Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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John Merrow: Who Is Running the Show at the U.S. Department of Education?

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2017 //
16

John Merrow hears that the Department of Education in a state of confusion.

“From one perspective, these are the worst of times for American public education. In his inaugural address, President Trump told the nation that we have an “education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.” His proposed budget acts on his words, cutting federal education dollars by 13.55, or nearly $9 billion. His Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has called public education a disgrace and a disaster. Openly hostile to traditional public schools (which serve 90% of children) she plans to use the levers of power available to her to support vouchers, home schooling, on-line for-profit charter schools, and other alternatives.

“Basically, it’s open warfare against public education in Washington.

“However, it’s also chaotic, because Trump’s White House does not trust any of the Cabinet departments and has installed ‘spies’ in all of them, including Education. These Trump loyalists, often called ‘Special Assistants to the Secretary,’ report to the White House, not to the Secretary of the department they’re assigned to. So, things have to be beyond weird at 400 Maryland Avenue SW, the home of the Department of Education. One can imagine these ‘Special Assistants’ going from office to office, looking over shoulders and grilling confused bureaucrats. “What do you do?” Why does what you do matter?” And so on… I hear that morale is plummeting at the Department.

“I just came from Washington, where some Republicans and Democrats told me that “Lamar Alexander is really in charge.” Mr. Alexander is the Republic Senator from Tennessee and a former Secretary of Education who, as Chair of the Committee that approved DeVos, pushed through her nomination even though her statements revealed her lack of qualifications and understanding. They seemed to be expressing the hope that Senator Alexander could and would rein in DeVos if she really got crazy.

“So, it’s bad, but it would be worse if Trump’s anti-public school people had their act together, which they do not.”

The only solace he sees in the current situation is that Hillary would have stayed on the same Republican-designed test-and-punishe regime so beloved by Teach for America and DFER.

So, it was a Hobson’s choice, between more of the same (Hillary) and a willful, ignorant billionaire intent on destroying public schools.

Where do we go from here? We have to fight back, resist, ptotest, or watch the privatization movement steal a democratic institution.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Why Are Public School Parents and Teachers Excluded from Policy Discussions?

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2017 //
37

Reader Chiara. Has written innumerable comments pointing out that the parents and teachers of public schools have been shut out of policy circles. Why? Nearly 90% of the children in the United States attend public schools, not charter schools, religious schools, or independent schools. Why aren’t their ideas and views considered important?

She writes:

“Echo chamber alert:

“http://pahara.org/2017/02/press-release-february-28-2017/

“Aspen Education Fellows. ONE person from a public school. One.

“Ed reform excludes public schools from public education policy. It’s like how the US Department of Education is now the US Department of Private and Charter Schools.

“So how does one respond to this? Develop a new group of people who come out of public schools and just detach from the whole ed reform “movement”? I don’t really accept that the only people consulted on public school policy come out of charter and private schools. I reject that. Is the assumption that they are somehow “better”? Why?

“When we held community meetings on our public schools we didn’t pack the place with people from the private school. Why? Because 99% of our kids go to the public school.”

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

Check Out This Debate About Charters Tonight

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2017 //
5

My mistake: the debate was last night, not tonight.

Julian Vasquez Heilig will debate Christopher Stewart tonight. It will be live-streamed.

The proposition is: “Charters and Vouchers are the Answer.”

I will be rooting for Julian, who knows the research and knows that privatization has never produced better education for the neediest kids.

Julian is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.

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

Betsy DeVos Loves For-Profit Schools: They Are a Disgrace

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2017 //
15

ProPublica writes about the abuses that occur in certain for-profit schools designed especially for difficult children. The very concept of a public school that operates for profit is absurd, because every dollar from taxpayers is meant for the children, the teachers, and the schools, not investors. But this article is specifically about a for-profit chain for difficult students.

An alternative school for sixth- through 12th-graders with behavioral or academic problems, Paramount occupied a low-slung, brick and concrete building on a dead-end road in hard-luck Reading, Pennsylvania, a city whose streets are littered with signs advertising bail bondsmen, pay-day lenders, and pawn shops. Camelot Education, the for-profit company that ran Paramount under a contract with the Reading school district, maintained a set of strict protocols: No jewelry, book bags, or using the water fountain or bathroom without permission. Just as it still does at dozens of schools, the company deployed a small platoon of “behavioral specialists” and “team leaders”: typically large men whose job was partly to enforce the rules.

Over six months in 2013 and 2014, about a half-dozen parents, students and community members at Paramount Academy — billed as a “therapeutic” day program — complained of abusive behavior by the school’s staff. One mother heard that staff restrained students by “excessive force” and bruised the arms of a female student, according to email exchanges between Camelot and the district. Another mother, Sharon Pacharis, said she visited the school to complain about manhandling and was told, “That’s just what we do.” Camelot’s own written reports to the district documented one incident in which a teenager was scratched and another in which a bathroom wall was damaged. Both resulted from “holds” — likely a reference to Camelot’s protocol for restraining students during a physical encounter.

Camelot tended to blame the students in its weekly reports to the district, calling them “out of control”; school officials referred several to police. It was, after all, a place partly for students whom the district had deemed too disruptive for a traditional school setting.

But an incident on April 24, 2014, abruptly shifted the focus to Camelot’s staff.

Ismael Seals, a behavioral specialist, walked into a classroom with several loud and boisterous students and commanded them to “shut the fuck up,” decreeing that the next one who talked would get body-slammed through the door, according to a subsequent criminal complaint. Moments later, Seals fulfilled his promise. After 17-year-old Corey Mack asked and received permission from his teacher, Teresa Bivens, to get up to sharpen his pencil, Seals pushed him repeatedly against a door and then shoved him into the hall, where a school surveillance camera recorded most of the rest of the incident. Seals, 6 feet 4 inches tall and 280 pounds, lifted Mack, 5 feet 8 inches tall and about 160 pounds, by his shirt and swung him into the wall headfirst, later pinning him to the ground as other staff members arrived, according to court documents.

Mack later showed a string of bruises and scratches on his back to a program director at a center for children with behavioral and mental health challenges. The program director called a juvenile probation official, who contacted the police.

Reached by telephone last fall, Corey Mack struggled to remember the details of his altercation with Seals, including what he had said just before the behavioral specialist shoved him, and the precise sequence of events. But he was clear on the essential point: “He beat me up,” Mack said.

Is this what taxpayers support? They should not.

DeVos should be challenged. For profit schools should be prohibited, not subsidized by taxpayers.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Mary Gonzalez: Texas Needs to Supports Its Public Schools, Not Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2017 //
8

Mary Gonzalez is a member of the Texas House of Representatives. She is now serving her third term in the House, and she is deeply concerned that the state and the federal government want to destroy public education.

The goal of school choice, she says, is to create a separate and unequal system of schools for the state’s 6 million students.

She writes:

In 2011, the Legislature cut $5.4 billion in public education funding and implemented a testing regime that centered accountability on a dehumanizing, ineffective standardized test.

In short, schools would get a lot less money while facing impossible standards. It was as if schools were intentionally being set up to be labelled as failures. Why do you think campuses are now being labeled A through F?

Creating the perception of failing public schools in the minds of the public was necessary to fuel the “school choice” movement.

Listening to the political rhetoric at the state and national level, this strategy seems to have been effective. Instead of a collective discourse on strengthening and funding our public schools, the conversation centers on supporting charter expansion and vouchers.

The expansion of “school choice” translates into the creation of multiple systems, facilitating a structure of separate and unequal.

Charter school quality, however, is questionable. Research demonstrates that, on average, they don’t outperform traditional public schools.

The real problem with “school choice” is the creation of an unequal, tiered system that allows students to fall through the cracks. These tiers are only created when money and resources are taken away from public schools.

In the long term, this approach is unsustainable for a state serving nearly 6 million students.

The unequal distribution of resources, along with the fact that charter schools do not operate under the same rules as public schools, exacerbates the problem.

Charters claim to be “public”, but are actually run by corporations or nonprofits, rather than locally elected school boards that are accountable to parents and the community.

Charters are not subject to the same regulations as public schools. Those regulations include class size limits, student-teacher ratios, and having school nurses and counselors on site.

Also, charters can control enrollment through admission requirements like geographical location, discipline records, sibling priority, academic ability, and through dismissal and expulsion procedures that differ from those of traditional schools. This allows charters to preferentially select students who are less-expensive to educate.

When we fragment the public school system, we create more opportunity for inequity without making any real gains.

Democracy requires a strong and equitable public school system. Choice will undermine that goal.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Privatization, Testing, Texas

Democratic Senator Will Introduce Neil Gorsuch at His Hearing for Supreme Court Justice

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2017 //
25

Democratic Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado will introduce Neil Gorsuch at his Senate confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gorsuch is from Colorado.

Bennett is one of the most fervent advocates for school privatization in Congress. Before entering the Senate (he was appointed to fill a vacancy, then was elected), he was superintendent of Denver, where he promoted high-stakes testing and charter schools. He is a DFER favorite.

Apparently, he forgot that not a single Republican senator was willing to support Merrick Garland, the highly respected federal judge nominated by Obama for the seat that Gorsuch is likely to take.

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress says of Gorsuch:

Gorsuch’s record suggests that he is to the right of the late conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia, and possibly as far right as the most conservative member of the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas. As a judge, Gorsuch voted to limit women’s access to birth control in the Hobby Lobby case. He tried to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood in Utah. And he is likely to provide the key fifth vote to uphold voter suppression laws that skew the electorate to the right and help keep Democrats like Michael Bennet from winning elections.

Those who have followed the rightwing tilt of Democrats like Bennett are not surprised.

Categories Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Missouri: Bill to Expand Charter Schools Passes House, Goes to State Senate

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2017 //
3

The privatization steam roller continues to move through the Republican controlled states.

The Missouri House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to expand the number of charter schools in the state. The bill now moves to the Senate.

After more than five hours of debate Wednesday and more than an hour of debate Thursday, the measure advanced to the Senate on an 83-76 vote.

Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that operate independently from elected school boards. They currently operate in St. Louis and Kansas City only; the plan would allow charter schools in places like Columbia and Springfield.

The sponsor, Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, touted the legislation as a way to provide students and families with more choices. The changes, she said, will bring competition to schools, triggering improvement and innovation in education.

Public education advocates warned that charter schools have not fulfilled their promises of success and innovation, but Republicans were determined to pass the bill anyway.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Missouri, Privatization

AASA Denounces Trump-DeVos Budget Cuts and Privatization Priorities

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2017 //
3

AASA Executive Director Responds to President Trump’s FY18 Budget Proposal

Alexandria, Va. – March 16, 2017 – Earlier today, President Trump released details for his FY18 budget proposal. It is a “skinny budget,” in that it only covers discretionary funding, and within that, doesn’t fully list the impact on all discretionary programs. The proposal cuts funding to the U.S. Education Department by $9 billion (13 percent). It provides a $1 billion increase for Title I, but the increase is for states and districts to use for portability and choice. This is in addition to a new $250 million school choice/voucher program and a $168 million increase for charters, bringing the total amount of NEW funding in the President’s budget for choice to $1.4 billion. The budget level funds IDEA, eliminates ESSA Title II Part A and eliminates the 21st Century Community Learning Centers.

In response to this budget proposal, AASA Executive Director Daniel A. Domenech released the following statement:

“AASA is deeply concerned that the first budget proposal from the new administration doesn’t prioritize investment in the key federal programs that support our nation’s public schools, which educate more than 90 percent of our nation’s students. While we would normally applaud a proposal that increases funding for Title I by $1 billion, we cannot support a proposal that prioritizes privatization and steers critical federal funding into policies and programs that are ineffective and flawed education policy. The research on vouchers and portability has consistently demonstrated that they do not improve educational opportunity and leave many students, including low-income students, student with disabilities and students in rural communities-underserved. AASA remains opposed to vouchers and will work with the administration and Congress to ensure that all entities receiving federal dollars for education faces the same transparency, reporting and accountability requirements.

“AASA is disappointed at the significant cuts proposed to critical education programs, including the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title II. FY 18 dollars will be used by schools across the nation in just the second year of ESSA implementation, and the idea that this administration thinks that schools can do this work—and the administration claim they support this work—without supporting teachers and teacher leaders, and their professional development, is a deeply disconcerting position.

“As recently as yesterday, Secretary DeVos indicated an interest in supporting state and local education agencies, and ‘to returning power to the states whenever and wherever possible.’ AASA is concerned that while the Department indicates it wants to return power, the proposed funding levels—including continued level funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and cuts to core programs in ESSA—deeply undercut state and local efforts in these areas and expand the reality of federal requirements without commensurate support, further encroaching on state and local dollars. The return of power, however well intended, when systematically and deliberately paired with low funding, translates into unfunded federal requirements.

“AASA remains committed to parity between defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) dollars, and we are deeply opposed to the proposed $54 billion increase in defense discretionary spending being offset by NDD spending cuts. AASA supports robust investment in our nation’s schools and the students they serve, and we support increased investment for both defense and NDD funding by lifting the budget caps, as set forth in the Budget Control Act of 2011, for both. NDD programs are the backbone of critical functions of government and this proposed cut will impact myriad policy areas—including medical and scientific research, job training, infrastructure, public safety and law enforcement, public health and education, among others—and programs that support our children and students.

“Increased investment in education—particularly in formula programs—is a critical step to improving education for all students and bolstering student learning, school performance and college and career readiness among our high school graduates. AASA remains hopeful that our President, who has consistently articulated an interest in growing our economy, growing jobs, and keeping this nation moving forward, will recognize the unparalleled role that education plays in each of these goals and work to improve his FY18 budget to increase investment in the key federal K12 programs that bolster and improve our nation’s public schools, the students they serve and the education to which they aspire.”

###

About AASA
AASA, The School Superintendents Association, founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders in the United States and throughout the world. AASA’s mission is to support and develop effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public education for all children. For more information, visit http://www.aasa.org.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Kentucky Legislators Capitulate to Big Money, Approve Charter Law

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2017 //
11

Over the vociferous opposition of parents and educators, the Kentucky state senate voted to authorize charters in the state, thus opening it up to exploitation by entrepreneurs, out-of-state corporations, and hucksters.

The threat to public schools could not be clearer, as the state senate voted 23-15 to betray their constituents and go with the big money backing private management of charter schools that have no track record of improving student achievement.

The Republican governor Matt Bevin is a Republican free-markets ideologue, so he will of course sign the legislation.

Parents will have to continue the fight to preserve their communities and public schools from the privatization vultures.

The new charters will be required to have certified teachers, which the so-called reformers said was an intolerable burden that would prevent innovation, like having untrained teachers in the classroom. The reformers’ idea of innovation sounds amazingly like the schools of the 19th century–unregulated schools with no certified teachers.

But reformers got what they wanted: charters and money. They are looking out for adult interests, not for families, kids or communities.

The bill allows for school boards and only the mayors of Louisville and Lexington to approve charter schools in those districts or cities. Earlier in the day, the Senate Education Committee added language saying charter school teachers must be a qualified teacher and that students will not be able to go to a charter school across county lines unless a regional charter is created.

The changes also require mayors to provide written notice saying they want to be an authorizer of charters and clarified that only the mayor of Louisville would be able to authorize charter schools in Jefferson County, as opposed to mayors from the county’s smaller cities.

After passing the full Senate amid criticism from Democrats on how charter schools would be funded, Republican senators fought back and filed an amendment to an unrelated House budget bill — House Bill 471 — which seeks to transfer federal funds and state money to cover the costs of students who move to charter schools.

Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, was furious at the move, saying “this is one of the worst things I have seen happen to public education in my lifetime.”

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

Charter School Leaders Meet with Betsy DeVos to Celebrate Her Agenda for America

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2017 //
10

Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform posted a photograph in which leaders of charter schools met with their new champion: Secretary Betsy DeVos. She was joined by charter leaders from D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and California. The Ohio charter leader didn’t make it because of the snow. There were also leaders from the for-profit sector, including the virtual charter sector.

Betsy DeVos is one of them. Their hero now is in charge of the U.S. Department of Education, and she wants to divert billions of dollars from children in public schools to feed the charter industry. O happy day!

The charter industry and DeVos are on the same page. They hope to make enormous gains during her tenure in office. They see the public schools not as a public good or a civic institution, but as a target, a prize to be conquered, defeated, looted, and depleted. But it’s all for the kids!

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization
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