Please read Mercedes Schneider’s recap of the Georgia vote on an “Opportunity School District,” which was defeated by voters.
See who was funding this initiative in addition to the Walton family, the royal family of school privatization.
Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
This came in my email this morning:
For a short while in Boston last night, we were ecstatic. We beat the privatizers on Question 2, and we beat them across the state, with every demographic – except for the whitest, wealthiest towns. As Barbara Madeloni said from the stage at campaign headquarters, “We beat their money with our democracy.”
Our coalition victory against the privatizers was hard-earned and sweet. Our brave and beautiful young people were inspirational. Barbara Madeloni was electrifying. We were the righteous students, parents, and union members.
And then, as the national results started coming in and it became clear that Clinton was in trouble, DFER was spotted in the back of the hotel ballroom. As was Marty Walz, former state legislator-turned-paid-shill for the charter industry.
Some of us – those who’d been door-knocking, who had made calls, created charts, sent tweets, educated our neighbors, debated on stage – became angry. The Yes on 2 campaign, funded by so-called Democrats with zero history of being on the side of working people and the disenfranchised, had forced us to focus on a state measure, for months and months and months, at the exclusion of the presidential campaign. Not a single one of my comrades working themselves to exhaustion – unpaid – to defeat the ballot measure was also volunteering for Hilary. We couldn’t be in two places at once, and we rightly felt the urgency of defeating Question 2. We were also keenly aware that our colleagues in other parts of the country were counting on us to stop the charter tide in Massachusetts.
DFER and Marty Walz heard from us loud and clear last night. We let them know that their support for an expensive, divisive, diversionary campaign will not be forgotten.
Question 2 and the charlatans behind it went down in flames last night. Our bright spot on this dismal morning.
Be sure to watch this excerpt from Backpack Full of Cash, narrated by Matt Damon.
It is a powerful presentation about the corporate reform movement and the damage it has done in one of America’s greatest cities: Philadelphia, where public schools starve while charter schools are awash in cash.
Angie Sullivan, Nevada teacher, reports on the bizarre actions of Andre Agassi, one-time tennis star and high school dropout. His flagship charter school that bears his name is on the state’s list of persistently low-performing schools. It is also known for high rates of teacher and principal turnover. The state may give Agassi’s charter to another charter operator. But Agassi and his business partner Bobby Turner have raised nearly $300 million to build charter schools around the country.
Sullivan writes:
Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund II, L.P. raised $296,294,416 on 2016-06-16.
http://www.whosraisingmoney.com/turner-agassi-charter-school-facilities-fund-ii-l-p
Agassi has become a very very wealthy man selling his “charter doctrine”.
Unfortunately, his own flagship charter school shows charters are the ultimate tax payer scam.
The worst schools in the state of Nevada are charters.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7bJdQH4mFmEVktMRWhDWFY0Mm8/view
In particular, Agassi Preparatory is not graduating, not performing, not achieving.
Agassi has open the door financially for other Vegas charters which are also on the lowest performing list.
He preaches charter doctrine all over he United States selling real estate and profiteering.
This isn’t really about kids. This is about cold hard cash.
Now Agassi charter may be taken over by another charter.
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/possible-changes-ahead-for-agassi-prep-academy
The tax payer needs to be asking some serious questions about who is making money from these charter deals.
The tax payer needs to demand some accountability and transparency from Nevada’s charters.
This is some serious fraud and waste.
Someone needs to be accountable for this fiasco.
Maybe the Charter Authority needs to answer some questions.
Maybe the Nevada State Board of Education.
Maybe the Nevada Department of Education.
Who knew all these charters were failing and either covered it up or did nothing about it? It looks like it’s been going on for at least a decade too from the data I’ve been collecting.
Not good.
Dirty dirty dirty.
Andrea Gabor posted today an update on the Dark Money behind Question 2 in Massachusetts.
She begins:
“On October 24, I posted the story below about dark money–much of it from out-of-state–flowing into Massachusetts to support a “yes” vote on a pro-charter-school ballot question known as Question 2. In the days just before the election, those funds have increased dramatically, making Question 2 the most expensive charter-school ballot initiative in the country, ever. In Massachusetts, which has the most highly rated public schools in the nation, more has been spent by proponents of Ballot 2 than both sides spent on any other ballot initiative in state history, and more dark money has flowed to the initiative than to any state or federal election. Here are the latest totals via Peggy Wiesenberg, attorney, activist and public-school parent who did the analysis for the original post:
—Families for Excellent Schools, $15.6 million
—Other dark-money donors $2 million
–Hedge fund and other investment managers $1.9 million
–Jim and Alice Walton $1.8 million
–Other donors, $1.3 million, including a total $490,000 from Michael Bloomberg
By contrast, union spending in opposition to Question 2, was about $11 million.”
The people of Massachusetts will decide tomorrow who owns their public schools.
Denis Ian, an experienced educator in New York, has some friendly words of advice for the people of Georgia:
Dear Georgia,
Kiss your schools good-bye.
Unless, of course, you can shake yourself out of your slumber before it’s too late.
I know it’s unusual stuff for a Georgian to take the advice of a Yankee, but … here goes.
Here in New York, we woke up at the last minute … and now we’re in the fight of our lives. The tactics might be a bit different, but the aim is exactly the same: a state take-over of the schools we both pay for … and that our children attend. Now you can sleep-walk through this armageddon-in-the-making … or you can slam on the brakes and tell your governor “No, Deal”.
So … if you decide, that you’d like your state politicians to relieve you of this responsibility of managing your local schools, here’s what you can expect for your listlessness. Are you ready?
Your tax dollars will become “casino cash” for politicians. They’ll slurp up your school taxes and play politics with that loot all day long … awarding contracts to pals and getting lots of pocket-cash for themselves. Every ear-whisperer will have a chance to load up politicians with their ideas … most of which will involve experimenting on your own children. They’re the ones who get extra-screwed in this “Bad Deal” take-over madness.
You’ll see your schools change every time the political winds shift. Your kids are gonna be on this educational carpet ride … forever hostages in the game of grungy politics. Every child will be a pawn … a game piece … and you know how politicians love to play games, right?
Expect your schools to morph into unrecognizable messes with teachers more and more replaced by tablets and lap-tops and algorithmic strategies that’ll treat your kids like hamsters stuck on a wheel. I wonder if lunch will consist of pellet-food?
Expect the least qualified teachers to be hired … and for the turn-over rate to match McDonald’s. Teachers will become scripted care-takers and machine-mechanics. They’ll be data-dumpers … keeping an eye on your child’s computerized progress. Your kids’ noggins will be inventories several times a day … because they’ll be part of a living nyghtmarethat you allowed to happen.
Boards of education … those local school-governing bodies that you elect your neighbors to … will become patronage jobs … if they exist at all. They’ll be nothing for them to manage because the state bureaucrats and and legislators will be deciding what’s happening in every classroom in every county throughout Georgia. Let that sink in. Imagine … your schools run by folks who have zero expertise and less-than-zero concern for your children. Is that gonna disturb your sleep at all?
Get ready for carpet-baggers … again. Every soft-ware maker, computer tycoon, on-line executive, and textbook pimp will pitch a tent outside the governor’s bedroom. And they’ll be ready to pay-to-play so they can siphon off some of what’s left of your tax dollars. Isn’t this great fun? You get to work long and hard … and they get to play long and hard. With your hard-earned money. Who wouldn’t want a gig like that?
Let’s talk about taxes a bit more. Once this amendment passes, the fate of your schools passes into someone else’s hands … and so does your tax money. And that tax money is …. we’ll … too important not to grow over time … because the intrigue will grow every year. Do NOT LET YOUR PENS RUN DRY! … you’ll be cutting more checks every year for the rest of forever. These shrewdies will never run out of excuses to pinch your wallets and snatch your bucks.
Now … to the most important reasons to resist this laughably titled “Opportunity School District” lurch. Your children.
You are about to hand over your children’s education to the state government. Let that sink in. That’s the same authority that can barely repair the roads, deal with an ice-storm, paint a bridge, and keep their corruption to a semi-disgusting level. Do you think your kids are gonna be in good hands? Be honest.
Your life cannot be so complicated and so consuming that you can’t carve out time to vote on this asinine Amendment 1. And if it is such a busy life … explain that to your kids. Because it’s their future that’s on the line … and in your hands. Tell them what’s coming … and apologize for being too busy to care. That’ll soothe ‘em. For the rest of their lives.
Nothing … N O T H I N G … sets the course of a child’s life more than parents and schools. That partnership has made public schools the great equalizer in this nation for generations. My Irish grandfather dug tunnels in NYC … his son became a college professor. And all six of his sons … including me … own master degrees and lead professional lives. Why would you hand over your child’s future to political clowns in Atlanta? When have they ever done right by you?
So … there’s your Amendment 1 … your scheming “Opportunity School District” drivel.
It’s yours to accept or reject. One requires energy, the other requires nothing.
A Georgian warrior-mother … Stacey Freeman Gyorgy … left this simple wake-up missive for me last week. It’s about politicians. “They have become pantomime villains whose real job is to make us angry …” and, I would add, dangerously dependent.
Snatch your schools back from the brink. Shine your children’s future. Things don’t have to continue as they have. These are your schools … and your children.
You are in charge.
VOTE NO on Amendment !. It’s a BAD DEAL.
Denis Ian
p.s. pass this around … and wake some folks up.
Here is the latest poll on Question 2 in Massachusetts, whether to expand the number of charters by 12 a year indefinitely. See page 11.
Question 2 is losing in every demographic category except older Republicans.
Whites and blacks oppose Question 2 by similar proportions.
Younger voters (ages 18-39) overwhelmingly oppose it, by 71-21.
If the trends hold, this will be a massive and humiliating defeat for the corporate reformers, who have spent more on this election (at least $22 million) than on any education referendum anywhere. They won’t miss the $22 million, but they will have sustained a major setback in their plans for privatization.
A veteran educator explains why she will vote NO ON Question 2.
My background and position as a high school administrator have led people to ask me about Question 2, the ballot proposal that would allow expansion of Massachusetts charter schools. I have been around public education my entire life. My father was a Superintendent of Schools in Pittsfield, Brockton, and Weston. My husband taught English at Brockton High School for almost 40 years. I was a practicing attorney for 25 years, changed careers, and am now the very proud principal of Falmouth High School, which my own three children have attended.
With that as a backdrop, I remain baffled as to how charter schools are considered public schools, and how they can take taxpayer money to run smoke and mirrors operations.
I do not pretend to know all charter schools in the Commonwealth, but I do know the one in Hyannis, Sturgis Charter School, which has garnered not only local, but national recognition as a tip top so-called “public” high school.
This is where I get confused. I would like someone to explain how charter schools are “public” schools when the one in my neck of the woods allows for the following:
• None of its teachers are required to be licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) which oversees all of the state’s public schools, and mandates licensure of public school teachers.
• Its teachers are not subjected to the same public school educator evaluation regulations (603 CMR 35.00) that every other public school teacher is bound by (http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=8004).
• Although it claims to admit students by public lottery, it gives applicants priority status if they have a sibling attending the school, it reviews discipline records of applicants before deciding to admit them, and it outright refuses to admit students in grades 11 and 12.
The Sturgis website proudly proclaims that given its lottery admissions process, “All students who wish to attend . . . have an equal chance of getting in.” How is this possible when the enrollment policy clearly states that the number one priority for admission is whether an applicant has a sibling who attends the school? And Sturgis gets to exclude students who want to apply in grades 11 and 12? What other public high school gets to do that?
Moreover, despite the statement on its website that Sturgis “is a tuition-free, public high school [see footnote below] that accepts students through public lottery regardless of past academic records,” Sturgis nevertheless exercises discretion to condition admission upon the review of an applicant’s discipline record. That is some lottery. Indeed, I thought “lottery” meant everyone who plays has an equal chance of winning.
The Sturgis brand of lottery sure sounds more like a stacked deck than a lottery.
Sturgis is a top “public” high school that is not required to follow any of the hiring, licensing, educator evaluation, and admissions practices required of every other public high school in Massachusetts.
And Sturgis is run by a principal, excuse me, an “Executive Director,” who touts the school’s high MCAS scores – why wouldn’t he when the scores are statistically skewed due to cherry-picked students?
Indeed, according to the most recently available DESE data, Sturgis has ZERO English Language Learner students, has almost half the number of High Needs and Economically Disadvantaged students as Falmouth High School, and doled out discipline to just 12 students in the 2014-2015 school year.
I am proud of what we do at Falmouth High School, where we have been able to maintain our Level 1 status for several years now without having to resort to elitist and exclusionary admission practices. Falmouth High School students are regularly awarded top prizes in state science, history, math, foreign language, writing, music, and art competitions.
We have AP Scholars and National Merit Scholars, and our athletic teams can boast regional, state, and even national titles. Falmouth High School students have been admitted to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Middlebury, Amherst, Wellesley, Smith, MIT, Williams, Columbia, University of Chicago, the Air Force Academy, Northwestern, and a slew of other top tier colleges and universities. According to its own 2015-2016 school profile, from 2002 to 2015, it appears not a single Sturgis graduate had been accepted to Harvard or Yale — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/ProfileWest.pdf — nor to Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, or Middlebury, the top four liberal arts colleges in the country.
In its 2016-2017 school profile, Harvard was finally added to the list — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/2016ProfileEast.pdf. Nevertheless, hidden deep within the Sturgis website is a veiled warning that colleges do not always look so kindly on the school’s International Baccalaureate Programme (http://www.sturgischarterschool.org/guidance/IBCollege.html). So it runs a “Programme” with two “m’s” and an “e” at the end, that despite its fancy, pretentious sounding name, may hinder a student’s ability to enter a top college? I’d like to see that disclaimer on the website of any real public high school.
But what is most important, most impressive, is that Falmouth High School is a public school where nobody is turned away. Nobody. We don’t have the right to exclude anyone, and we don’t want that right — because we are a public school. We take every child, whatever his status or ability, and still we retain our Level 1 standing and our sense of dignity. This is what real public schools do, all of them.
As a taxpayer, I am outraged.
As a school administrator, I am angered that not only must we fight for every dollar, but we must fight to keep families from being bamboozled by so-called “public” charter schools. It is nose-on-the-face plain that charter schools are not public schools. Real public schools do not participate in elitist and exclusionary admissions practices that are axiomatically antithetical to the meaning of public education. Go ahead and let charters do what they want, but let’s stop pretending they are public schools, and let’s stop funding them as such. Please vote no on Question 2.
Mary Whalen Gans, J.D., M.Ed.
footnote: Why the need to proclaim that it is a “tuition-free public high school”? What public high school charges tuition? Is it that Sturgis is trying to connote that it’s giving something of great quality that you’d otherwise have to pay for in the private sector? Ridiculous….
The New York Times published a fair and balanced account of the heated battle over Question 2.
It notes that $34 million will (so far) be spent on this question over whether to expand the number of charter schools. Most of it is “dark money” from out of state billionaires, like the Waltons of Arkansas.
It interviews people who favor Question 2 and people who oppose it.
It says that some leaders (like Elizabeth Warren) are against Question 2, while others (Governor Baker) support it.
It notes that some civil rights groups (like the Urban League) are for it, while others (the NAACP and Black Lives Matter in Cambridge) are against it.
The good news buried in the article is that the latest poll shows Question 2 losing.
It says that advocates for charters say it will cost no new money to open more charters, while supporters of public schools insist that it is already causing budget cuts in public schools and will lead to more budget cuts and school closings.
The bottom line of the battle is at the end of the article, where Maurice Cunningham of Boston University, who has studied the money behind the charter question, says:
“if you can’t stop the hidden billionaire money in Massachusetts, then you can’t stop it anywhere.”
Conversely, if the people of Massachusetts can beat back the billionaires, despite their command of television and the Boston Globe, then citizen action can beat the billionaires everywhere.
What is so thrilling about the battle over Question 2 is that everything we have discussed on this blog is coming out into the open: the NAACP, with its call for a moratorium, has stripped away phony claims about school choice being the “civil rights issue” of our time. The billionaires’ privatization agenda is debated daily by parents and civic activists. The fact that school choice is being pushed by Republicans and opposed by many Democrats is explicit.
If the people of Massachusetts vote “NO” on Question 2, it will be a resounding defeat for the billionaires and their Dark Money groups, and it will echo around the nation.
If the people of Massachusetts vote “NO” on Question 2, it will signal their determination to build a strong public school system for all children, not simply add a few more escape hatches for a few children, which would debilitate the public schools.
Moody’s Investors Service released a warning earlier this week warning that if Massachusetts voters pass Question 2 to expand the number of charter schools in the state, it may have a negative impact on the credit ratings of Boston and three other cities in the state.
The story appeared in the Boston Globe, which earlier urged voters to pass the controversial referendum, even though it will drain millions of dollars from the state’s public schools and likely harm the nation’s most successful state system of public schools.
The credit-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service is warning Boston and three other Massachusetts cities that passage of a ballot measure to expand charter schools could weaken the municipalities’ financial standing and ultimately threaten their bond ratings.
In e-mails sent Monday, Nicholas Lehman, an assistant vice president at Moody’s, warned that passage of the referendum would be “credit negative” for the cities.
“Depending on the Nov. 8 vote, the general credit view is the following: A vote of ‘No’ is credit positive for urban cities. A vote of ‘Yes’ is credit negative for urban cities,” Lehman wrote.
Lehman told the cities he would provide a draft analysis of the referendum’s impact on Wednesday and solicit their comment, publishing a full report after the election.
The other three cities in Massachusetts are Lawrence, Fall River, and Springfield. A spokesman for the Boston Municipal Research Bureau said a “yes” vote might cause fiscal hardship, but would likely be offset by closing public schools with empty seats (as new charters open) and concessions from teachers.
So a “yes” vote would mean closing more public schools and reducing salaries or pensions or other benefits from teachers. Why does the corporate reform industry want to destabilize the most successful state school system in the nation?
Why are so many in the financial industry pouring millions into a campaign that will obviously undermine the fiscal stability of urban districts in the state? If Moody’s understands it, why don’t the equity investors and hedge fund managers? Maybe it is because so few of the donors to Question 2 live in Massachusetts or have ever set foot in a public school. They have no skin in the game. For them, it is a hobby, not a financial decision.
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