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Florida: How Charter Schools Are Used to Hide Dropouts and Game the System

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2017 //
21

Heather Vogell and Hannah Fresques published an important piece of investigative journalism that appears in ProPublica and USA Today about a new twist on the charter scamming in Florida. The scam is the result of Jeb Bush’s high-stakes accountability system, which incentivizes schools to get rid of low-performing students in order to maintain their letter grades and rankings.

Here is the shorthand: School officials nationwide dodge accountability ratings by steering low achievers to alternative programs. In Orlando, Florida, the nation’s tenth-largest district, thousands of students who leave alternative charters run by a for-profit company aren’t counted as dropouts. Is this why nationwide graduation rates are going up? Is this what Arne Duncan claimed credit for?

It begins like this:

TUCKED AMONG POSH GATED COMMUNITIES, and meticulously landscaped shopping centers, Olympia High School in Orlando offers more than two dozen Advanced Placement courses, even more afterschool clubs, and an array of sports from bowling to water polo. U.S. News and World Report ranked it among the nation’s top 1,000 high schools last year. Big letters painted in brown on one campus building urge its more than 3,000 students to “Finish Strong.”

Olympia’s success in recent years, however, has been linked to another, quite different school five miles away. Last school year, 137 students assigned to Olympia’s attendance zone instead attended Sunshine High, a charter alternative school run by a for-profit company. Sunshine stands a few doors down from a tobacco shop and a liquor store in a strip mall. It offers no sports teams and few extra-curricular activities.

Sunshine’s 455 students — more than 85 percent of whom are black or Hispanic — sit for four hours a day in front of computers with little or no live teaching. One former student said he was left to himself to goof off or cheat on tests by looking up answers on the internet. A current student said he was robbed near the strip mall’s parking lot, twice.

Sunshine takes in cast-offs from Olympia and other Orlando high schools in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Olympia keeps its graduation rate above 90 percent — and its rating an “A” under Florida’s all-important grading system for schools — partly by shipping its worst achievers to Sunshine. Sunshine collects enough school district money to cover costs and pay its management firm, Accelerated Learning Solutions (ALS), a more than $1.5 million-a-year “management fee,” 2015 financial records show — more than what the school spends on instruction.

But students lose out, a ProPublica investigation found. Once enrolled at Sunshine, hundreds of them exit quickly with no degree and limited prospects. The departures expose a practice in which officials in the nation’s tenth-largest school district have for years quietly funneled thousands of disadvantaged students — some say against their wishes — into alternative charter schools that allow them to disappear without counting as dropouts.

Keep reading. It is a shocking story, especially in light of the fact that Betsy DeVos is so impressed with Florida’s “success” that she wants to use it as a model for the nation. She surely can’t use her home state of Michigan as a model in light of its precipitous decline in national rankings on NAEP. What Florida and Michigan have in common, however, are for-profit charter chains, where the owners profit handsomely but the kids do not.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Graduation rates, Hoax, Privatization

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Are Charters the Answer?

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2017 //
24

The short answer: No.

Julian Vasquez Heilig explains why charters are not the answer to inequity. They deepen inequity.

Here is an excerpt:

My Confession is that I am a former charter Volunteer (MN), Educator (CA), Parent (TX) and Donor (CA) I’ve also publish peer reviewed research on charters.

I am a scholar. We are in pursuit and convinced by evidence. So I’d like to talk about evidence today.

Here are 10 things to consider about the market-based charter schools debate:

Where did market-based school choice come from? Writing in the 1960s, academics such as the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, followed by John Chubb and Terry Moe in the 1990s, argued for a profit-based education system where resources are controlled by private entities rather than by democratically elected governments. They recommended a system of public education built around parent-student choice, school competition, and school autonomy as a solution to what they saw as the problem of direct democratic control of public schools.

School “choice” does not cure the inequality created by markets. Not surprisingly, the academics neglected to mention that market-based mechanisms are the very system that created the inequities in American public schools today. Along with other public policies, including redlining, market forces created racial and economic segregation. Instead of making this situation better, school choice made this situation worse. Research by the UCLA Civil Rights project has demonstrated this fact. I have included this report and other resources in your green folders. I have a few extra packets that I can give to folks after my presentation.

What does the research tell us that happens when everyone has choice? Also known as Universal choice? A group of economists mentored by Friedman, the Chicago Boys, took Friedman’s theories about education back to their home country and to push an education system with universal choice and relaxed regulation and oversight. Over the past several decades, Chile simultaneously became one of the richest countries in South America and the most unequal developed country in the world. In markets there are winners and losers.s I also recommend you check out Linda Darling-Hammond’s, a Stanford Professor, new book Global Education Reform Movement. This book examines countries around the world and finds that market-based reforms have failed spectacularly when compared with equity-based reforms.

The position of the NAACP and Black Lives Matter on privatization is consistent with the views of past civil rights leaders.NAACP co-founder E.B. Du Bois, in his essay Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism in the U.S., extolled the virtues of collaborative social and government action. He railed against the role of businesses and capitalistic control that “usurp government” and made the “throttling of democracy and distortion of education and failure of justice widespread.” Malcolm X characterized market-based public policy as “vulturistic” and “bloodsucking.” He advocated for collaborative social systems to solve problems. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that we often have socialism in public policy for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor. White academics pressing for market-based school choice in the name of “civil rights” ignore this history of African American civil rights leaders advocating for collaborative systems of social support and distrusting “free market” policies.

Is the NAACP and Black Lives Matter position on schools out of touch with civil rights? A barrage of criticism has come from market-based school choice proponents and charter operators about the NAACP and Black Lives Matter resolutions. However, the NAACP has for years been consistent in its critique of charters schools. At the 2010 convention, the NAACP national board and members supported a resolution saying that state charter schools create “separate and unequal conditions.” A review of ten years of research supports their statement. I have included the review of research in your packets. More recently, in 2014, the NAACP connected school choice with the private control of public education. More recently, the 2016 resolution includes a variety of civil rights-based critiques such as a lack of accountability, increased segregation, and disparate punitive and exclusionary discipline for African Americans.

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

Bob Braun: Do Public School Advocates Have the Will to Save Their Schools?

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2017 //
15

Bob Braun was a star investigative reporter in New Jersey. Now he is retire and blogs about the misdeeds and antics and corruption in his state. He is deeply knowledgeable about education.

In this post, he wonders whether the allies of public education have the guts and the will to save their public schools from predators.

Here he reports on a conference of public school advocates in New Jersey and warns against collaborating with those who want to destroy what you value. You cannot find common ground with vandals.

He writes:

“It’s not as if the problems aren’t known. Bruce Baker, the Rutgers professor who is probably the smartest and most cutting critic of state educational policy, warned both about the regressive nature of school funding under Christie–and the growing acceptance of the segregating effects of charter schools, privately-operated, public-funded schools that help frightened parents run away from public schools.

“We’ve lost momentum on the idea that pubic schools should be inclusive,” he said. “They”–the critics of public schools–“are making the opposite argument and they are winning.”

In short, the fundamental idea that public schools are and should be engines of equality and diversity is losing support.

And how will it be restored? Baker and others–including Theresa Luhm of the Education Law Center (ELC)–were not hopeful. No, it’s not that they were pessimistic–they were all hopeful the last eight years of Christie’s contempt for public education could be reversed. But they also warned that any effort to rewrite school funding laws were inherently dangerous because they invited political interference in the pursuit of true equity. Better to leave well enough alone and tinker with the edges.

Like Phil Murphy’s expected candidacy, this is simply not enough. Something akin to a political tsunami has occurred that is about to wash away public education as we know it and something more than the restoration of the Bourbons to public education is needed.

Participants in the conference danced around the danger of charters–but they are starving public schools. Yet even charter critics like Mark Weber–better known as the blogger Jersey Jazzman–offered palliatives when, in fact, bulldozers are needed. Charters suspend and expel 20 to 30 times more students than do public schools, a good way of enhancing their student test results, and such behavior raises serious moral as well as political issues.

Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education.

Mary Bennett, a former Newark high school principal, spoke about governance–specifically the return of local control to the Newark schools. But she neglected to mention that the path to local control was impeded, not by the will of the Newark people willing to fight for their schools, but by the unfortunate deal cut between Christie and Mayor Ras Baraka to end criticism of Christie’s policies in the city, including the vast expansion–doubling in ten years–of charter school enrollment.

Baraka, in short, impeded the pace of a return to local control and now takes credit for expediting it. The dangers public schools face now cannot allow such delusional political thinking–the enemies in Washington are too real and too powerful.

In the audience, Newark activist Roberto Cabanas pointed out the obvious: If the people of Newark just waited out Christie’s term, local control would be returned in 2018 when he leaves–even if Baraka had lost to pro-charter Shavar Jeffries in the 2014 mayoral contest. All the marches and rallies and speeches were pretty much useless.

“We could have done nothing and achieved the same result,” he said.

Don’t forget these were the activists, the advocates, the good guys, at the conference. But they argued against tinkering with the school aid formula, wrung their hands about seeking an end to charter schools completely, held out little hope about seriously integrating the public schools of the state, and believed that a mayor who hires school board members really means it when he talks about independent public education.

Even if Phil Murphy is elected, public education in New Jersey–and throughout the nation–is in serious trouble.

It is underfunded.

It is racially segregated.

It is in danger of being swept away by charters.

Its employees are demoralized.

It has been targeted for destruction by a national administration unlike any other in the history of the republic.

In short, without aggressive action to restore the promise of public education, it will continue to lose support among those who will turn to nuts like Trump and DeVos to find answers in alternatives like vouchers, private schooling, and home-schooling.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Home Schooling, Privatization, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Donald Trump on Education: An Official Transcript of His Listening Tour

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
22

Here is the official transcript issued by the White House of Trump’s “listening tour.” Note how he gushes over every parent or teacher not in a public school and how quickly he breezes past a Teacher of special education in a public school. He seems to promise near the end to reduce the rate of autism. He says he visited an amazing charter school in Las Vegas but clearly doesn’t know that most of the charter schools in Nevada are failing schools.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 14, 2017
Remarks by President Trump at Parent-Teacher Conference Listening Session

Roosevelt Room

10:50 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I am delighted to welcome everybody to the White House. And Betsy DeVos, who has gone through — our new Education Secretary — she went through an interesting moment. And you’re going to do a fantastic job, and I know you would have done it again if you had to do it again, right? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY DEVOS: Probably.

THE PRESIDENT: She had no doubt that final night, waiting for the vote. So I just want to congratulate you. You showed toughness and genius.

As I said many times in my campaign, we want every child in America to have the opportunity to climb the ladder to success. I want every child also to have a safe community, and we’re going to do that very much. We’re going to be helping you a lot — a great school and some day to get a really well-paying job or better, or better; own their own company. And a lot of people are looking at that.

But it all begins with education, and that’s why we’re here this morning. And I’m here also to celebrate a little bit with Betsy because we started this journey a long time ago, having to do with change and so many other good things with education. And I’m so happy that that all worked out.

Right now, too many of our children don’t have the opportunity to get that education that we all talk about. Millions of poor, disadvantaged students are trapped in failing schools and this crisis — and it really is a crisis — of education and communities working together but not working out. And we’re going to change it around, especially for the African American communities. It’s been very, very tough and unfair. And I know that’s a priority and it’s a certainly a priority of mine.

That’s why I want every single disadvantaged child in America, no matter what their background or where they live, to have a choice about where they go to school. And it’s worked out so well in some communities where it’s been properly run and properly done. And it’s a terrific thing.

Charter schools, in particular, have demonstrated amazing gains and results. And you look at the results — we have cases in New York City that have been amazing in providing education to disadvantaged children and the success of so many different schools that I can name throughout the country that I got to see during the campaign. I went to one in Las Vegas; it was the most unbelievable thing you’ve ever seen. And they’ve done a fantastic job.

So there are many such schools and we want to do that on a large-scale basis. We can never lose sight of the connection between education and jobs. I’m bringing a lot of jobs back. We’re bringing a lot of big plants back into the country — everyone said it was impossible. And before I even took office, we started the process and tremendous numbers of plants are coming back into this country — car plants and other plants. And I have meetings next week with four or five different companies, big ones that are going to bring massive numbers of jobs back.

So we’re doing it from the jobs standpoint, but education only makes it better. Our goal is a clear and very safe community, great schools, and we want those jobs that are high-paying jobs — we’ve lost a lot of our best jobs to other countries and we’re going to bring them back.

So I’m going to do my job, and Betsy, at the education level, will do her job. And just to do it very, very formally, I want to congratulate you on having gone through a very tough trial and a very unfair trial, and you won. And there’s something very nice about that. And I’ll tell you the real winner will be the children — I guess a couple of adults (inaudible) — but will be the children of this country. And I just want to congratulate you.

SECRETARY DEVOS: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we’ll go around the room. And everybody knows our fantastic Vice President, Mike Pence. But if we went around the room, it would be very nice. So why don’t we start? Betsy, you might want to say a few words to us.

SECRETARY DEVOS: Well, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, I am just very honored to have the opportunity to serve America’s students, and I’m really excited to be here today with parents and educators representing traditional public schools, charter public schools, homeschools, private schools, a range of choices. And we’re eager to listen and learn from you your ideas for how we can ensure that all of our kids have an equal opportunity for a high-quality, great education and therefore an opportunity for the future.

So again, I just wanted to have the opportunity to serve, and looking forward to fulfilling the mission that you set forward.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s our honor — believe me, Betsy.

Kenneth.

MR. SMITH: Ken Smith, educator helping at-risk kids get through school. Vice President, it actually has the largest application of jobs for America’s graduates in the country. And in a minute we’ll talk about that as a solution.

THE PRESIDENT: Great. Good.

Laura.

MS. PARRISH: Laura Parrish, I’m from Falls Church, Virginia. I homeschool my 10- and my 13-year-old.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Very good.

Mary.

MS. RINER: My name is Mary. I’m a charter school parent here in D.C., and considered the best school in America.

THE PRESIDENT: You think, huh? (Laughter.)

MS. RINER: I know.

THE PRESIDENT: I like that.

MS. RINER: According to U.S. News & World Report.

THE PRESIDENT: Really? Is that right? Wow.

Jennifer.

MS. COLEMAN: I am Jennifer Coleman. I am from Prince William County, Virginia. I am the mother of six, and I homeschool my oldest four; they are grades kindergarten through seven. And before that I was a private school teacher.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good.

MR. CIRENZA: Bartholomew Cirenza. I’m a parent of seven, and my kids have gone through both private and public school, and I see differences, and —

THE PRESIDENT: Big difference.

MR. CIRENZA: Big difference.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

MS. BAUMANN: Good morning, I’m Julie. I teach special education at a public school in New Jersey.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.

MS. QUENNVILLE: Hi, I’m Jane Quennville, and I’m a principal of a special-ed center in Virginia serving children ages five through twenty-two with autism and physical and medically fragile conditions.

THE PRESIDENT: How is that going?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Well —

THE PRESIDENT: Have you seen an increase in the autism with the children?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, yes. In fact, our school has shifted its population — saw more children with autism, definitely.

THE PRESIDENT: So what’s going on with autism? When you look at the tremendous increases, really, it’s such an incredible — it’s like really a horrible thing to watch, the tremendous amount of increase. Do you have any idea? And you’re seeing it in the school?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, I think — I mean, I think the statistics, I believe, are 1 in 66, 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with autism.

THE PRESIDENT: And now it’s going to be even lower —

MS. QUENNVILLE: Probably.

THE PRESIDENT: — which is just amazing. Well, maybe we can do something.

MS. BONILLA: I am Carol Bonilla. I teach Spanish in a private elementary school in Arlington. I teach the students in fourth through eighth grade.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.

MS. VIANA: Good morning, Mr. Vice President, Mr. President. My name is Aimee Viana. I’m the parent of two children — fifth grade and second grade — and I live right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina in Cary, and I’m also a former educator in public and private schools.

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you. So thank you all very much. Let’s get going.

END
10:58 P.M. EST

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Home Schooling, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

North Carolina: Reformers and Tea Party Love DeVos

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2017 //
11

Stuart Egan, NBCT high school teacher in North Carolina, has connected the dots that link reformers, the Tea Party, and Betsy DeVos.

The Dramatis Personae in the Privatization of Public Schools in North Carolina – or Who is Trying to “Reform” Education Through Deformation

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization

A Mom in DougCo, Colorado, Asks for Help

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2017 //
18

This letter is an excellent description of the damage that so-called reformers do to good school districts. In this case, it is Douglas County, Colorado. I urge Amy to join the Network for Public Education, which will connect her to others in Colorado who understand the facade of reform that brings a wrecking crew into the district. Carol Burris will reach out to her.

Can you help?

Amy writes:

I’m a mom of two daughters in Highlands Ranch, CO (an affluent south suburb of Denver, which is heavily Republican). My school district (DCSD-Douglas CO School District) has been under siege since our local 2009 elections, when a majority of “Reform” candidates were elected from within our 7 district “boundaries”, and more in 2013. I admit, I voted for most of them, and I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand what the “Reform” movement was, or how it could dismantle an entire thriving and successful district so quickly.

Over the last 4 to 5 years, as I’ve watched the teacher’s union be dissolved, charter schools (from outside CO) invade and fail, and vouchers drain public money away from neighborhood schools. I’ve watched on-site school teachers/administrators who I have great respect and admiration for, either leave (for neighboring districts… they’re actually called “refugees” within the school systems), retire early, become fearful of speaking up, and sink into a slump of morale. I’ve never been a political person, and I’ve traditionally leaned conservative, but the last 4 years, I’ve become active with other parents in our district to stand up against this “reform” DCSD board agenda that has depleted and destabilized our local school system. We’ve gone from once being the top performing district in the state (attracting top educators/teachers), to having the highest teacher turnover in the state, and massive budget shortfalls.

The board’s pet project, creating the new C.I.T.E. teacher evaluation program, is a dismal failure, and has cost us as taxpayers millions. Our district’s legal fees over the last 8 years are staggering, not to mention millions in fines from the CO BOE, for non-compliant decisions of our Reform board directors. Bottom line… our district needs help.

This November’s election will give citizens the opportunity to replace several of the Reform board members, and despite our county being heavily Republican, I feel parent and teacher grass root groups have a chance. But my concern is that SO many residents in our county simply don’t understand the complexity, and direct links between these board members, and harm in our schools. I’ve been a (moderate) registered republican most of my life, but in this area, I’ve become pretty darn “liberal”, based on watching the impacts on my daughter’s schools, and researching “why”.

We are a county/district packed with “families”. Many Denver citizens have/had moved to our suburbs specifically to get into our school district. I BELIEVE, despite resident’s political identification, that this is an issue that can be persuasively won (taken back) in our county. However, during our last few election cycles, lobbyists, money, and out-of-state players seem to flood into our little district. I’ve come to realize Douglas County, CO, is somehow very important to much bigger players. A group called LPR (Leadership Program of the Rockies…

http://www.leadershipprogram.org ) has been a major influence on our district, and I’ve come to feel as though our local citizens are being manipulated by this group. More directly, by its members and graduates (the 4 remaining “reform” board members are all affiliated with LPR.) They and have even appointed/hired other LPR members to positions within the district… (I.e. the F-Time attorney recently hired to work in our school administration). Is it even normal for a previously highly successful school district to have a FT “in-house” attorney as a school district employee?

I’m really just one small person, and there are certainly others also advocating in my district who are much more knowledgeable about everything that has occurred over the last 10 years. I’m reaching out to you, because of what I’ve read about you, your passions, and your impressive educational and professional background. Do you have any insight or advice for how our grassroots citizens (who understand the need to stand up and “do something”) should proceed between now and the crutial elections this November? Specifically…

* what are the best and most effective ways to get our local community “aware” of these issues? (as many people just find the topic boring, and/or assume no matter who is elected, the “district” is bigger than any one board member)
* assuming we get local voters better educated, what practices result in getting them to ACT (I.e. voting; and potentially across their GOP “party” identifications, if only on this ONE local issue)?
* How do we find, solicit, and promote the best potential “anti-reform” school board candidates for this November’s local election? The “Reform” candidates in previous elections have come across as VERY intelligent, highly educated, and very “successful” people with high level jobs… even I incorrectly “assumed” (in prior elections) that these professional smart people (I.e. an attorney, a rocket scientist etc) would make logical good decisions for our kids and schools. Because they had very professional “day jobs”, and kids in our schools, I guess I assumed lobbyists or outside influences wouldn’t have much effect on them. Now I know each received sizable campaign donations from places like the local GOP party, and LPR sources.
* how can we most effectively raise money for our future candidates, to be able to compete against heavily funded “reform” candidates?
* Is it possible to keep these special interest and even “national” entities out of “our” small local elections?
Thank you for the important work you do. And if I don’t hear back from you, know you have inspired “little people” like me about the crutial importance of public education, and why we can’t treat it as a for-profit commodity.

Most Sincerely,

Amy Smith

Highlands Ranch, CO

Citizen and mom in the Douglas CO School District
YouCanReachAmySmith@gmail.com

PS: these are websites involved local parents and teachers have formed over the last few years…
Involved Douglas County teachers and Citizens…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dc4publicedu/
SPEAK for DCSD…
https://www.facebook.com/SPEAK-for-DCSD-113649758761679/
Douglas County Parents…
https://www.facebook.com/DouglasCountyParents/

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

Jeff Bryant: How DeVos Strengthened Progressive Forces in Education

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2017 //
37

Jeff Bryant pulls together persuasive evidence that Betsy DeVos energized a movement that was previously scattered and disconnected. People who had no idea that the privatization of public schools is a genuine threat became informed. Groups began forming at the grassroots level to defend their community’s public schools. Supposedly “progressive” Democrats supported privatization by charters because they were hoodwinked by fake reformers promising fake miracles. For those of us fighting privatization, DeVos clarified what is at stake: the survival of democratically-controlled, community-based public schools, responsible for all children.

Even Senators like Michael Bennett and Corey Booker voted against DeVos, even though they fundamentally agree with her view of school reform by school choice.

Make no mistake: School choice was born in racism and it promotes racism.

Jeff Bryant writes:

“Betsy DeVos may have won her contest in the Senate to become the new U.S. Secretary of Education, but her opposition wasn’t the only thing that went down to defeat that day.

“For decades, federal education policies have been governed by a “Washington Consensus” that public schools are effectively broken, especially in low-income communities of color, and the only way to fix them is to apply a dose of tough love and a business philosophy of competition from charter schools and performance measurements based on standardized tests.

“Since the 1990s, this consensus among Democrats and Republicans has enforced all kinds of unproven “reform” mandates on schools, and by 2012, as veteran education reporter Jay Mathews of The Washington Post noted that year, the two parties were “happily copying each other” on education.

“Democrats have in recent years sounded – and acted – a lot like Republicans in advancing corporate education reform, which seeks to operate public schools as if they were businesses, not civic institutions,” writes Valerie Strauss, the veteran education journalist who blogs for the Washington Post. “By embracing many of the tenets of corporate reform — including the notion of ‘school choice’ and the targeting of teachers and their unions as being blind to the needs of children – they helped make DeVos’s education views, once seen as extreme, seem less so.”

“But with the election of President Donald Trump and the ascension of DeVos to secretary, that consensus appears dead.

“She would start her job with no credibility,” Education Week quotes Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington. “A vote for Betsy DeVos is a vote for a secretary of education who is likely to succeed only in further dividing us on education issues.”

“The DeVos vote reflected the tribal, dysfunctional, polarized nature of our politics,” writes Woodrow Wilson Center senior scholar Linda Killian in USA Today. “It is a harbinger of things to come.”

“But what looks like the death of a political consensus on education could be the beginning of something else: an opportunity for progressives to press a new education agenda. Here’s what should they do.”

He proceeds to write about next steps. Read them.

Here is one you can take right now. Join the Network for Public Education. DeVos caused a huge spike in our membership. She has made parents and educators and graduates of public schools aware that they must stand together and fight the DeVos-Trump agenda of charters, vouchers, cybercharters, for-profit schools, homeschooling. Just remember when she speaks soothing words about public schools, she wants to take funding away from them to share with all those private choices.

When Eli Broad talks about charters, he is endorsing the DeVos agenda. When Democrats for Education Reform, Families for Excellent Schools, Stand for Children, Bill Gates, and other billionaires sing the praises of charter schools, they are singing from the DeVos privatization hymnal.

When Anthony Cody and I started the Network

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization

The Dirty Tricks of California’s Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2017 //
5

The Los Angeles Times endorsed two strong supporters of charter schools for the Los Angeles Unified School District board, both favored by the California Charter School Association. The rationale was simplistic: new voices are needed.This is bizarre. It doesn’t matter whether a voice is old or new. What matters most is what the voice is saying. Will a new board try to turn Los Angeles into New Orleans? Will it be Eli Broad’s puppet? His voice is the oldest of all. It would be truly refreshing if the LA Times told him to keep his hands off the public schools since all of his experiments have failed (e.g., Michigan’s Education Achievement District). Why don’t they tell him to stick to art and medical research and stop meddling in the schools?

However, the Times published an article by columnist Steve Lopez that offers a clear-eyed analysis of the CCSA’s dirty tricks. The CCSA and its billionaire buddies have decided that it is time to take out Steve Zimmer, chair of the LAUSD school board. They are raising millions of dollars to push him out, even though he has not been hostile to charters. But the billionaires don’t want a fair-minded board president who has classroom experience (Zimmer came into education through Teach for America but remained a teacher for 17 years). The last time they tried to beat him, they outspent him 5-1, but he prevailed. His winning issue apparently was the $1 million from former NYC Mayor Bloomberg, which gave the appearance that a New Yorker was trying to buy control of the LA schools. So this time the $1 million came from former LA Mayor Richard Riordan.

So here’s the dirty trick. CCSA created a phony group called LA Students for Change to demand Zimmer’s ouster. Once again, like Families for Excellent Schools in New York City, which is composed of billionaire families who will never see the inside of a public school, the charter industry finds it necessary to deceive voters. Worse, CCSA printed up flyers for their student-props, blaming Zimmer for John Deasy’s $1 Billion iPad fiasco.

How comical is that? The embarrassing iPad scandal caused Deasy to resign, with a cloud over his head. Deasy now works for Eli Broad. Broad is the city’s charter kingpin and a major financier of CCSA. and now CCSA’s student group is pinning Deasy’s mess on Zimmer.

I salute the Los Angeles Times for recognizing that it’s time for Monica Garcia, the board’s most fervent charter advocate, to go. The Times endorses Lisa Alva, a classroom teacher who would be a valuable addition to the board. She and Carl Petersen are running against Garcia, and here’s hoping that they pull enough votes to force her into a run-off and defeat her.

Los Angeles should have a great public school in every neighborhood. That won’t happen as long as charters continue to drain away the students they want and drain away resources, leaving LAUSD with the students most expensive to educate and less money to meet their needs.

The district needs that vision, not just new voices and faces for the sake of novelty.

Categories Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

Jim Hall: Arizona Charter Operator Makes Millions by Real Estate Deals with Taxpayer Money

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2017 //
3

Jim Hall, whom I wrote about in the previous post, has uncovered many charter scams in Arizona. Here is his latest report. Open the link to read his attachments and documentation.

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability

arizcsa1000@gmail.com
602-343-3021

The Consequences of Unregulated Charter Schools:

The Leona Group LLC Reaps Millions in Real Estate Profits While Arizona Taxpayers (and Students) Foot the Bill

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability recently released two reports on charter school classroom spending in 2016 (see links below) finding that 191 Arizona charter schools are efficiently run and spend more money in the classroom than on administration and facilities combined. A majority of charter schools, however, spend less on classroom instruction than on administration and buildings. Imagine Inc. and the Leona Group LLC manage the majority of schools spending more on administration and facilities than in the classroom.

This report focuses on the Leona Group LLC which manages 25 schools in Arizona (and over 60 schools total in five states) to try to understand why Leona Group LLC managed schools spend so little on classroom instruction.

These were the key findings:

In 2007, Bill Coats, the sole owner of the Leona Group LLC, sold 10 schools owned by Leona Group LLC to a non-profit foundation Coats created in 1998, the American Charter Schools Foundation ACSF), for $33,890,485 more than their market value.

Bill Coats maintains the same management control over the schools as he had when Leona Group LLC owned the schools but now has set management fees that are not based on student enrollment.

ACSF schools have declined in enrollment by 25% since their purchase in 2007.

Between 2007 and 2016 overall instruction spending in ACSF schools has declined from $2090/pupil to $1455/pupil while facilities costs increased from $1455/pupil to $2479/pupil.

The real estate windfall Bill Coats received in 2007 by selling schools to his own foundation has caused ACSF to cut classroom spending to among the lowest rates of any school in Arizona – to fund the excessive mortgages.

Jim Hall, founder of Arizonans for Charter School Accountability, stated “ The Leona Group LLC has made tens of millions of dollars selling schools to their own non-profit foundation for double their market value – and still retain complete management control. The schools now spend most of their budgets on mortgages and management. Arizona doesn’t monitor charter school spending so this kind of waste and abuse goes unnoticed.”

Hall continued, “ The Arizona Auditor General needs to monitor charter spending and the Arizona Board for Charter Schools needs to sanction charter schools that divert public funds to corporate profits at the expense of children in the classroom.”

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Politico: Opposition to DeVos “Snowballs into an Avalanche”

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2017 //
25

Politico reports that the offices of Republican Senators are overwhelmed with letters, emails, and faxes opposing Betsy DeVos, according to Politico. She is the most controversial and unpopular cabinet choice of Trump, and Senators have been overwhelmed by negative comments. Most of them have gone into hiding. Their phone lines are jammed or off the hook.

The reasons for the avalanche of opposition:

1. She is unqualified, having no experience as a parent, student, teacher, or local board member in a public school, which 85% of American students attend 10% in private schools and 5% in privately owned charter schools).

2. She is a lobbyist for privatization of public schools.

3. As she demonstrated in her Senate hearings, she is ignorant of federal law and policy.

4. She is hostile to public schools.

5. If appointed, she will transfer federal funds from public schools to non-public schools.

6. She uses her vast fortune to buy votes of Republican senators.

Parents care about their children and their schools and communities. They object to a Secretary of Education who doesn’t care about their public schools and will hurt their children and their communities while prattling about “great schools.” Indeeed, they may even be aware of the damage DeVos has already done to the public schools of Michigan.

If no Republican breaks ranks, voters must remember in November: 2018, 2020, and 2022. Actions have consequences.

Why in the world does the GOP stand fast behind a nominee who is so clearly uninformed? Could it be the millions she and her family have given them? As DeVos once said, we do expect something in return for our money. Payback day arrived and she is getting what she paid for.

Trump has nominated many people who were unfitted to the mission of their Department, like Dr. Carson for HUD, Scott Pruitt for EPA. But DeVos! Our public schools are at risk.

It is not the grizzly bears that are alarmed by DeVos. It’s the Mama Bears. They protect their cubs.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Fraud, Michigan, Parents, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
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