Archives for category: Corporate Reform
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

New Jersey: How Gov. Christie Is Stealing from Public Schools While Protecting Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2015 //
7

David Rutherford is in his first year as a member the the school board in Plainfield, New Jersey. He dug into the budget and discovered that the state of Néw Jersey is cheating the children of Plainfield. Since the election of Chris Christie, the state has ignored a law requiring that it fund schools based on student needs. Plainfield has been shorted by millions of dollars. Rutherford estimates that Plainfield is owed $70 million by the state.

Guess who has not been shorted? Charter schools, which have the backing of several prominent hedge fund billionaires in Néw Jersey.

Charter schools have been sucking students and dollars out of the Plainfield public schools.

Until now, the fiscally responsible Plainfield district had been running a surplus. But it won’t last.

Rutherford writes:

“But surplus is a finite resource, and long term the picture is far more grim. The state of New Jersey’s refusal to pay districts the funds they deserve and the over-funding of charter schools will become growing problems for which this district, and many others, must find difficult long term solutions. Millions of dollars in lost money will undoubtably have a grave impact on students and the community.

“Applying the Pressure

“We must demand that Chris Christie and the New Jersey State Legislature cease to steal from the neediest public school districts while keeping charter schools afloat. Language that allows for charter over-payment must be removed from next year’s budget.

“The Highland Park and Paterson Boards of Education have already passed resolutions demanding that the Legislature take a stand and eliminate that language. In fact, you can read Highland Park’s resolution, which has been accepted in principle by the New Jersey School Boards Association and should be up for vote at the next School Board Delegate Assembly meeting on November 26th.

“Seven million dollars in over-payments on top of $70 million in underfunding over the course of the past six years is nothing short of theft, and the blame falls on a bipartisan coalition of our leaders in Trenton. This includes the two-thirds Democratic State Assembly and Senate. They must be held accountable.”

 

If policies like Néw Jersey’s stay in place, districts like Plainfield will go bankrupt, setting them up for privatization. There will be many others in the same situation. Good news for hedge fund managers who want to destroy public education. Bad news for kids, teachers, public education, and democracy.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reform, Funding, New Jersey, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Corporate Reformers Swarm Atlanta Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2015 //
28

With the Georgia legislature poised to create a statewide charter district modeled on Tennessee’s failed “Achievement School District,” the usual cast of reform characters has rushed in to privatize as many of Atlanta’s public schools as they can get away with.

Here comes the Boston Consulting Group, the Waltons, and many more, looking to transfer schools from democratic to private control.

Categories Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform

Broad and Walton Fund a Study to Promote More Charters Schools in D.C.

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2015 //
18

Big surprise. A study funded by the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation recommends more charters for the District of Columbia.

The report, “A Tale of Two Systems: Education Reform in Washington D.C.,” was funded by the Walton Family Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute promotes market-based solutions to public policy issues. It appears that the long-term goal is to turn the entire district into a charter district, although a few public schools might remain open to enroll the students the charters don’t want.

The new study looks at the history of education reform in the city and includes research showing greater academic improvements in charter schools. It compares District and national test scores that show bigger gains for charter schools, particularly among African American and poor students.

It notes that comparisons are difficult because charter and traditional schools serve different demographics. Charter schools serve families who actively choose their schools, which can indicate a higher level of family commitment to education. D.C. Public Schools serve more students in crisis, who are are homeless or returning from jail, experts say. Also, charter schools don’t accept students after a certain month of the year or grade level, so they tend to serve a more stable group of students.

But the report argues that the governance model is the most important difference in the larger gains.

“It creates an environment in which the extraordinary measures necessary to effectively educate poor, minority children are not only easier to implement, they are virtually required if schools are to survive,” the report says.

In an interview, Osborne predicted that in 30 to 50 years, most urban districts will have mostly charter schools or other types of schools that are given more autonomy and expected to perform or be closed. “The magic is not in the word ‘charter,’ it’s in that arms-length relationship with the system,” he said.

So, even though most research shows that charters do not outperform ordinary public schools on average, D.C. should push for more and more charters. The report acknowledges that the remanning public schools serve children with greater needs than the charters, but so what. The charters get higher test scores because they don’t have the kids who have severe disabilities, the ELLs, the homeless, the students in crisis, and those returning from jail.

It must be the autonomy that makes the charters so terrific, not the fact that they exclude the kids who are most challenging and most expensive to educate.

Why don’t the Broads and Waltons come up with another pastime?

Why should the nation abandon public education because they like the free market that made them billionaires?

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Walton Foundation

A Teacher in Illinois: The Tests Are a Fraud

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2015 //
44

Dr. Terri Reid-Schuster writes:


I was disgusted by my IEA President, Cinda Klickna’s, response regarding the low scores soon to be released in Illinois. I sent her the following:

Dear Cinda Klickna,

I was very disturbed to read your recent response to the news that Illinois students’ recent PARCC score test release. You characterized it as something that will improve as teachers get better at the standards and students get more experienced with the test. You could not be more wrong.

First, I am a career Illinois teacher with more than 20 years of experience. I have a doctorate in developmental literacy and currently work as a reading specialist in Oregon, IL. I have been active in my union and am currently serving as OEA president. I vote democrat, and have always been a proud union member. However, now I am doubting whether IEA/NEA really has the best interests of children and teachers at heart. Your recent response has confirmed that.

Here is what you SHOULD have said:

The PARCC test is a capstone of corporate reform efforts to discredit hard-working teachers and school districts. It is a natural progression of developmentally inappropriate and unvalidated Common Core Standards that were written almost exclusively by test publishers whose intentions are to create a market for their “new and improved” curriculum materials, assessments, remedial programs and expensive consulting deals.

The test itself is written several years above the average student’s reading level, it is to be given on unfamiliar computer technology, contains intentionally vague and poorly designed questions with opaque directions, and is excessive in length. Additionally, cut scores were set outrageously high–ostensibly to align with NAEP proficiency levels and completely disregarding the fact that a rating of “proficient” on the NAEP means the equivalent of “A” level work in the classroom.

This is the new and impossible standard Illinois students have “failed” to reach. This is by design, it is absolutely the intention of companies like Pearson who stand to make billions off the misery the CCSS and PARCC are creating. Now politicians can “prove” teachers are lazy and incompetent and point to PARCC scores as evidence, then hand over public dollars to their business cronies and donors for charter schools. Your statement helps that process along by promoting the fantasy that it is possible to improve these test scores if only we numbskull public school teachers would just get up to speed on these dandy new standards.

Please, if you are going to take our money and purport to represent teachers collectively in Illinois, it is incumbent upon you to educate yourself about the reality of the monumental bamboozle that is corporate reform. I recommend Diane Ravitch’s book Reign of Error for starters, and her blog is a daily format for exposing the damaging effects of the move to privatize and profitize education. Todd Farley’s book Making the Grades is an insider’s expose of Pearson’s shoddy test design process and and standardized test-grading mills.

Additionally, I am requesting that IEA not accept funding from Bill Gates or Pearson or any other entity that seeks to destroy public education. Doing so ensures our demise as a profession, and will hasten the dismantling of democracy itself.

Democracy works best when we prepare students to be critical thinkers who are creative problem solvers and question authority–CCSS are preparing students to be obedient worker bees. Ask yourself why students at elite private schools aren’t being subjected to CCSS or PARCC testing? If these standards and tests are so essential to a great education, wealthy parents would be clamoring to have them for their own children. In fact, exactly the opposite is happening. CCSS and unfair, rigged exams like the PARCC are for the unwashed, undeserving poor and middle class.

Cinda, you disappoint me. I am beginning to believe my dues to the IEA and NEA are not money well spent. Please educate yourself and become an advocate for children and teachers in this state. Call out corporate reform for what it is: a blatant profit-making scheme. Stop falling for the slick marketing. Talk to real teachers about their struggles under this brutal and demoralizing test-and-punish regime. STOP looking to “have a seat at the table.” Don’t collaborate and cooperate with those who will destroy the education profession.

If you need real teachers to talk to, I volunteer myself and my colleagues. Thank you for your attention in this matter. It is critical teachers have the informed support of our biggest professional organization.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Illinois, Special Education

A List of 2,500 Charter Schools That Closed

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2015 //
42

The Center for Media and Democracy has compiled a list of 2,500 charters that closed since 2000, either because of financial or academic problems.

This should dispel the myth that charter schools are superior institutions that “save” children.

Some of the schools closed before they opened, but their founders collected public money for “planning.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform

Florida: How Politicians Are Ruining the Teaching Profession

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2015 //
22

A key Republican leader, who is closely tied to Florida’s booming and profitable charter industry, slipped into the state budget a bill to pay a bonus to teachers with high SAT scores. His bill is known as “Best and Brightest,” assuming that those with the highest SAT scores are or will be the best teachers.

In this post, Florida teacher Melissa Halpern explains the absurdity of this plan. Veteran teachers will get the bonus if they can locate their SAT scores, even if they took the test 20 years ago, but only if they also received a “highly effective” rating based on test scores.

Halpern explains the absurdity:

“Let’s start with the very notion of rewarding a correlation. Incentives work when people have the power to respond to them with effort and action, when they can initiate a cause of success. What if studies found that teaching performance correlated with race, gender, or socioeconomic status (all of which are correlated with SAT scores, by the way)? Would we ever find it acceptable to offer a gender bonus? Of course not. Aside from being discriminatory, such an incentive would be illogical; it offers no room for effort, no goal to work toward.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to discern which correlations are actually causal, but common sense helps. While a teacher’s 20-year-old SAT score is probably not the cause of her success in the classroom, her training, credentials, and years of experience might be; incidentally, these are all proven correlations with teacher performance that Florida has downplayed under its current “merit pay” system, which replaced the old experience-based salary schedule in 2010….

“It seems, then, that the Best and Brightest incentive is not really an incentive at all, and that whatever it is, it certainly wasn’t devised to reward experienced teachers in the first place.

“So who does stand to benefit from this program? Primarily new teachers, especially those who might like to grab a bonus for a short teaching stint, and bail for a career that actually pays. Teach For America corp members, who are only held to a two-year teaching commitment, might just fit the bill.

“Interestingly, teachers coming out of TFA tend to populate the revolving employment doors of charter schools run by for-profit companies—much like the ones with whom Rep. Fresen happens to have close business ties.

“It shouldn’t come as a shock that a Florida legislator might vote for a financially motivated policy in the name of public education—at least it makes their ultimate goal of privatizing education a little more transparent.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Florida, Merit pay, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Teach for America, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay

Wendy Lecker: Shame on Governor Malloy

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2015 //
3

Civil rights attorney Wendy Lecker excoriates Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy for favoring privately-managed charter schools over underfunded urban public schools.

Lecker thinks Malloy should be guided by some recent court decisions.

“Charter schools want it both ways. To get taxpayer dollars, they want to call themselves public schools. However, they do not want to educate the same children as public schools, or be subject to the same rules. Courts are beginning to challenge this duplicity. In Texas and Arizona, courts have ruled that charters are not entitled to the same funding as public schools. Now, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that charter schools are not public schools at all and it is unconstitutional to divert any money intended for public schools to them.

“Central to the Washington court’s decision was the connection between public schools and local democracy. The court noted that local control is the “most important feature” of a public school because it vests in local voters the power, through their elected agents, to run the schools that educate their children.

“Charters in Washington are authorized by state agencies and governed by unelected boards. The court concluded that charter schools are not true public schools because they are “devoid of local control from their inception to their daily operation.”

“This ruling follows another major decision by Washington’s Supreme Court, holding the legislature in contempt for failing to adequately fund its public schools, and fining it $100,000 a day.

“The refusal to fund public schools and simultaneous willingness to divert money to privately run charter schools has parallels to Connecticut.
In January, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will have to defend the state’s failure to fund our public schools as the CCJEF schoolfunding trial he has failed to thwart finally begins.

“While spending millions of taxpayer dollars trying to prevent children in underfunded school districts from having their day in court, the Malloy administration has aggressively expanded privately run charter schools and funded them at levels higher than schools in our poorest districts receive. Charter schools receive $11,000 per pupil annually from the state, while children in Bridgeport public schools, for example, receive less than $9,000 per pupil annually in ECS funding. New Britain Schoolsreceive less than $8,000 per pupil. Connecticut charter schools also tend to serve less needy, therefore less expensive-to-educate, students than their district counterparts.

“Moreover, the state, in violation of its own laws, concentrates charters in a few districts, forcing those financially strapped districts to pay additional millions to the charter schools for special education and transportation.

“The Malloy administration applies a double standard to charters on one hand and underfunded public schools on the other. As I have documented, the State Board of Education routinely reauthorizes charter schools despite their failures, while poor districts are subject to state takeover despite the state acknowledging that the districts’ troubles are financial (bit.ly/1JeRAaX). The SBE even blindly handed over tens of millions of dollars to a convicted embezzler/charter operator,Michael Sharpe.”

Meanwhile the Malloy administration does nothing to alleviate segregation in charter schools.

Connecticut, like Washington State, has a strong tradition of local control.

Lecker says the courts will have to step in to protect the children of Connecticut from the neglect and indifference of the Malloy administration.

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding

Mercedes Schneider: Who is Roland Fryer, Jr.?

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2015 //
41

I first learned about Roland Fryer, Jr., a Harvard economist, when he devised an experiment to pay students for raising test scores in several cities, which failed. Subsequently, he seemed to be involved in other such experiments where the methodology always involved incentives for teachers or students to get higher scores. Here is an outside review of the merit pay plan he designed for New York City. Another of his less-than-successful incentive plans was called “loss aversion.” It works like this: the district gives teachers a $4,000 bonus at the start of the school year; if scores go up, they keep it. If scores don’t go up, they give the money back.

That gave me an idea: how about “loss aversion” for economists? If their predictions are wrong, their computer is confiscated. Or their pay is cut. Or they lose a digit on one finger.

Mercedes Schneider decided to learn more about Fryer after learning that Charlie Baker, the Republican governor, had appointed Fryer to the State Board of Education. The state is on the verge of deciding whether to stick with its MCAS state tests or switch to PARCC. The State Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts, Mitchell Chester, is chair of the PARCC Governing Board. Gosh, I wonder which test they will choose?

Schneider wondered, who is Roland Fryer, Jr.

She writes that Fryer was “promoted from assistant professor to full professor after a single year on the Harvard University faculty (and skipping right over associate professor, to boot).

“Fryer is also the faculty director of Harvard University-based EdLabs, which describes itself as just a helpful group of individuals with no agenda:”

Here is their agenda:

We are an eclectic collection of scientists, educators, and implementers with diverse backgrounds and vast experience, generating ideas and implementing experiments that have the potential to transform education.

Edlabs has no political affiliation or agenda to promote. We squeeze truths from data. People may not always like what we discover, but we will disseminate our results no matter what we find.

Sounds good, yes?

But then she checked out EdLab’s associates and funding, and almost every notable reformer group was there.

Among his advisors: Joel Klein, Condoleeza Rice, and Eli Broad.

Among his funders: the usual suspects. You can guess, or read the post.

Schneider reports on one of Fryer’s ideas to close the achievement gap: don’t test the affluent districts (like the one he lives in), because it would leave less time for reading Shakespeare; but test the poor kids daily.

As I have said on more than one occasion, tests are a measure, not an educational intervention. They measure gaps, they don’t close them. If you have a fever, you can find out how high it is with a thermometer, but taking your temperature again and again will not lower your fever.

Categories Corporate Reform, Massachusetts, Standardized Testing

Faculty at U. Of Memphis Opposes Relay “Graduate” School of Education

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2015 //
14

Faculty members at the University of Memphis are fighting any partnership between the university and the Relay “Graduate School of Education.”

The student newspaper writes:

“Can Relay Graduate School of Education produce quality educators after a one-year teaching residency in one of Memphis’ charter schools?

“The University of Memphis is reconsidering this question after faculty senate members have asked university president David M. Rudd to reevaluate the potential impact of a proposed partnership between the university, Relay, and Shelby County Schools/ Achievement School District.

“The proposed program is drawing concern from faculty members and people in the community, where charter schools already use young teachers who obtain teaching certification from other non-traditional programs such as Teach for America or Memphis Teacher Residency.

“The faculty senate unanimously voted to independently investigate any risks that Relay might pose to current university programs. Additionally, a task force likely to include Provost Karen Weddle-West, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences Dean Ernest Rakow, and Professor of Educational Leadership Reginald Green will be established to offer recommendations for a university partnership with SCS/ASD.

“Relay is a one-year teaching residency program available to undergraduates from any major, and while their training period is substantially longer than other alternative certification programs, some feel that it is still inadequate.

“With what they are doing, it is impossible to become a good teacher — especially if you do not have an educational background in areas like the psychology of education,” said Mate Wierdl, a U of M professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and a faculty senate member.

“Relay’s official website outlines of their curriculum, that includes reviewing recorded classroom footage of student’s teaching interactions, as well as online tutorials. Wierdl, however, is perturbed by other concerns.

“We don’t exactly know what Relay is doing. We know that Relay is a company based in New York. We know that it is four years old. Otherwise, it has no track record whatsoever,” said Wierdl. “It’s just the strangest thing — that somehow charter school teachers can train other charter school teachers, and in New York and now in Tennessee, they can give out master’s degrees.”

Categories Corporate Reform, Teacher Education, Tennessee

Philadelphia: The “Get Rich” Charter Business

By dianeravitch
September 17, 2015 //
6

What would you rather be? A mid-level bureaucrat monitoring fiscal matters in the school district or a millionaire?

Find the answer to this question in this article about Philadelphia.

“MANY OF the recent charter bond deals have been helped by Santilli & Thomson, a New Jersey-based firm that has made millions off consulting contracts and bond fees.

“The firm, run by ex-School District of Philadelphia finance officials Gerald Santilli and Michael Thomson, touts on its website “more than 50 years of combined experience in municipal school management.”

“There is no way to know exactly how much Santilli & Thomson has earned in taxpayer-funded contracts from charter schools, according to a district spokesman. The firm did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

“However, a Philly.com analysis of financial documents for several charter schools that received municipal bonds found that Santilli & Thomson has billed at least $5 million since 2010….

“After working for 14 years as executive director of fiscal management for the school district, Santilli moved into charter consulting full time in 1999, shortly before String Theory was founded.

“Santilli personally helped found several other schools, like First Philadelphia Charter and its sister school, Tacony Academy, before starting his own consulting firm with Thomson.

“After a while, it appears [Santilli] realized that this could be a lucrative and growing business, and that he could make more money doing the work on his own,” said former school district chief financial officer Michael Masch.

“Santilli & Thomson was subpoenaed as part of a federal investigation into charter corruption in 2010, but no one there was ever charged with a crime and the firm’s contracts have continued to grow. The charters that Santilli helped found have become some of his biggest clients and secured some of the biggest bond deals in city history.

“What Santilli does to facilitate these arrangements is unclear. Consultants like Santilli & Thomson face little scrutiny from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.”

Other firms have also reaped the benefits of charter consulting. The best pay-off comes when the company that owns the charter owns the space used by the school and pays itself large leasing fees. Sweet.

“Reimbursements rose 79 percent – to $6.8 million annually – while the number of charter schools increased by just 20 percent, state records show. Only a fraction goes to schools that rent their buildings from unrelated owners.

“The issue isn’t limited to Philadelphia, according to state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who is conducting a statewide review of charter leases.

“About half the charter schools we’ve audited basically have this circular arrangement where there’s an entity that owns the building and an entity that leases the building, and they’re connected,” he said.”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150914_The_get-richbusiness_of_charter_consulting.html#LIKI5ysP4FrAUQ3E.99

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Philadelphia
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »