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Texas: Commissioner Threatens to Dismiss Elected Board Because One High School Has Low Scores

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2019 //
6

Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath has threatened to take over the state’s largest school district—Houston Independent School District—because one high school has persistently received low test scores. That school—Wheatley High School—enrolls high proportions of students who are low-income (88%) and in need of special education (19%), but Morath doesn’t care.

Morath sent similar letters to three other districts.

This is nuts. Using its test-score based rating system, the state has rated Houston a B+ district. Yet the state commissioner wants to oust the elected board because one school has low scores!

Remember when Republicans were the champions of local control. Those days are gone. Republicans are now the champions of privatization and autocracy.

Morath is not an educator. He earned his undergraduate degree in business administration, then became a software developer, then a businessman and an investor. He was elected to the Dallas ISD school board, where he advocated turning the entire district into a”home-rule charter system,” a dream of privatizers like billionaire John Arnold.

How do Texans feel about Governor Gregg Abbott and Commissioner Morath taking control of any district that they target?

How do Texans feel about giving up their independence to state politicians and bureaucrats who don’t have a clue about how to improve schools?

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

Ed Johnson on the Non-Renewal of the Atlanta Superintendent’s Contract

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2019 //
4

The Atlanta Board of Education announced earlier today that it was not extending the contract of its superintendent.

Ed Johnson has been an outspoken critic in Atlanta of the drive for privatization and the behaviorist methods that have been in favor in Atlanta since the arrival of the late Superintendent Be early Hall, who literally drove teachers, principals, and students to produce higher test scores with promises of rewards and threats of punishment. Hall’s tenure ended badly.

Ed Johnson warned about the fruitless pursuit of miracles and quick fixes.

This was his response to today’s news. 

It is the sound of wisdom.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Tom Ultican: D.C.’s Very Expensive, Ineffective Charter Sector

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2019 //
5

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics, has written a series of posts about the Destroy Public Education Movement. In this comprehensive post, he reviews the unimpressive but very expensive charter sector in the District of Columbia. Many charter operators have made big salaries and the British testing corporation Pearson has been enriched, but charter performance has lagged behind that of the public schools for the past two years. The District continues to have the biggest achievement gaps between racial groups of any urban district in the nation.

The District has had an intense love affair with Broadies. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who completely controls the schools, prefers Broadies, despite their continued failures.

The Mayor has almost dictatorial control over the school system with very little input from teachers, students or parents. When Muriel Bowser was elected Mayor in 2014, she inherited school Chancellor, Kaya Henderson. Bowser appointed Jennifer Niles as her chief education advisor with the title Deputy Mayor for Education. Niles was well known in the charter school circles having founded the E. L. Haynes Charter School in 2004. Niles was forced to resign when it came to light that she had made it possible for Chancellor Antwan Wilson to secretly transfer his daughter to a preferred school against his own rules.

Bowser has an affinity for education leaders that have gone through Eli Broad’s unaccredited Superintendents Academy. She is a Democratic politician who appreciates Broad’s well documented history of spending lavishly to privatize public-schools. When Kaya Henderson resigned as chancellor in 2016, Antwan Wilson from the Broad Academy class of 2012-2014, was Bowser’s choice to replace her. Subsequent scandal forced the Mayor to replace both the Chancellor and the Deputy Mayor in 2018. For Chancellor, she chose Louis Ferebee who is not only a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, but is also a graduate with the Broad Academy class of 2017-2018. The new Deputy Mayor chosen was Paul Kihn Broad Academy Class of 2014-2015.

With the control Mayor Bowser has over public education, she has made the DCPS webpage look more like a vote for Bowser publication than a school information site.

Ultican describes the high levels of segregation in the charter schools, as well as the high salaries.

Mayor Bowser has handed control of the charter board over to the charter industry, which guarantees no oversight or accountability.

In the 2018-2019 school year Washington DC had 116 charter schools reporting attendance. Of that number 92 or 82% of the schools reported more than 90% Black and Hispanic students. Thirty charter schools or 26% reported over 98% Black students. These are startlingly high rates of segregation.

Of the 15 KIPP DC charter schools, all of them reported 96% or more Black students. According to their 2017 tax filings seven KIPP DC administrators took home $1,546,494. The smallest salary was $184,310.

Along with this profiteering, the seven people Mayor Bowser appointed to lead the Public Charter School Board seem more like charter industry insiders than protectors of the public trust.

*Rick Cruz (Chair) – Chief Executive Officer of DC Prep Public Charter School; formerly at the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, Teach for America and America’s Promise Alliance. Currently, he is Executive Director of Strategic Partnerships at The College Board

*Saba Bireda (Vice Chair) – Attorney at Sanford Hiesler, LLP, served under John King at the U.S. Department of Education.

*Lea Crusey (Member): Teach for America, advisory board for KIPP Chicago, worked at StudentsFirst, and Democrats for Education Reform.

*Steve Bumbaugh (Treasurer) – Manager of Breakthrough Schools at CityBridge Foundation.

*Ricarda Ganjam (Secretary) – More than 15 years as Management Consultant with Accenture; consulted on KIPP DC’s Future Focus Program.

*Naomi Shelton (Member) – Director of Community Engagement at KIPP Foundation.

*Jim Sandman (Member): President of the Legal Services Corporation.

Shouldn’t it be a conflict of interest to place members of the charter industry on the board in charge of supervising them?

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Sarah Lahm: Why Democrats Should Speak Out Against Nonprofit Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2019 //
29

Sarah Lahm writes about education in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis.

In this post, she says that Democratic candidates should speak out against nonprofit charters.

Charter schools, once the darling of politicians on the right and left, have become a hot potato in the Democratic Party 2020 presidential primary with nearly every candidate voicing some level of disapproval of the industry. A common refrain among the candidates is to express opposition to “for-profit charter schools.” Charter school proponents counter these pronouncements by pointing to industry data indicating only 12 percent of charter schools are run by overtly profit-minded entities, and that most charter schools are overseen by outfits that have a nonprofit, tax-exempt status.

But the singling out of for-profit charter schools is somewhat beside the point as residents of a St. Paul, Minnesota, neighborhood learned this summer when a treasured local landmark was threatened by an expanding charter school. The charter was decidedly nonprofit, but as families and preservation advocates would learn from their tenacious, but ultimately unsuccessful, battle to save a beloved, historic church, charter schools, regardless of their tax status, have become powerful players in a lucrative real estate market in urban areas where land values are high and empty lots or school-ready buildings are hard to find.

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

Betsy DeVos Floods New Hampshire with $46 Million for Charters

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2019 //
14

Perhaps Betsy DeVos knows that the Trump administration’s days in power are winding down. She is throwing $46 million in federal money at New Hampshire in an effort to destroy the state’s public schools. This grant will double the number of charter schools in the state. Most of the state is rural or small towns. The largest city in the state is Manchester, with a population of about 100,000, with 14,000 students.

The Congressional delegation and legislature are Democrats but the Governor Chris Sununu is a conservative Republican who appoints the State Board of Education and the state commissioner of education. The latter, Frank Edelblut, homeschooled his seven children. Edelblut has proposed a program called “Learn Everywhere,” which would compel districts to pay for programs offered by for-profit or non-profit non-school providers. Edelblut has a vision of deschooling or unschooling, disestablishing public schools. He is like Betsy DeVos, only worse. Governor Sununu’s State Board narrowly approved ”Learn Everywhere.” Edelblut says public schools will “save money,” because they will cut programs and lay off teachers. Public money will flow to private providers and there will be less for public schools. He likes that. A state legislative committee is trying to block Learn Everywhere, saying that the state can’t tell districts how to spend money.

DeVos is helping Edelblut undermine the NH public schools.

The New Hampshire Department of Education is getting $46 million from the federal government to expand public charter schools over the next five years.

The DOE says it will use the money to help new charter schools with start-up costs and increase professional development for charter school staff.

Charter schools have been slow to grow in New Hampshire. Over the past 15 years, the State Board of Education has approved 33 charters, and 28 schools are now operating. With this new grant, the DOE says it plans to add 27 new schools over the next five years, with a particular focus on serving poor and at-risk students.

The grant money will be used to help schools with start-up costs, rather than ongoing operational costs, which are covered by a combination of state funding and external fundraising.

The state has no income tax or sales tax, which means schools are funded by property taxes. The property owners will bear the cost of two separate school systems, even if they would rather support their community public schools.

Meanwhile, folks in New Hampshire have some questions about who will pay for the charters after the federal start-up money is spent. They point out that the state’s few ”high quality” charters do not enroll many students eligible for free-reduced price lunch (i.e., low-income.) Commissioner Edelblut is thrilled with the chance to defund public schools.

No Democrat should support charter schools. They are an integral component of the rightwing effort to privatize public funding.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Hampshire, Privatization

Michael Bennett Releases His Education Agenda, Praised by Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2019 //
39

Are you longing for a return of Race to the Top and its principles of high-stakes testing, competition, and charter schools? Then Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado is your man. He released his plan today in Iowa and it won praise from Arne Duncan. Try to forget that Race to the Top and George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind were virtually the same. Try to forget that both failed, having inflicted disruption on American schools for 20 long and fruitless years.

Warren has thus far been silent on K-12 Education. Sanders has released a thoughtful and comprehensive proposal called the Thurgood Marshall plan, which pledges tripling the funding for Title 1, dedication to desegregation, and a moratorium on new charter schools.

Bennett’s announcement:


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, September 6, 2019
CONTACT:
Shannon Beckham, 602-402-8051,
press@michaelbennet.com

ICYMI: Michael Bennet Joins Iowa Teachers, Parents, and Preschoolers to Unveil
Comprehensive Education
Agenda

DES MOINES, IA — Michael Bennet on Thursday joined teachers, parents, and preschoolers
in Iowa to unveil the most comprehensive education agenda of any candidate, declaring “equal must be equal” if America’s children are to reach their full potential. The plan was welcomed by education experts, including former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who said Bennet “understands this work in a way few can, because he has lived it.”

Read more about Bennet’s events in Iowa and the reaction from education experts below.

Read the full plan at
MichaelBennet.com/Education.

Bennet started the day by dropping off school supplies at the Jesse Franklin Taylor Early
Childhood Education Center in Des Moines before hosting a roundtable discussion with educators and touring preschool classrooms.

Later, Bennet met with a group of Iowa teachers and school board members to hear about the challenges they are facing in their classrooms.

He then joined 2017 Iowa Teacher of the Year Shelly Vroegh to host a town hall forum at Central Campus in Des Moines, where students are receiving the career and technical training that is a core element of Bennet’s education plan. He answered questions from parents, teachers, and advocates about how his experience has informed his agenda.

WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: “I was lucky enough to lead CPS when Michael Bennet was doing the same in Denver—I learned a lot from him. Maybe more importantly, I have seen his heart for the children and communities that need the most help. He understands this work in a way few can, because he has lived it.”

Executive Director of Next100 Emma Vadehra:
“Senator Bennet understands the connection between opportunity and education from
his time successfully running a major urban school district. He knows what works and what doesn’t, and I’m glad he continues to make educational equity a major focus of his campaign, from high-quality early learning to meaningful college and career opportunities, and everything in between.”

Former Senior Policy Advisor to the Under Secretary of Education Michael Dannenberg: “Whereas
Donald Trump strives and thrives on dividing America, Bennet is campaigning on a vision where folks come together at the local level, since Washington can’t seem to, on a goal everyone can support—ensuring that every child, every young person gets a real chance at living the American Dream. He’s putting forth an agenda that strives for unity, embraces decentralized pragmatic problem solving, and is directed at progressive goals with accountability attached—it’s quintessential Michael Bennet.”

Education Research Alliance for New Orleans Director Douglas Harris:
“It’s the best education plan I’ve seen so far.”

WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING

Education Week:
“Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet criticized his opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday, saying they’ve focused too much on ambitious proposals to forgive student debt and not enough on yawning inequality in the nation’s K-12 education system. Bennet…imagines a ‘new American Dream’ built on regional and state-federal partnerships to ensure children meet milestones of well-being and opportunity. Among those milestones: Children should be able to read by 3rd grade, and they should be able to enter college without needing remediation.”

Des Moines Register: “When asked about the issues facing American education, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet tends to stray from the popular college tuition discussion and instead focuses on a constituency that won’t earn him an Iowa caucus vote. Preschoolers. … ‘The burden…is carried most by the kids.’”

Associated Press:
“Besides free, universal preschool and free community college, Bennet says he wants to eventually have debt-free public colleges. In K-12 schools, Bennet wants to increase federal spending to reduce local education disparities that lead to wealthy areas getting more school dollars than poorer ones.”

The Hill: “[Bennet] unveiled a sweeping education plan that would offer ‘every child’
an opportunity to ‘flourish’ by 2028 and promises free preschool and community college. Bennet, a former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, said he’s introducing the plan to rectify historic racial and wealth disparities in the public education system.”

Forbes:
“Bennet’s plan includes early childhood and K-12—which is notable given the silence on K-12 issues amongst most campaigns—but his higher education plan is in strong contrast to candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders…This plan could help Bennet stand out in the field with a detailed plan addressing education from early childhood all the way to higher education.”

Iowa Starting Line:
“Understanding the economic impact and problems with our education system highlight Bennet’s background, with time in the education and business sectors. It’s also what makes him not a single-issue candidate; he understands how this single, important issue interacts with other issues and circumstances.”

WHO TV:
“‘My sense traveling around Iowa is that you are suffering from the same thing we
are in Colorado which is just a complete under investment in the public education system,’
Bennet said, ‘We
are not investing the way that our parents and grandparents invested in us. It’s not even close.’”

CBS 2: “Bennet highlighted the importance of early childhood
education during his roundtable with educators in Des Moines, but he spent little time talking about about his education policy—instead insisting that he get input from those experiencing it first-hand.”

###

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Los Angeles: Astroturf “Parent” Group Pressures Beutner to Rate Schools by Their Test Scores

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2019 //
25

With so much billionaire cash sloshing around California to promote charter schools and to disparage public schools, it can be difficult to know which groups are real and which are Memorex.

Here is one that definitely is not a real parents’ group. It is called Speak Up and it is populated with people who are embedded in the charter sector. It recently chastised L.A. Superintendent Austin Beutner for not moving swiftly enough to clamp ratings on every school, the better to close them with and set them up for privatization. How will parents know how to choose a school if the district doesn’t give it a grade or a rating? They say he is in danger of “breaking a promise” to the parents of Los Angeles, who are longing to have their schools rated.

Schools should be evaluated based on such issues as their class size; the experience of their teachers; the resources invested by the district, such as: does the school have a library with a librarian? Does it have a school nurse? Does it have classes in the arts for all students?

But Speak Up seems to be interested mostly in test scores. Are they going up or down? Most people these days recognize that test scores measure the demographics of the students enrolled, not the quality of the school.

So who is this group?

Its founder and executive director is Katie Braude, a former KIPP executive. Until recently, she was on the Los Angeles County Board of Education, which has the power to overrule the LAUSD Board of Education on charter school decisions.

On Speak Up’s board of directors is Russell Altenburg, who is also connected to KIPP, was a program officer at the Broad Foundation, and a fellow at the NewSchools Venture Fund. And he was part of the “inaugural cohort” at the Pahara Next Gen Network.

Mary Najera was a founder of the Los Angeles Parents Union, now known as the Parent Revolution, which used the Parent Trigger law to try to convert public schools into charter schools. Parent Revolution was funded by Walton, Broad, Gates, Arnold and other billionaires. She is “chief community officer” at the Extera Public Schools charter chain.

Rene Rodman is another member of the board of directors of Speak Up. She is a also on the board of the Palisades Charter High School, where she served as president.

Aida Rodriguez is Vice President of Advocacy and Government Relations at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a charter school network. She too worked for Parent Revolution.

Speak Up is an organization led by charter school advocates. Twenty percent of the students in Los Angeles are enrolled in charter schools. Eighty percent are not.

Nowhere on Speak Up’s website does it list the names of its funders. One can only guess. Waltons? Broad? Hastings? Gates?

When you see a press release from Speak Up, remember that they are speaking up for Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, Bill Gates, and the charter industry, not for the 80 percent of students in the public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Parent Groups, Privatization

Pasi Sahlberg and Peter Johnson: How Finnish Schools Engage in Continuous Improvement

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2019 //
28

Finland’s educational success became an international sensation when the nation’s students unexpectedly topped the PISA test a few years back. The Finns really don’t care much about rankings and standardized tests, and they were as surprised as everyone else. Thousands of visitors came to Finland to find out what they were doing. Then Finland slipped out of first place, and the gossip mill began spinning out theories about why Finland was losing its luster. Finland still doesn’t care about rankings or test scores.

In this post, Finnish expert Pasi Sahlberg and Finnish educator Peter Johnson explain what Finland is doing and what it is not doing to improve its schools (not its test scores).

They identify the three cornerstones of Finnish education:

*Education systems and schools shouldn’t be managed like business corporations where tough competition, measurement-based accountability and performance-determined pay are common principles. Instead, successful education systems rely on collaboration, trust, and collegial responsibility in and between schools.

*The teaching profession shouldn’t be perceived as a technical, temporary craft that anyone with a little guidance can do. Successful education systems rely on continuous professionalization of teaching and school leadership that requires advanced academic education, solid scientific and practical knowledge, and continuous on-the-job training.

*The quality of education shouldn’t be judged by the level of literacy and numeracy test scores alone. Successful education systems are designed to emphasize whole-child development, equity of education outcomes, well being, and arts, music, drama and physical education as important elements of curriculum.

They then debunk the myths and misperceptions that have been bruited about.

Unlike the U.S., where billions of dollars are wasted in efforts to switch control of schools from public to private, Finnish educators are trying to work through the problems of building a curriculum and pedagogy for the 21st century–and beyond.

Categories Corporate Reformers, International, Privatization, Teachers

Steven Singer: Davis Guggenheim Loves Bill Gates

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2019 //
23

Davis Guggenheim, director of the ill-fated agitprop anti-public school, anti-union film “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” has directed a paean to the genius of billionaire Bill Gates called “Inside Bill Gates’ Brain,” a frightening thought when you think about it. The last place I would want to be trapped is inside the brain of a guy who thinks he is as smart as he is rich. Yech!

Steven Singer didn’t like the experience either. He reviews the premise of the show, which will appear on Netflix, the personal cable network of billionaire Reed Hastings.

Singer writes:

Once upon a time, the world was run by rich men.

And all was good.

But then the world was conquered by other rich men.

And that is something the first group of rich men could not allow.

That is the reason behind Netflix’s new film “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.”

The three-part documentary goes live on Sept. 20. But the film’s aims are clear from the trailer.

It’s a vanity project about Bill Gates, the second richest man in the world.

By examining his mind and motivations, director and executive producer Davis Guggenheim will show us how Gates deserves his billionaire status and that we should allow him to use his philanthrocapitalist ventures to rule the world.

After all, shouldn’t the best and richest among us make all the decisions?

It’s a cry for oligarchy in an age of idiocracy, a love letter to neoliberalism in a time of neofascism.

The pity is that Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” crowd have goose stepped all over their new world order.

But instead of showing the world why we need to return to democratic principles, strengthen the common good and empower the people to govern themselves, some would rather continue the same plutocracy just with a different set of plutocrats at the wheel.

Bill Gates has the extraordinary brain that has concocted one harebrained scheme after another in his quest to reinvent American education. He may have been impaired by the simple fact that he knew nothing at all about American education, having never been a student, a teacher, or anything else in an American public school. But being very very very rich means you don’t have to know much in order to proclaim yourself ready to redesign American education. It has been a playground for billionaires for at least the past 20 years, though none with as much hubris as Bill Gates.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization

Michael Kohlhaas Reveals That Lawyer at Green Dot Released Emails to Him, Then Quit or Was Fired

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2019 //
9

Michael Kohlhaas has been drip-drip-dripping emails between and among the charter industry’s bigwigs in Los Angeles.

He reveals in this post that he filed a public records request for the emails and his request was granted by the in-house counsel for Green Dot charter chain, Keith Yanov. Lo and behold, Mr. Yanov has “transitioned” to the private sector, meaning that he either quit or was fired.

Kohlhaas writes:

KEITH YANOV — FORMERLY GENERAL COUNSEL FOR GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS — HAS “TRANSITIONED TO PRIVATE PRACTICE” — WHICH MEANS HE QUIT OR WAS FIRED — AND GIVEN THAT IT WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY HIS DECISION TO FOLLOW THE LAW AND RELEASE THAT MASSIVE SET OF EMAILS TO ME IN JUNE — REVEALING THE APPALLING INNER WORKINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION — THE WORLD-SHAKING MAGNITUDE OF WHICH IS STILL ONLY BARELY KNOWN — I WOULD VENTURE A GUESS THAT THE LATTER IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE — FIRING SOMEONE FOR FOLLOWING THE LAW CERTAINLY WOULDN’T BE OUT OF CHARACTER OVER THERE AT GREEN DOT — OR ANY OF THESE CHARTER SCHOOL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES FOR THAT MATTER

Kohlhaas began publishing the bombshell contents of the emails, Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times wrote about Kohlhaas’s revelations, and all hell broke loose.

Kohlhaas wrote:

And then things really blew up, as you may already know. Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times published two separate articles based on this material, the first one and the second one. The material revealed that Austin Beutner was letting the CCSA write his speeches for him and Nick Melvoin was letting them write actual board resolutions and also slipping them confidential info from LAUSD’s general counsel at the very same time that CCSA was suing LAUSD.

These documents recently showed that CCSA’s ultimate goal is to have every kid in California essentially in a charter school by 2030. And, friend, the revelations are not done even now, just wait and see. And the silence from CCSA has been amazing. The day I put out the news about CCSA writing Beutner’s speech charter school PR flack Cassy Horton dismissively tweeted (and since deleted) that this was all perfectly normal.

Yanov left for the private sector. And it is now a matter of public record that the California Charter Schools Association gives orders to Austin Beutner and Nick Melvoin.

Is this legal?

This expose is not finished. Kohlhaas has more.

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