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Beware! Privatization Vandals Target 7 Cities for Destruction and Takeover

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2018 //
23

The privatization movement used to operate in stealth. It used to pretend to have grassroots support. Those days are over. As the public catches on to the empty promises of the charter industry and its intention to undermine democratic institutions, the charter funders have created a SWAT team to infiltrate targeted cities across the nation, promote charter schools, and buy their school boards.

These guys are not the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. They are paid vandals, on a mission to destroy public schools. They are out to destroy not just public schools, but local democracy. They should be ashamed. Usually, it is illegal to buy elections. This so-called City Fund brashly announces that it has raised nearly $200 million—with more on the way—to disrupt public schools and buy elections. How is this legal?

Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum reports that vandals from the billionaire-funded “City Fund” have targeted seven cities, where they will use their millions to try to destroy public schools and to finance a takeover of the local school board.

“The City Fund has already given grants to organizations and schools in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Newark, Denver, San Antonio, St. Louis, and Nashville, according to one of the group’s founders, Neerav Kingsland. Those grants amount to $15 million of the $189 million the group has raised, he told Chalkbeat.

“City Fund staffers have also founded a 501(c)(4) organization called Public School Allies, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat, which Kingsland confirmed. That setup will allow the group’s members to have more involvement in politics and lobbying, activities limited for traditional nonprofits…

“In their ideal scenario, parents would be able to choose among schools that have autonomy to operate as they see fit, including charter schools. In turn, schools are judged by outcomes (which usually means test scores). The ones deemed successful are allowed to grow, and the less-successful ones are closed or dramatically restructured.”

This is known as the “portfolio model,” which encourages the local board to close low-scoring public schools with charter schools. When the charter schools fail, they are replaced by other charter schools.

“A version of that strategy is already in place in Denver and Indianapolis. Those cities have large charter sectors and enrollment systems that include both district and charter schools In others, like San Antonio, Atlanta, and Camden, struggling district schools have been turned over to charter operators.

“The City Fund’s Newark grant is more of a surprise. Although the district has implemented many aspects of the portfolio model, and seen charter schools rapidly grow since a $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Newark hasn’t been a magnet of national philanthropy recently. That may be because the changes there sparked vehement community protest, and the district recently switched to an elected school board.

“Charter advocates in Nashville, meanwhile, have faced setbacks in recent years, losing several bitter school board races a few years ago. A pro-charter group appears to have folded there.

“Kingsland said The City Fund has given to The Mind Trust in Indianapolis; RootED in Denver; City Education Partners in San Antonio; the Newark Charter School Fund and the New Jersey Children’s Foundation; The Opportunity Trust in St. Louis; and RedefinED Atlanta. In Nashville, The City Fund gave directly to certain charter schools.

“The seven cities The City Fund has given to are unlikely to represent the full scope of the organization’s initial targets. Oakland, for instance, is not included, but The City Fund has received a $10 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for work there. The presentation The City Fund made for potential funders earlier this year says the organization expects to reach 30 to 40 cities in a decade or less.

“We will make additional grants,” Kingsland said in an email. “But we don’t expect to make grants in that many more cities. Right now we are focused on supporting a smaller group of local leaders to see if we can learn more about what works and what doesn’t at the city level.”

“Chalkbeat previously reported that the Hastings Fund, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were funding the effort. The Walton Family Foundation and the Ballmer Group are also funders, Kingsland said. (The Gates Foundation and Walton Family Foundation are also funders of Chalkbeat.)…

“It’s gained particular traction in a number of cities, like Newark, Camden, and New Orleans, while they were under state control. In Denver and Indianapolis, cities where the approach has maintained support with elected school boards, supporters faced setbacks in recent elections. Public School Allies may work to address and avoid such political hurdles.”

Note that the Vandals’ model of “success” is New Orleans, where the schools are almost completely privatized and highly stratified. Forty percent of the charter schools in New Orleans are “failing schools,” by the state’s rating system, and almost all their students are black. Louisiana is at the very bottom of NAEP, ranked above only Mississippi and the District of Columbia (another portfolio failure), and the charter school district of New Orleans is significantly lower-performing on state tests than the state as a whole.

This is not success. There is no model of privatization success. This is vandalism.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Privatization

Ed Johnson: Time to Grade the Leadership of the Atlanta Public Schools: Zero

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2018 //
7

Ed Johnson, one of the most astute analysts of education in the nation, has offered a plan to rate the leadership of the Atlanta Public Schools. Please read his linked document. He frequently sends letters to the Atlanta Public School board and they regularly ignore his sound advice. The president and vice-president of the Atlanta board are TFA. The board is determined to disrupt the district and impose charters wherever possible, despite parents’ objections. His following comment describes a rating system for APSL (Atlanta Public School Leadership). Given that we already have ample evidence that corporate Reform is ineffective (see, for example, the $100 million spent and wasted on the Achievement School District in Tennessee), why do leaders of Atlanta persist in their demand for disruption? Because they can.

He commented:

Kindly forgive my intruding with the following long post broken into three parts to offer more perspective, but it’s a desperate situation here in Atlanta. Please help as you see best.

Part 1 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):

APSL stands for Atlanta Public Schools leadership. The abbreviation distinguishes understanding the leadership of APS as being different from APS, the district, itself.

The APSL are the currently serving Atlanta Board of Education members, collectively and severally, and the Harvard-trained Meria Joel Carstarphen, Ed.D., as Superintendent.

Right after civil society of Austin, Texas, effectively dismissed Dr. Carstarphen, effective school year end 2014, for imposing school choice and charter schools upon their Austin Independent School District in opposition to the public’s interests, the Atlanta school board’s Superintendent Search Committee, chaired by Ann Cramer, saw fit, for some unfathomable reason, to select Carstarphen as the search committee’s sole finalist.

Consequently, in April 2014, the Atlanta school board approved hiring Carstarphen to succeed Interim Superintendent Erroll Davis. Carstarphen is now in her fifth year as Atlanta superintendent, and APS is now nearly a decade removed from Dr. Beverly L. Hall’s tenue in that position and the history-making test cheating crisis Hall’s behavioristic practices applied to teachers and their administrators spawned.

Always generally busy with some manner of rushed, attention-grabbing, self-aggrandizing activity about “moving forward” with change, but never effecting improvement, the APSL are now busy with “Creating a System of Excellent Schools” under the auspices of their “Excellent Schools Project.” An aspect of the project is the involvement of a 57-person Advisory Committee comprising top-level APS administrators, some APS principals, and mostly other persons said to be representing “the community.”

The APSL Excellent Schools Project Advisory Committee met most recently … on Monday, 12 November 2018. The facilitated work of the committee in this meeting was that of responding to, and giving feedback on, the 18-page DRAFT Excellent Schools Action Framework (“DRAFT”). A scanned copy of the DRAFT, in PDF format, can be viewed and downloaded from my Adobe Document Cloud space, at this link (light blue highlights on the PDF are mine):

https://adobe.ly/2OBJUdj

First, see in the DRAFT that pages nine (9) through 18 present action items to “Rate on a scale of 1-10 your belief that this action will help increase access to excellent schools across APS.”

When, at the end of their Monday meeting and after having concluded their facilitated work, the Advisory Committee asked for input from members of the public present. I was the only member of the public present.

In rising to the floor to speak, I respectfully and humbly introduced myself as someone who has been called “that Deming guy” and then offered this feedback on rating the DRAFT action items:

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate every action item zero (0). Unfortunately, your allowing me to deliver just a two-minute monologue is not enough time to explain, why zero. Thank you.”

(Note that in keeping with the APSL practice of legally ending public meetings immediately prior to allowing public members to speak for two minutes maximum, so the APSL will have no legal obligation to dialogue with the public nor to legally include public input and feedback in meeting minutes and in the public record, the Advisory Committee Meeting asked to hear from the public only after having concluded the meeting’s work.)

Part 2 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):

Now, be alarmed by the DRAFT. Be very alarmed, if not angered.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it embodies what students, researchers, and practitioners of continual quality improvement (not “continuous improvement”), such as that of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s humanistic philosophy and teachings applicable to education, readily recognize to be what Deming calls “Evil Practices” and “Forces of Destruction” operating.

• DRAFT Evil Practices: “Institute performance-based incentive pay,” “Performance-based contract,” etc.
• DRAFT Forces of Destruction: School “Leadership transition,” “Merge” schools, “Close” school, etc.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because its committee of creators and the APSL clearly aim to slink into parents minds and behavior selfish, consumerist school choice and charter schools expansion ideology that says, “It does not matter what kind of school it is – public, charter, or other – just as long as the school is an excellent school regardless of neighborhood.” In other words, the means don’t matter, just as long as one can get the end one wants regardless of the harm doing so will inflict upon others, even children, but just not “my” child.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it brazenly intends to lead to codifying behaviorism and Taylorism in greatly expansive ways even Beverly Hall did not do. Understanding that Hall’s practice of behaviorism and Taylorism as continuous improvement, with attendant numerical goals and targets for test score gains, is what drove APS to experience the greatest systemic test cheating crisis in U. S. history, then just imagine the damage and destruction the DRAFT portends.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it is so reductive and regressive in the extreme in going so far backward into the 20th century that it is reasonable to say the DRAFT makes behaviorism’s B. F. Skinner (life, 1904-1990; Harvard Professor, 1958-1974) and Taylorism’s Fredrick W. Taylor (1856-1918) rise from the grave to applaud it.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because, intentional or not, its committee of creators and the APSL aim to seal the fate of current and future generations of Atlanta children, especially those labeled “black,” in being generally submissive and compliant cogs in a “college and career ready,” simplified, algorithm-driven, amoral and selfish and greedy world of corporatocracy (yes, it’s a word; see definition below), when the reality is that the world comprises a completely interdependent and interacting network of systems created by both Nature and man that gives rise to ever greater complexity, unceasingly.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it offers nothing, absolutely nothing, for working on learning to improve the internal capabilities of Atlanta public schools as a system that aims to prepare all students for complexities that will unfold, and have already unfolded, into the world, including public schools and other public institutions in service to sustaining and advancing democracy to benefit civil society.

Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it signals its committee of creators and the APSL, ironically, do not have even a Martin Luther King Jr kind of Systems Thinking wisdom and knowledge of what a system is nor of how systems give rise to complexity.

MLK Jr: “As nations and individuals, we are interdependent. … That whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. … This is the way our Universe is structured.”

To see an example of an MLK Jr kind of Systems Thinking in action, freely play around with my qualitative simulation of “Why APS cannot improve and why it can,” at this entirely self-contained link, shortened:

https://tinyurl.com/y8gwwqzn

Part 3 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):

Atlanta school board members who have no understanding of systems, nor of Taylorism, nor of behaviorism, nor of Carstarphen’s known bent for behaviorism and Taylorism, in the style she practiced in Austin, and now in Atlanta, are an inherent risk and danger to the moral and ethical development, education, and welfare of especially children labeled “black.” They should not be school board members. They should have the wherewithal to know to step down. They simply are not qualified for leadership in the ever more complexifying 21st century.

For this reason, now see in the DRAFT that pages seven (7) through eight (8) present the following APSL Excellent Schools Framework Rating design:

• Exceeds Expectations (also 5-stars or “A”)
• Meets Expectations (also 4-stars or “B”)
• Approaching Expectations (also 3-stars or “C”)
• Beginning (also 2-stars or “D”)
• Needs Improvement (also 1-star or “F”)

But then, in the sense “what is good for the goose is good for the gander,” the APSL DRAFT design for rating the level of a school’s excellence suggests the public might also have a similar design for rating the maturity of APSL quality.

Accordingly, the following design is offered for rating the maturity of APSL quality:

• Great APSL Quality
• Good APSL Quality
• Middling APSL Quality
• Fair APSL Quality
• Poor APSL Quality

Then taking the design for rating the maturity of APSL quality into considering that the APSL DRAFT Excellent Schools Action Framework, and the APSL Excellent Schools Project, clearly signal that the APSL aim to codify behaviorism and Taylorism as well as school choice and charter schools expansion, the rating “Poor APSL Quality” is justified, and so is hereby attributed to the APSL.

Therefore, let it be known: Poor APSL Quality is the situation hobbling improvement of Atlanta Public Schools as a public educational institution and system of public schools.

Moreover, the Poor APSL Quality rating begs asking: What was it in the general minds, hearts, and souls of Austin civil society that came to reject Carstarphen and stand up for public education that seems lacking in the general minds, hearts, and souls of Atlanta civil society that has embraced Carstarphen and is amenable to destroying public education using the rationale that attaining an “excellent schools” end justifies any “school choice and charter schools expansion” means?

Again, freely play around with my qualitative simulation of “Why APS cannot improve and way it can,” as you wish. It will be interesting to vary P.Superintendency (public superintendency) quality and P.BOE (public board of education) quality. See below for definitions of the interdependent and interacting entities the simulation involves.

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA | (404) 505-81776 | edwjohnson@aol.com

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America

Steven Singer: The Silence of the Reformers and the Chicago Charter Strike

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2018 //
15

Steven Singer notices a deafening silence from Reformers, who say nothing in response to the nation’s first charter chain strike in Chicago. Come to think of it, the Reformers were silent last spring, during the historic Teacher Revolt in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Co,orado, Noth Carolina, and Arizona.

Are the Reformers on the side of teachers who want smaller classes and a decent salary? No se.

Singer writes:

Charter school teachers in Chicago are in their fourth day of a strike.

Yet I wonder why the leaders of the charter movement are quiet.

Where is Peter Cunningham of the Education Post?

Where is Shaver Jeffries of Democrats for Education Reform?

Not a word from Campbell Brown or Michelle Rhee?

Nothing from Bill Gates, Cory Booker, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?

Not a peep from Betsy DeVos or Donald Trump?

This is a historic moment. Teachers at various charter schools have unionized before, but it has never come to an outright strike – not once since the federal charter school law was established in 1994.

You’d think the charter cheerleaders – the folks who lobby for this type of school above every other type – would have something to say.

But no.

They are conspicuously silent.

I wonder why.

Could it be that this is not what they imagined when they pushed for schools to be privately run but publicly financed?

Could it be that they never intended workers at these schools to have any rights?

Could it be that small class size – one of the main demands of teachers at the 15 Acero schools – was never something these policymakers intended?

It certainly seems so.

Here is the answer, Steven. Charters were funded to kill unions. You guessed it. Now you know it.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Class size, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Pay, Unions

Education Law Center Calls for End to State Takeovers in New Jersey

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2018 //
8

State Takeovers of districts with low scores have been a disaster. The reason for low scores is always high poverty, and the state takeover doesn’t change that fact. State after state has adopted this strategy and failed. Turns out that the folks in the State Education Department are not magicians.

The Education Law Center, a civil rights group, calls for an end to the charade in New Jersey.

TIME TO END STATE DISTRICT TAKEOVER IN NEW JERSEY

In testimony before the Joint Committee on the Public Schools, Education Law Center reissued its call for the New Jersey Legislature to move quickly to repeal the provisions in the district monitoring law – the Quality Single Accountability Continuum or “QSAC” – authorizing State takeover of the operation of local school districts. ELC presented the testimony at a December 4 hearing of the Joint Committee soliciting input from the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) and other stakeholders on recommendations for making implementation of the QSAC law more effective.

“State takeover has proven to be a failed strategy for improving the performance of districts identified as needing assistance through QSAC, New Jersey’s school district monitoring mechanism,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. “It also disenfranchises communities from crucial decisions affecting their schools and has been misused by prior administrations to promote so-called ‘education reform.’ It’s time to bring this sad chapter to an end.”

Before the Joint Committee, ELC noted that the district takeover provisions were incorporated into the QSAC monitoring law in 2005 to facilitate withdrawal of State-operation of the Newark, Paterson and Jersey City districts as quickly as possible. However, instead of exiting these districts as the Legislature intended, the State, under former Governor Chris Christie, refused to return them to local control and engineered the takeover of a fourth high poverty, racially isolated district – Camden. Under Governor Christie’s direction, the State then moved aggressively to close and replace district schools in the State-operated districts through the rapid expansion of charter schools.

In addition to ending State district takeover, ELC also recommended removing the curriculum and instruction component from the QSAC monitoring regime. ELC emphasized to the Joint Committee that QSAC is a mechanism to monitor compliance with basic district functions, such as fiscal, budget, governance and personnel. However, QSAC has proven ineffective as a strategy to support improvements in curriculum and instruction in schools designated as low performing.

ELC further noted that the identification of under-performing schools and requirements for State intervention to improve curriculum, instruction, professional development, student supports and other crucial issues are mandated separately under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). To implement ESSA, the NJDOE has separate rules for intervention in low performing schools, along with regulations mandating targeted resources and initiatives in districts classified as “high need.”

“The curriculum and instruction component of QSAC monitoring layers on top of federal school improvement requirements unattainable, test-based, performance benchmarks for districts, without any accompanying assistance,” said Mr. Sciarra. “From over a decade of experience, it’s now clear that QSAC monitoring does not support, but instead impedes, the intense focus required to bring about improvement and positive change in low performing schools in need of assistance from the NJDOE.”

ELC also recommended that the Joint Committee thoroughly examine the NJDOE’s role in improving curriculum and instruction in low performing schools and the Department’s capacity to bring strong leadership and quality technical assistance and support to these schools. Past efforts to provide such assistance, including the now defunct NJDOE Regional Achievement Centers (RACs), showed the Department lacks sufficient funding, resources and personnel to work collaboratively with principals, teachers and parents in sustained school improvement efforts.

QSAC is useful as a monitoring tool to periodically gauge district compliance with basic fiscal, governance and personnel requirements. But it does little to help districts improve curriculum, instruction and outcomes for students in their schools. ELC is calling for lawmakers to streamline the QSAC monitoring framework and shift its oversight responsibilities to ensure the NJDOE has the capacity to deliver high quality and timely assistance to schools in need of support.

Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

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

Laura Chapman: Who and What is “School Board Partners”?

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
32

Our indefatigable reader and researcher Laura Chapman reports here on the organization called “School Board Partners,” which we first learned about yesterday. It is another astroturf group, funded by the usual billionaire dilettantes and designed to promote privatization and profit.

She writes:

I have been poking around the “School Board Partners” initiative.
Beware the word “partners” in this initiative. It is charter school, Teach for America, and take over as many school boards as you can so charters can thrive and supply high quality seats in a system free of elected school boards.

So far, there are only two staff, both from Education Cities and four members of a board of directors.

STAFF:

CARRIE MCPHERSON DOUGLASS worked for Education Cities for five years. In May 2017, Carrie was elected to the School Board for Bend-La Pine Schools in Oregon – a district with nearly 20,000 students. She has a BA in education from the University of Portland and holds an MBA from Boston University. She is an alumnus of the Broad Residency and Education Pioneers Fellowship programs. Among other jobs, she led the HR and talent departments at Aspire Public Schools for five years. She is on the board of EdFuel, talent management for education, based in D.C. See also a financial problem with her “relay” activities.

https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/6440691-151/bend-mayoral-candidate-accuses-family-members-of-fraud

KEVIN LESLIE has several jobs in finance and operations for Education Cities and its two new initiatives: Community Engagement Partners and School Board Partners. He holds a with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. He lives in Memphis, TN.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

NATHANIEL EASLEY Ph.D., is Founding Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners, a 501(c)(3) public charity “focused on increasing the availability of high quality public schools in Denver through quarterback investments in educator/leader talent, high performing schools, and a supportive policy environment.” Prior to joining Blue School Partners, He served as President and Secretary of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education from 2009 to 2013. He is a current member of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s Education Compact, the National College Access Network Board, the Colorado Education Initiative Board, and co-chairs the Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He has served on the board of several charter school in Denver in addition to other activities cited at the website.

CARRIE IRVIN is the CEO and Co-Founder of Charter Board Partners (CBP)a national organization helping public charter schools build ” strategic” boards. She has delivered a TEDx talk about CBP’s work. Carrie chaired the Board of Trustees of the National Child Research Center and currently serves on the Georgetown University Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advisory Council. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Brown University, and is a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area .

THERESA PENA has twice been elected as an at-large representative on the Denver Board of Education. She also served as the Executive Director of the Denver Education Compact, a cradle-to-career initiative launched by Mayor Michael Hancock. She is a board member of the Denver Preschool Program, the Denver Community Health Services and the Colorado Community College System. She has a B.A. in sociology from Pomona College in California and MBA from Cornell University.

CARL ZARAGOZA is Senior Director of Elected Leadership at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) LEE prepares and supports Teach for America corps members and alumni as political candidates at every level of government. Carl was elected twice to the Creighton Elementary School District Governing Board in Phoenix and had two terms as President. He is U.S. Army veteran. he taught middle school civics in a Title 1 school in Phoenix. He has BA in Political Science and is studying for an Executive MBA at Arizona State University. He is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

There is a strategy for School Board Partners. It is described in a paper titled FROM TOKENISM TO PARTNERSHIP by Charles McDonald. This short publication includes one chart that shows the intended strategy for privatizing the governance of schools in the manner of Mind Trust’s operation in Indianapolis..

Click to access 1cjmq5paf_935717.pdf

The author of this paper, Charles McDonald, is Executive Director for Community Engagement Partners (an initiative of Education Cities). His bio says that he “served as Senior Managing Director, External Affairs for Teach For America – South Carolina for four years. He also served as Program Manager for Education Pioneers’ Greater Boston Analyst and Graduate School Fellowship programs for two years….. He is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He lives in Columbus, OH.

McDonald credits help on the paper to” leaders at Donnell-Kay Foundation, Leadership For Educational Equity, Memphis Education Fund, MN Comeback, The Mind Trust, SchoolSmartKC, and United Parents and Students.

The new organizayion builds on the failures of education in Memphis, in Indianapolis, in Minnesota and many more cities enticed into faux partnerships with existing public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America

Disgrace in Ohio! State Takeovers of Impoverished Districts

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
31

Jan Resseger writes that HB 70, the law allowing the state to take over school districts because they have low test scores, will be a permanent stain on John Kasich’s legacy. Who knew that Republicans believe that the best way to “fix” schools is to eliminate elected school boards? Did anyone tell the Ohio legislators about the failure of state takeovers in Michigan and Tennessee? So-called “Reformers” despise democracy.

The bill was rushed through the Republican-dominated legislature, which prefers to abrogate local control rather than invest resources in districts enrolling large numbers of poor children.

First the state took over Youngstown, now it is taking over East Cleveland and Lorain.

The newly appointed leaders are hiring uncertified administrators and bringing in TFA. Just what vulnerable children (don’t) need: totally unqualified educators.

The implementation of state takeover has been insensitive and insulting. Ohio’s Plunderbund reported in March, 2018 that Krish Mohip, the state overseer CEO in Youngstown, feels he cannot safely move his family to the community where he is in charge of the public schools. He has also been openly interviewing for other jobs including school districts as far away as Boulder, Colorado and Fargo, North Dakota. And a succession of members of Youngstown’s Academic Distress Commission have quit.

Plunderbund adds that Lorain’s CEO, David Hardy tried to donate the amount of what would be the property taxes on a Lorain house to the school district, when he announced that he does not intend to bring his family to live in Lorain. The Elyria Chronicle Telegram reported that Lorain’s CEO has been interviewing and hiring administrators without the required Ohio administrator certification. Hardy has also been courting Teach for America. In mid-November, the president of Lorain’s elected board of education, Tony Dimacchia formally invited the Ohio Department of Education to investigate problems under the state’s takeover Academic Distress Commission and its appointed CEO. He charged: “The CEO has created a culture of violence, legal violations, intimidation, and most importantly they have done nothing to improve our schools.” The Lorain Morning Journal’s Richard Payerchin describes Dimacchia’s concerns: “Dimacchia claimed student and teacher morale is at an all-time low, while violence (at the high school) is at an all-time high…”

At last week’s Statehouse rally, Youngstown Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan described all the ways HB 70 abrogates democracy: “The legislation took away the voice of the locally elected school board members and gave an autocratic, unaccountable, appointed CEO total control over every facet of the system. The CEO can hire who he wants. Fire who he wants. Pay people whatever he wants. Hire consultants and pay them as much as he wants. Buy whatever he wants and pay as much as he wants for it. Tear up collective bargaining agreements. Ignore teachers. Ignore students. Ignore parents. And he also has the power to begin closing schools if performance does not improve within five years. Nearly four years in, here’s what the Youngstown Plan has produced: Ethical lapses. No-bid contracts. Huge salaries for the team of administrators the CEO hired. Concern and anxiety among students, parents, and teachers. And the resignation of most of the members of the Distress Commission who were charged with overseeing the CEO. Here’s what it hasn’t produced: better education for our kids.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Teach for America

Matt Barnum: “Reformers” on Local School Boards Create New Organization to Promote Portfolio Model

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2018 //
29

Matt Barnum reports that school board members in several cities have formed a new organization to consult with one another. They claim they don’t have an agenda but they are funded by Education Cities, the organization that was created to promote the “portfolio model” that favors charters.

If all that was wanted was an organization where school board members could communicate, such organizations exist. Every state has a state school boards association. There is also the National School Boards Association. Clearly, something else is intended here, and you don’t need a big imagination to figure it out. These are school boards members who are part of the “Reformer” agenda, and they are impatient to disrupt their district’s schools.

This is yet another organization trying to pump life into the moribund charter movement, which has failed to close the achievement gap anywhere or to introduce any innovation other than strict discipline (a return to the late 19th century) and which lobbies to avoid accountability and transparency.

The charter lobby is doubling down and pumping out more organizations as existing charters close or fail to produce results, kind of like buying more of a sinking stock. If the stock doesn’t rebound, you lose it all.

Barnum writes:

School board members are elected to make the most local decisions about school policy. But a new group is trying to get them to join forces to form a network of school board members in at least 10 cities.

School Board Partners says it wants to create a “national community” of board members and will offer coaching and consulting services. Emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate the group is targeting board members in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Stockton.

The group spun out of Education Cities, an organization that advocated for the “portfolio model,” a strategy focused on expanding charter schools as well as giving district schools more autonomy. Denver, Indianapolis, and New Orleans have enacted some version of that model, and Education Cities also counted member groups in most of the cities on School Board Partners’ list. And School Board Partners’ website says its community will be “aligned to a common theory of change” — signs that this is a new strategy for portfolio advocates.

But Carrie McPherson Douglass, who previously worked at Education Cities and founded the new group, says it won’t push specific policies.

“One of our core beliefs is the need for local autonomy,” she told Chalkbeat. The group is open to board members from any city who will prioritize equity and want to see “dramatic change,” she said — and that’s not simply code for the portfolio model.

“I am very hopeful that there are other ideas out there,” Douglass said.

School Board Partners’ website offers limited information, but an August email sent to recruit potential members offers more details. Douglass wrote the group has “secured our first large multi-year grant” and plans to offer “pro-bono consulting services to help school board members research, plan and execute thoughtful change initiatives.” (The email also lists San Antonio as a target city, but Douglass says it has since been removed because Texas already has a support system for school boards that want to adopt the portfolio model.)

Douglass, an elected school board member in Bend, Oregon, said the group grew out of her experience. “I thought I was going in pretty prepared, pretty knowledgeable,” she said. I “really just found it to be an incredibly unique and difficult challenge.”

The group doesn’t have a list of members and is still raising money, Douglass said. The email said the group would hold its first national convening in October, but Douglass said that’s been pushed to February.

School Board Partners was announced in July, as much of Education Cities’ work and staff was absorbed by The City Fund, a well-financed new group that hopes to bring the portfolio model to cities across the country.

Douglass says her group’s funding so far has come from money raised by Education Cities, which had been funded by the Arnold, Dell, Gates, Kauffman, and Walton Family foundations, among others. (Chalkbeat is also funded by Gates and Walton and Gates.)

Of course, there are no specific policies, no agenda, but the new group is funded by the same foundations promoting privatization of public schools.

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

Los Angeles: Our Public Schools Are Not for Sale!

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2018 //
4

This full-page ad appeared in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago. It was paid for by the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

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Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization, Resistance, Supporting public schools

Los Angeles: Beutner Plans a “Portfolio District”

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2018 //
41

Austin Beutner wants to convert Los Angeles into a “portfolio district.” He is not an educator, which qualifies him to reform the nation’s second largest school district, imposing ideas gleaned from the corporate sector, where he spent his career, buying and selling get, opening and closing, without knowing anything about the businesses he oversaw.

What is a portfolio district?

This is an article that appeared in Chalkbeat a year ago, explaining the concert of a “portfolio district” and some of the billionaire-funded Reformers promoting it.

The billionaires have funded an organization to bring “portfolio models” to 40 cities in 10 years. They begin their discussion by acknowledging that “very little works in education reform,” which is an accurate assessment.

They go on to claim that Denver, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. are breakthrough districts whose successes should be spread. Not many people other than Reformers would look on D.C. as a model district; what’s it is best known for during the Rhee-Reform era is covered up cheating scandals, graduation rate scandals, and politicized data. D.C. has the largest achievement gaps of any urban district tested by NAEP. Jeanne Kaplan has written numerous posts about Denver’s bad habit of massaging the data. New Orleans has a highly stratified district, in which 40% of the charters are rated D or F by the state and highly segregated. Louisiana, under reform control for at least a decade, recently dropped on NAEP and is one of the lowest performing states in the nation (and New Orleans is one of its lowest performing districts).

Here are Powerpoint presentations assembled by one of Beutner’s shadow government firms that is paid for by Broad and others – Kitamba, the one that worked with Michelle Rhee in Washington, DC. This is from a “how to” conference in Texas on portfolio districts. Look at the power points associated with the workshop called “How to Thoughtfully Manage Your Portfolio,” especially slides 10 and 11. This explains exactly how it works – closing schools, turning schools over to charters. Assembled were big thinkers, failed Superintendents and consultants brought together to discuss the Reform strategies, which have worked nowhere. Jeanne Kaplan has written numerous posts about Denver’s bad habit of massaging the data.

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

Atlanta: After School Board Takeover, Major Disruption and Mass Privatization Underway

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2018 //
31

Corporate reformers managed to gain control of the Atlanta School Board hired America Carstarphen as its superintendent; she previously worked in Austin, where voters ousted the charter-friendly board.

Now Atlanta has ambitious plans to turn itself into a portfolio district and disrupt schools across the city. Reformers say that when they are finished with their mass disruption, every student will attend an excellent school.

Sadly, they can’t point to a district anywhere in the nation where this has happened. In New Orleans, the Star Reform District, 40% of schools are rated D or F by the reform-loving Dtate Education Department, and these schools are almost completely segregated black.

This is the key exchange:

School board chairman Jason Esteves acknowledges the work will lead to “tough decisions,” but says it’s necessary to create excellent schools for every child.

Over the coming months, the district will develop a rating system to grade its schools as well as determine how to respond when schools excel or fail. The board that will consider any changes includes several members who joined after the 2016 turnaround plan was approved.

“The vast majority of the community has seen the progress that we’ve made, has endorsed the work that we’ve done, and … wants to see more of it,” he said. “The electorate has generally been supportive in the face of pretty significant changes.”

But there are critics, and they say the district needs to shift priorities, not redesign its structure.

Shawnna Hayes-Tavares, president of Southwest and Northwest Atlanta Parents and Partners for Schools, fears officials want to bring in more charter schools or charter operators to run neighborhood schools, especially in those parts of the city.

“We’ve had the most change on this side of town. It’s like trauma,” she said. “The parents are just tired. They can’t take it anymore.”

Promises and lies.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Parents, Privatization
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