, conservatives on the board successfully overturned an anti-racism resolution that the board had previously passed in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Two members of the state board who voted to overturn the anti-racism measure were defeated Tuesday night: Miller, of Akron, and Kilgore, of Hamilton County. A third supporter of the resolution, Kirsten Hill – who organized a bus from Lorain County to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 but said she never entered the U.S. Capitol – opted not to seek reelection.

More recently, conservatives on the board have been pushing a resolution that would urge local school districts to defy Title IX protections for LGBTQ students that are being proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration, potentially putting federal money for free and reduced lunch and special education in jeopardy. The resolution remains under consideration. Board members have spent 10 hours taking public testimony and discussing it since September.

Most of the state school board campaigning and fundraising took place in just the past two months, Cropper said.

“Remember, this election cycle, no one knew what the lines were going to be,” she said. Every 10 years, the boundaries for the Ohio State Board of Education shift when Ohio Senate boundaries are redrawn. Gov. Mike DeWine changed state school board boundaries Jan. 31, a move panned by critics as gerrymandering. DeWine didn’t change the school board map, even as state mapmakers shifted the Senate’s boundaries found to violate the Ohio Constitution, and on July 14, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose notified county boards of election to use the Jan. 31 changes DeWine made. Candidates for the state school board, which are nonpartisan, had to file to run for the seats Aug. 10, which left just a few months to campaign.

“It really was a crunch in trying to get quality candidates to run,” Cropper said. “We had incumbents we know that were not pro-public education, who were in my opinion, pushing these culture war issues at the state board level. And it was just critical to us that we could get them out of there. So we definitely were looking for people who understand public education, who have been engaged in conversations about equity, social-emotional learning, the whole child approach, all the things that are really important to us.”

The whole child approach refers to the state board’s 2019-2024 strategic plan that says the state is concerned with the “whole child,” not just academics but stressors children experience at home that can influence learning. In 2019, the Ohio Department of Education unveiled social-emotional learning standards that aim to help children become successful in their interactions with others, to establish positive relationships, manage their emotions, and make healthy, drug-free choices in life.

“My estimation is that people rejected extremists and the extreme issues that they’re bringing to the table and children are caught in the middle,” Fedor said Wednesday. “I believe this is an overall rejection of using our children as political fodder.” Fedor had the most name recognition among the state school board candidates. In addition to her legislative career, she was on the Democratic gubernatorial ticket this spring with former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley. Fedor said that as she campaigned, she talked about reducing the number of standardized tests kids have to take. She talked about her own time in the classroom, when she worked an additional part-time job at the Toledo Zoo to make money for classroom materials.

She said she learned that people were horrified that Hill led Ohioans to the Jan. 6 rally. “There was a flood of different ideas and thoughts about what’s going on,” she said. “And they did not support the extremists who are bringing the extreme issues forward. The culture wars in the classrooms have to end so we can get to the business of educating our children with quality public education.”

Billionaires have been pouring millions of dollars into state and local school board races for at least the last dozen years. These elections are often flooded with money from out-of-state billionaires who support expansion of charter schools and invalid ways of evaluating teachers.

It’s great to see the unions step up and support state school board members who care about public schools and teachers and care about issues that matter, rather than divisive conflicts that don’t help anyone. The amount of money spent by the unions was small compared to what the billionaires spend, but it made a difference.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Ohio, Unions, Vouchers

Indiana: “Liberal” Reed Hastings Bankrolled GOP Ban on Abortion: Shame!

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2022 //
11

Steve Hinnefeld, Indiana blogger, writes about the political donations of billionaires who claim to be “liberal Democrats.” First and worst is Reed Hastings, who is CEO of Netflix. Hastings claims to be a supporter of women’s reproductive rights, but he has funded Republicans in Indiana who passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the nation. Why? Because these same conservative Republicans support charter schools. Hastings has said that he looks forward to the day when there are no more school boards, and every school is a charter. So, his passion for charter schools is stronger than his commitment to women’s reproductive rights. His allies in Indiana also loosened restrictions on guns. Michael Bloomberg, who favors abortion rights and gun control, also bankrolled the same Republicans.

Hinnefeld writes:

Indiana Republicans are spending several million dollars to protect and extend their supermajority status in the state House and Senate in Tuesday’s election. If they succeed, they may want to thank a California billionaire. One who’s usually described as a liberal Democrat.

Reed Hastings is a CEO of Netflix. Politically, he’s known for donating to Democratic politicians, nationally and in California. Netflix supports liberal causes, like abortion rights. But in Indiana, his campaign contributions go almost entirely to Republicans, who trample on his supposed principles.

It’s possible Hastings has given more money to the Indiana House and Senate GOP campaigns than any other individual in the past couple of years. Not directly. The money is funneled through a political action committee called Hoosiers for Great Public Schools. The PAC, headed by former Democratic Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, was founded in 2020 to promote charter schools.

Almost all its direct support for candidates goes to Republicans.

Hastings has given the group $1.4 million, half of it in 2020 and half this year. It also got $200,000 from John Arnold, a Texas billionaire. That’s all the money it has raised.

Hoosiers for Great Public Schools has made campaign contributions totaling $926,000. Some $400,000 went to RISE Indy, a PAC that has supported charter-friendly candidates for the Indianapolis Public Schools board. Another $100,000 went to Hoosiers for Quality Education, which promotes school choice, including vouchers and education savings accounts, and gives exclusively to Republicans.

Of the remaining $426,000 that Hoosiers for Great Public Schools contributed, nearly all went to GOP candidates and groups. It has given $190,000 to the House Republican Campaign Committee, $45,000 to the Senate Majority Campaign Committee, and $75,000 to House Speaker Todd Huston, along with four- and five-figure donations to individual Republicans.

That’s who Reed Hastings is helping elect in Indiana.

A similar story can be told about Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City. He’s known for supporting liberal causes, including gun control and abortion rights. In recent years, Bloomberg has given $550,000 to Stand for Children Indiana, which supports charter schools. All of Stand for Children’s state-level contributions this year have gone to Republicans.

There’s a cynical argument for such behavior: If you have money and you want to influence Indiana politics, you give to Republicans, because they have the power.

Peterson, CEO of Christel House International, which operates charter schools in Indianapolis, told me in 2020 that the purpose of Hoosiers for Great Public Schools was to support charter schools. But Indiana Republicans are no longer in love with charter schools. In 2021, they gave charters a modest funding increase. In 2022, they did nothing. They have moved on to favoring a more radical form of school choice in which state money “follows the child,” including to private and religious schools.

What did Hastings get with his support of the Indiana GOP? For one thing, a new law that says Hoosiers don’t need a permit to carry a handgun in public. For another, a discriminatory anti-trans law that bars transgender students from school sports teams. Republicans also tried to restrict what schools could teach about “divisive topics” – i.e., racism and slavery – but fell short.

Shame on Reed Hastings!

Shame on Michael Bloomberg!

Shame on John Arnold!

Hypocrites!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Hypocrisy, Indiana, Vouchers

Jeanne Kaplan on the Denver Model: Charter, Choice, Chaos, and Churn

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2022 //
11

Jeanne Kaplan served two terms as an elected board member in Denver. She has watched the board’s frenIed embrace of “reform” with dismay. open the link and read the full article, which appears on her blog. I am not putting the post into italics since she uses italics.

She writes:

Reap what you sow and the chickens come home to roost. The elephant in the room.  Aphorisms appropriate to describe what is happening in public education in Denver. 

After 20 years,  more than 5  superintendents, and 11 different school boards, the results of education reform in Denver have become clear, and they aren’t pretty. After opening 72 charters in the last 20 years, 22 of which have closed, the declining enrollments in neighborhood schools have forced the prospect of school closures.  Who knew opening 26 privately run elementary charter schools in competition with district-run schools would ultimately force the district to make some hard financial decisions?  And who knew that ignoring its own 2007 data showing stagnant population growth would lead to less demand for elementary school seats in the 2020s?  Apparently, not those with the power for the last 20 years.  And, as an ironic aside, many of the same people who were the decision-makers in the past and who were unable to make substantive change then, have now decided they will somehow make these previously unattainable changes from their outside “oversight” committee, EDUCATE Denver. In fact one of the co-chairs, Rosemary Rodriguez, was a DPS board member when on March 16, 2017, a Strengthening Neighborhoods Resolution passed, stating:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that a citywide committee be formed to review changing demographics and housing patterns in our city and the effect on our schools and to make recommendations on our policies around boundaries, choice, enrollment and academic programs in order to drive greater socio-economic integration in our schools.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that in the face of the sharp decline in the number of school-aged children in gentrifying neighborhoods, the committee is also charged with how to think about school choice and school consolidation to ensure that our schools are able to offer high-quality, sustainable programs for our kids.

These former school board members and former and current civic leaders have formed a “shadow school board” to evaluate and oversee the current superintendent and school board.  Why?  It appears they don’t like what they are seeing being proposed by the current superintendent. What don’t they like?  It appears they have determined the current superintendent is not committed enough to their reform agenda.  You know – the one that has been in place when they were in power, the one that has produced the biggest gaps in the nation, more segregation, and more resource inequity.

As school closures have risen to the fore this week Chalkbeat disclosed these statistics:

“Over the past 20 years, Denver Public Schools has added a lot of schools. It has added students, too — but at a much slower rate.

  • The number of public schools in Denver grew 55% between the 2001-02 and 2021-22 school years, while the number of students grew just 12%.
  • Denver went from having 132 schools serving about 72,000 students in 2001-02 to 204 schools serving nearly 89,000 students in 2021-22.
  • The number of elementary schools in Denver grew 23% over the past 20 years, while the number of students grew just 4%.”

Through expensive marketing and often false narratives, charter schools have had free reign to prey on susceptible families resulting in DPS losing 7400 elementary school students who would have otherwise most likely attended a neighborhood school. Then add in:

  • a state law that prohibits a district from shutting down low enrollment charters, 
  • a district that has ignored demographic information predicting declining enrollment, 
  • a district that employs “attendance zones” and a secretive CHOICE system to often force place students into heavily marketed, often unwanted CHARTER SCHOOLS, and 
  • a competitive financial model called Student Based Budgeting (SBB – money follows the kid) to fund schools, depending on student needs, the goal of which is to close the achievement and resource gaps.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Colorado, Competition, Corporate Reform, Denver, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Failure

Steven Singer: Why Even the Best Charter Schools Are Fundamentally Inequitable

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2022 //
17

Steven Singer is a teacher in Pennsylvania and a blogger. In this post, he contends with the argument that some charter schools are really very good and not at all like those charters mired in scandal, unaccountable, inequitable, greedy, and a drain on public school resources.

Singer writes:

Not MY charter school!

That’s the usual reaction from charter school fansto any criticism of the industry.

I say many of these institutions lack accountabilityabout how tax dollars are spent…

Not MY charter school!

I say they waste millions of taxpayer dollars to duplicate services already in existence….

Not MY charter school!

I talk about frequent scandals where unscrupulous charter school operators use copious loopholes in state law to enrich themselves without providing services to parents, students and the community…

Not MY charter school!

I mention charter school lotteries, cherry-picking students, not providing adequate special education services, zero tolerance discipline policies, teaching to standardized tests, targeting black and brown kids for profit and feeding the school to prison pipeline….

Not MY charter school! Not MY charter school! Not MY…

Really!?

If the industry is subject to this much malfeasance and corruption, doesn’t that reflect badly on the entire educational model – even the examples that avoid the worst of it?

One model has daily scandals. The other – authentic public schools – is far from perfect but relatively tame by comparison. You can’t blame people for generalizing.

Not My….

Okay. We get it!

But sadly this defensiveness against any criticism hides an enormous ignorance of exactly what charter schools are and how they operate at the most basic level.

Yes, there is a difference between how the best and worst charter schools act.

Yes, there are some charter schools that are run much better, more humanely and responsibly than others.

But that doesn’t mean the very concept of a charter school isn’t rotten to the core.

It’s like colonialism.

Yes, there were colonies where the invaders treated the conquered with more respect and dignity than others.

But not a single colony was a good thing. Not a single colonial enterprise avoided subjugating people who should have been free to determine their own destinies.

The same goes with charter schools.

When I discuss the industry, it’s surprising how many people – especially supporters of the enterprise – don’t understand what charter schools really are.

Let’s start with a simple definition.

A charter school is a school with a charter.

Get it?

And a charter is a contract – a special agreement with the state or some other governmental entity that this school can exist.

Why is that necessary?

Because there are rules laid out by each state in their school codes detailing what schools must do in order to qualify for taxpayer funding.

For example, under normal circumstances they must have an elected school board made up of members from the community where the school is located.

All authentic public schools must follow these rules. But not Charter schools.

Instead, they get to follow whatever rules are set down in their charter.

So without even examining exactly which special rules are stipulated in that charter, these schools are founded on the very concept of privilege.

They get to abide by their own rules tailor-made just for them.

Why does that matter? Because they get public funding.

And, yes, ALL charter schools are publicly funded – they get at least part of their money from taxpayers, usually all or the majority of their funding.

That opens a huge divide in accountability between types of schools….

OPEN THE LINK AND READ ON.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Deregulation, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, School Choice

Nancy Bailey: The Science of Reading and Corporate Contacts

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2022 //
55

Nancy Bailey is a veteran teacher who always has wise insights into what happens in the classroom. In this post, she questions the corporate interest in the so-called science of reading.

She begins:

Many of the same individuals who favor charter schools, private schools, and online instruction, including corporate reformers, use the so-called Science of Reading (SoR) to make public school teachers look like they’ve failed at teaching reading.

Politicians and corporations have had a past and current influence on reading instruction to privatize public schools with online programs. This has been going on for years, so why aren’t reading scores soaring? The SoR involves primarily online programs, but it’s often unclear whether they work.

The Corporate Connection to the SoR

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation fund numerous nonprofits to end public education. The National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ), backed by Gates and other corporations, an astroturf organization, promotes the SoR.

SoR promoters ignore the failure of Common Core State Standards (CCSS), embedded in most online programs, like iReady and Amplify. CCSS, influenced by the Gates Foundation, has been around for years.

Also, despite its documented failure ($335 million), the Gates Foundation Measures of Effective Teaching, a past reform initiative (See VAMboozled!), irreparably harmed the teaching profession, casting doubt on teachers’ ability.

EdReports, another Gates-funded group, promotes their favored programs, but why trust what they say about reading instruction? They’ve failed at their past education endeavors.

But the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation continues to reinvent itself and funds many nonprofits that promote their agenda, including the SoR.

Please open the link and read on.

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Literacy
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