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Mark Naison: How the Democratic Party Fatally Damaged Itself by Attacking Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
81

Mark Naison and I agree. When the Democratic Party joined the campaign to impose high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization, it attacked a key element of its own base. He says it began with Bill Clinton’s advocacy for standards, testing, and accountability. Then, the Democrats threw their support behind George W. Bush’s disastrous No Child Left Behind. Then Obama brought in Arne Duncan to bribe the states with $5 billion for the disastrous Race to the Top program, which demoralized teachers, made them scapegoats, and closed thousands of schools in impoverished communities while favoring privately managed charter schools. I argued in The New Republic that the Democratic Party paved the way for Betsy DeVos and her crusade to replace public schools with anything other than public schools. Charters under private management are the gateway drug leading to vouchers to replace public schools.

Mark wrote that Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

He writes:

Ever since the Clinton Presidency, the Democratic Party has been an advocate of top-down school reforms whose goal has been to make the nation more economically competitive and reduce inequality. Not only have these policies failed to achieve their stated objectives, they have destabilized communities where Democrats have traditionally found support, created widespread distress among teachers and parents, and given credence to the conservative critique of the DP as the province of technocratic elites who impose policies on people without really listening to them

Every Democratic politician who has promoted the following education policies, I would argue, has been complicit in the Party’s decline

1. Promotion of national testing and test based accountability standards for public schools.

2. Closing of schools which are deemed “failing” and removal of their teachers and administrators.

3. Preference for charter schools over public schools, especially in high poverty areas.

4. Support for programs like Teach for America which de-professionalize the teaching profession.
These four principles have been pillars of the Democratic Party’s education policies on a national level, pushed by President Obama and supported by virtually every major Democratic politician in the nation including figures on the left of the Democratic Party such as Elizabeth Warren, Patti Murray and Al Franken.

What have been the results of these policies?:

1. They have inspired a national parents revolt against excessive testing

2. They have produced a sharp decline in teacher morale and inspired the creation of teacher activist groups like Save Our Schools, BATS, and the Network for Public Education

3. They have promoted an mass exodus of the most talented veteran teachers and led to a sharp decline in the percentage of Black teachers in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where teacher temps from programs like Teach for America have become the predominant labor force in the newly created charter schools.

4. They have accelerated the gentrification of the nation’s major cities and diluted the political power of working class people, immigrants and people of color.

5, The have accelerated the shrinking of the Black and Latino middle class, and the weakening of the nation’s unions.

If you are looking for an explanation of why the power of the Democratic Party has declined sharply in a state and local level during the past eight years, the promotion of these disastrous education policies has to be part of the explanation.

No better example can be found of the Party’s adherence to the voice of billionaire contributors and technocrats over its traditional constituency into working class and middle class Americans than its disastrous foray into School Reform.

And unfortunately, the current leadership of the Democratic Party shows no willingness or ability to change course on these issues

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Florida: The Legislature’s Plan to Destroy Public Schools and Enrich Their Cronies

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
17

Kathleen Oropeza of the parent group Fund Education Now has prepared an analysis of the destructive law passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor Rick Scott. To read the links, go to the post here.


HB 7069: Florida’s K-12 nightmare foreshadows the nation’s future

The Florida legislature set a dangerous precedent this year. One that will no doubt be repeated in GOP-controlled states across the nation.

Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron under scrutiny from Gov. Scott negotiated every major public education policy into HB 7069 and designed the K-12 budget under a transactional cloak of darkness – locking out everyone but themselves. Each man had his own rigid demands heavily supported by outside influence. Senators and Representatives were rendered so insignificant they should have stayed home.

Secret deals

Scott wanted funding restored to Visit Florida ($86M) and Enterprise Florida ($75M), a corporate incentive slush fund. Negron wanted funding and changes to higher Education and a reservoir near Lake Okeechobee. Corcoran wanted to enact a sweeping assault on public schools setting up Florida to be the poster child for the privatizing “choice expansion” soon to be rolled out by U.S. ED Secretary DeVos. To coerce passage, they included mandated recess and the Gardiner ESE voucher expansion, both bills that would have passed on their own. Politicians have used Florida’s public school children either as collateral or an “acceptable loss” for far too long.

As a result, HB 7069 emerged eligible only for a single up/down vote. No debate.

Derivative of 55 other bills, the only supporters of HB 7069 were the Koch Bros, Jeb’s Foundations and the charter industry lobby. Without exception, legitimate parent groups, who sent over 150,000 letters, joined stakeholders ranging from teachers to districts and superintendents in opposition of this bill.

Florida has been in the throes of a devastating public K-12 “reform” policy experiment for twenty years. Jeb Bush weaponized the Florida “A-F Accountability System” with high stakes tests, mandatory retention, school grades that mostly reflect zip codes and a profound disrespect for professional educators.

Thanks to HB 7069, even highly effective teachers are no longer sure of a job the following year. Florida politicians consistently talk about placing the best teachers in Title 1 schools where they may no longer be ranked “highly effective.” The Best & Brightest Bonus expansion in HB 7069 effectively punishes these teachers. As a result, politics are stifling the ability of teachers to serve at risk students by denying even the smallest gesture of job security.

Universally opposed by advocates

Every public education advocate in the nation should be concerned about what Florida is doing. The state’s longstanding 3:1 ratio of GOP to Democrats makes political balance impossible. This session, Speaker Corocran made no attempt to hide his contempt for public education. He began by calling teachers “downright evil, crazy, disgusting and repugnant.” HB 7069 disrespects the authority of duly elected school boards by forcing them to share their only capital outlay money with corporate charter chains. In addition, the state gives charters up to $100M per year from Public Education Capital Outlay funding derived from a telecommunications tax. Districts never see a dime!

Of course, Corcoran accuses them of whining, “It’s their bloat, inefficiency and gross over-spending. Their problem is their mismanagement…They just want to build Taj Mahals.” This deception ignores the fact that the Florida legislature has refused to invest any additional funds in K-12 education since 2008. Gov. Scott is proud that the 2017 budget includes a paltry $100 extra per student for just one year. Thanks to HB 7069 that money is already spent on new students, making up for lost capital funding and attempting to rescue programs that will be cut due to the shift in Title 1 expenditures.

Hostile to public education

Perhaps the worst policy found in HB 7069 is the $140 million dollar “Schools of Hope” which forces districts to either immediately close “D” and “F” schools or permanently hand them over to for-profit charter chains with zero history of successfully mitigating the impact of generational poverty. There’s no guarantee that these struggling students will actually attend a “school of hope.” This program is designed to escalate the takeover of district schools by a corporate charter chain.

Further, legislators purposely ignore proven public school successes such as the Evans Community School in Orlando.

People are angry about HB 7069. All indications are that it will be an issue in the 2018 mid-term elections. Sen. Gary Farmer is mulling over a lawsuit concerning the legality of using legislation to strip constitutionally granted authority from school boards.

Voucher mission creep

Gov. Scott chose to sign HB 7069 at an ESE Catholic School knowing that DeVos intends to kill the separation of church and state and pursue publicly funded vouchers for religious schools. Knowing that intent might not be well received, Scott used the expansion of the Gardiner ESE voucher as a beard to avoid praising the divisive contents of the bill. The Gardiner ESE voucher is another corporate tax credit that forces recipients to leave the state K-12 school system, giving parents the ability to choose an education for their child devoid of standards or any accountability. Make no mistake this program encourages mission creep toward Jeb and Betsy’s dream of universal vouchers. And some form of ESE voucher will be coming to your state, if it hasn’t already.

Jeb, along with the Milton Friedman Foundation and a formidable slew of “Return on Investment” billionaire philanthropists ranging from Bill Gates to Betsy DeVos share a singular view. Instead of truly wanting every child to get an excellent education, they are obsessed with liquidating our greatest public asset for the sake of profit and “choice” ideology.

Profit over people

Florida’s history of unmitigated charter growth is a tale of wasted tax dollars, scandal, closed schools and abandoned students The latest charter school fraud involves Newpoint Charters, racketeering charges and $57 million up in smoke.

Study the contents of HB 7069 carefully. This bill was born of secrecy, power-hoarding and deceit. It’s a blatant strategy to pass hostile pieces of legislation that could never be voted up alone. It’s a clear-eyed warning that the profiteers coming to dismantle Florida public schools will not be contained to a single state.

What’s in Florida’s HB 7069?

Title 1 Funds

• Redirects and dilutes Title I funds currently used by districts to provide a variety of district-wide programs that benefit some of the most vulnerable students.
• Eliminates district-wide programs currently funded with a portion of Title I money such as, AVID, mentorship programs, and some services offered by school transformation offices.

School Districts must give Charters a portion of locally levied capital outlay funding

• Requires school districts to share locally derived capital outlay funds with charters leaving a huge deficit in the sole funding source used by school boards to build, maintain and improve schools. Ex: Palm Beach County district expects to lose at least $230 million over 10 years; Broward County will lose at least $300 million over 10 years.
• Districts must prove need, charters do not.
• Once this capital outlay funding is shared, private corporations are free to keep the money to invest in buildings and improve property that the public will never own.
• No language to prevent taxpayer funds for capital projects from enriching for-profit corporate charters

Schools of Hope/High Impact Corporate Charter welfare (line 184)

• Creates the “Schools of Hope” program, funded with $140 million by the legislature for out of state charters to take over the education of the most vulnerable students in Florida with zero proof that there is any record of success in turning around schools
• Redirects further funding from traditional public schools and provides a corporate welfare program for charters.
• Does not require the charters to service the students in the schools that they are taking over.
• Increases the number of schools subject to charter take over because it requires school districts to prepare emergency plans if any school in the district earns a “D” or “F”
• Language from HB 7101, including the mandate that school districts use a standard contract and any amendments to the contract are deemed to violate charter schools flexibility per statute
• Allows charters to use district facilities at a deeply discounted rate that my not reflect the fair market value of properties.
• Allows just 25 schools from districts to compete for Schools of Hope funding – If Florida invested in struggling schools, Schools of Hope would be redundant

Charters get to grade District public schools

• Permits charter schools to “grade” school districts on their performance
• Does not allow for school districts to do the same to charters

Charter School Land Use

• Allows charter schools to bypass any land use or zoning requirements of local jurisdictions
• Preempts the authority of local jurisdictions and doesn’t permit local community participation on land use or zoning decisions that potentially affect their property uses and values
• Doesn’t allow for local governments or local citizens to evaluate the impacts on their communities caused by charter schools on issues such as traffic capacity and consistency with approved uses already in place
• School districts are not given the same flexibility as corporate charter chains.

Charter access to public facilities

• Allows charters to use district facilities at a deeply discounted rate that my not reflect the fair market value of properties.
• Requires districts to report to DOE if any facility or portion of a facility is vacant, underused, or surplus.
• Expands the current requirement of reporting surplus properties.
• Could result in a charter school operating simultaneously as an operating public school, affecting the ability of a district to properly plan for future growth.
• Grants charter schools sovereign immunity equal to what public entities currently have under state law.

Charters can hire non-certified teachers

• Allows “Schools of Hope” to hire non-certified teachers and administrators.
• These teachers and administrators are servicing some of the most vulnerable students in Florida.
• Why would the standards for these teachers and administrators be lowered?

Exempts corporate charter chains from paying for District services

• Caps the administration fees a school district may charge a charter for educational services.
• Exempts Charters from paying for additional services outside the agreed administrative fee, causing Districts to subsidize the cost of these extra services
• Impedes a district’s ability to provide adequate educational services for students enrolled in its district.

Charters Usurp Superintendent Authority/Schools of Excellence

• Mandates that a school of excellence be a part of the principal autonomy program which attempts to usurp superintendent powers under the constitution.
• Caps the administration fees a school district may charge a charter for educational services.
• If a district provides additional services to a charter outside what is contemplated with the administrative fee, it would result in school districts having to subsidize charter school programs and potentially affect a district’s ability to provide adequate educational services for students enrolled in its district.
Charters Usurp locally elected school boards
• Grants charter school systems governing board a designation as an local educational agency
• Allows charters to bypass local control and allowing them to remain largely unaccountable to the public despite receiving a significant amount of taxpayer funding.

School Grade Manipulation

• Requires the educational data from a student that transfers to a private school or comes from a private school to be factored into a school’s grade, despite the fact that the school is not providing educational services to the student.

Teachers

• Removes teacher bonus caps for IB, AP, and CAPE without funding.
• Teacher Contracts: Contains a provision limiting the employment contracts that school districts may award to teachers to one year.
• Makes VAM teacher evaluation system optional for districts

Best & Brightest Teacher Bonus

• Reduces bonus for teenage SAT/ACT scores and highly effective rank from $10K to $6K for the next three years
• Adds a principal bonus of $4K, uses qualifications that have no proven correlation to teacher or principal performance.
• $1,200/year before taxes to “highly effective” teachers
• Up to $800/year before taxes to “effective” teachers
• Does not provide much-needed permanent teacher raises

Gardiner ESE Voucher

• Adds an additional $30 million to the existing program which offers $10K vouchers to parents of ESE students
• In exchange, parents give up child’s right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).
• Funding is generated by allowing corporations to divert what would be Florida general revenue taxes to Step up for Students, the designated “Scholarship Funding Organization” who earns a management fee off of the gross

Recess

• Mandates 100 minutes of recess per week for all K-5 students in District public schools
• Exempts charter schools from this mandate – granting a carve-out from any expenses incurred by the recess mandate

Kathleen Oropeza is co –founder of FundEducationNow.org, a non-partisan public education advocacy group working to bring voters into a thoughtful discussion about school reforms and the threat of privatization. She also writes The EdVocate Blog and is the mother of two public school children. Reach Kathleen at: Kathleen@fundeducationnow.org

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Testing

New Mexico: TFA Alum Takes the Reins as State Chief

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
7

Many teachers in New Mexico were relieved when Hanna Skandera resigned as Commissioner of the Public Education Department. Skandera never met the minimum legal requirement to hold the post; she had never been a teacher. She was a protege of Jeb Bush and wanted to bring the Florida model of high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization to New Mexico. She subscribed to her mentor’s radical anti-public school, anti-teacher policies and even served as chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, a far-right group.

The American Federation of Teachers and the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers filed suit against Skandera’s value-added teacher evaluation program, which counted student test scores as 50% of each teacher’s evaluation. Teachers hated this flawed and inaccurate method. See here. The New Mexico courts have enjoined the state from applying penalties based on its VAM. The New Mexico method is the toughest in the nation; it finds about 30% of teachers to be ineffective. New Mexico has a growing teacher shortage, due to low teacher pay and poor working conditions. Skandera did nothing to support teachers, nor has Governor Martinez.

Although Skandera has left, help is not on the way. Governor Susanna Martinez has appointed Christopher Ruszkowski, a deputy of Skandera, to take Skandera’s place.

“Ruszkowski arrived in New Mexico in April 2016 to oversee the Public Education Department’s research agenda, policies and academic priorities, including PARCC testing, school grades and pre-kindergarten….

“Born in Chicago, Ruszkowski spent three years teaching in Miami and Boston schools through Teach for America, then received a master’s degree in education policy from Stanford University. He most recently worked for the Delaware Department of Education, earning accolades from the state’s Democratic governor.

“Ruszkowski told the Journal on Wednesday that he is excited to lead New Mexico’s PED and maintain its “strong foundation.”

“(Teachers) are saying, ‘Let’s have some stability for once. Let’s have some continuity for once. Let’s not have another pendulum swing,’ ” Ruszkowski said. ” It’s very rare for a state to have the opportunity to have some degree of stability and continuity in its core systems over the course of a decade. New Mexico is getting there.”

In other words, the new chief thinks that teachers want to maintain and deepen Skandera’s hated policies.

Ruszkowski went out of his way to praise the Gates-funded Teachers Plus organization and to lob criticism at the NEA and AFT.

“Ruszkowski said he has yet to meet with Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Raquel Reedy, who oversees the state’s largest district, with more than 80, 000 students, and who often disagreed with Skandera’s reform efforts.

“Ruszkowski said districts in cities including San Antonio, Denver and Phoenix are making strides, while APS continues to struggle. Districts must adopt innovative approaches to education if they want to improve outcomes, Ruszkowski said.”

This last comment was an outright smear. None of those districts participate in NAEP, and there is no objective basis for comparing them, other than to note that those districts are in the forefront of privatization, which has shown no gains, except for schools that cherrypick their students and exclude those with disabilities.

It is time for New Mexico to elect a new Governor, one who wants to improve public schools, not destroy them.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Mexico, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Denver: I’m With Tay for the Denver School Board!

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
9

Denver has a seven-member school board that is completely controlled by corporate reformers from Democrats for Education Reform and others with no stake in the schools other than to push more testing and more privatization. Every single member was elected by corporate reform money. Not one single member represents the students and families of Denver.

That can change in this election.

A remarkable young man who recently graduated from the Denver Public Schools is running for the school board seat in District 4. His name is Tay Anderson. Tay is an exemplary young man whose life was in a downward spiral. He went from foster home to foster home. Then he realized he could take control of his life, and he did. He took and AP classes in calculus and literature. He was elected president of the student body three years in a row. He was on the honor roll. He is chairman of the Colorado High School Democrats. He was active in JROTC and was sergeant major of the Manual High School color guard.

He is a young man with a vision of hope and justice and action.

He is exactly what the Denver School Board needs. Imagine how all the folks whose seats were purchased by DFER and dark money will respond when they have this great young man of integrity, experience, and knowledge in their midst?

If you live in District 4, please vote for Tay. Ring doorbells for Tay. Tay Anderson represents hope for the future. He will be a voice for students and public schools.

Join #TeamTay.

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

Indianapolis: Public Protest on Tuesday Against School Closings and Privatization

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2017 //
1

Parents and teachers will gather in Indianapolis on Tuesday to protest the ongoing corporate assault on public schools. 5:15 pm in front of IPS headquarters

It is NOT about the kids. It is NOT students first. It is all about the money transferred from public schools to private bank accounts.

“Community coalition to demonstrate Tues at IPS. The group intends to challenge the Mind Trust/Stand for Children controlled board. Citizens/taxpayers must understand the connections among closing high schools, gentrification, and real estate development.”

John Harris Loflin
Member
Parent Power Indianapolis
Education-Community Action Team

Like “We are IPS” on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=we%20are%20ips

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

Scott Sargrad: Invest in Public Schools, Not Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2017 //
14

Scott Sargrad is in charge of K-12 education policy at the Center for American Policy. CAP has been one of the leading advocates for privately managed charters. This article explains in lucid prose why vouchers are a terrible strategy and how they actually harm most children who use them. He could have written the same article about charters, which suck money and top students away from public schools and weaken the very schools we should be helping.

He writes that no matter how many anecdotes you hear about vouchers, the bottom line is they they are a bad bet:

“But if our goal as a country is to provide an excellent education for every child, private school voucher schemes that send taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into private schools are too risky a gamble…

“It’s worth pausing for a moment to examine just how stunning the results of these studies are. In Indiana and the District of Columbia, students receiving vouchers actually moved backward in math, and made no progress in reading. In both Ohio and Louisiana, the students did significantly worse in both reading and math compared to their peers who remained in public schools – with students in Louisiana moving from the 50th percentile to the 34th percentile in math after just one year.

“And despite frequent claims that parents are happier after using a voucher, the evaluation of the District of Columbia program found no impact on parent or student satisfaction or parent involvement. (To be fair, the study found that parents perceived their private schools as safer – although the students did not.)

“It might be tempting to consider allowing for small, limited voucher programs that are carefully targeted to the neediest students and include important civil rights, antidiscrimination and transparency protections. Unfortunately, history shows clearly that this is never the case. Some of the biggest supporters of vouchers – including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – are explicitly against these kinds of protections, casting them as over-regulation that limits choice.

“In fact, voucher programs often start small – such as targeting students with disabilities or families with lower incomes. Then proponents slowly but surely expand eligibility to all students and raise or eliminate income caps. Eventually, students using vouchers are those who have never enrolled in a public school, and increased spending on voucher programs leads to budget crunches that could harm public schools.

“Of course, public schools are not perfect – not even close. That’s why instead of directing taxpayer dollars to private school voucher schemes, states and the federal government should be investing public money in improving public schools.”

He goes on to encourage choice within public schools, including charters, but surely he knows that charters are as discriminatory as voucher schools and just as likely to be corrupt because of the typical absence of oversight or accountability. The “effective” charters are those that cherrypick their students, avoid those with disabilities, and push out students who can’t get high scores.

Charter Schools, by definition, are privately managed. They are not public schools. No matter what their allies call them, no matter what they call themselves, they are private schools that are bankrolled by public money.

Sorry, CAP, you can’t reject half of the Betsy DeVos agenda and embrace the other half.

The charter industry does not collaborate with public schools. It seeks to weaken them, not help them.

CAP, either support public schools or school choice. There is no middle ground. One is public, the other is not. Which side are you on?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

SHOCKER! Massive Charter Scandal Stretches from Ohio to Florida

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2017 //
17

The Akron Beacon-Joirnal reports on a multi-state charter scandal.

“The founder of an Akron-area charter school company is accused of using thousands of dollars parents paid for student lunches and uniforms and millions more from Ohio and Florida taxpayers to fund home mortgages, plastic surgery, extensive world travel, credit card debt and more.

“Criminal charges filed last week in Florida against Marcus May also allege he improperly used private and public funds earmarked for students’ education to expand his charter school empire in Columbus, Akron, Cleveland and Dayton.

“Florida State Attorney William “Bill” Eddins brought the charges of racketeering and organized fraud against May, the founder of Newpoint Education Partners and Cambridge Education, a Fairlawn company that manages about 20 charter schools in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Akron, Youngstown, Canton and Cleveland.

“In a prepared statement provided to the Beacon Journal on Friday, Cambridge Executive Director John Stack said: “My co-owners and I asked for and today accepted Mr. May’s resignation as managing member of Cambridge. We are now in discussions to remove him completely from ownership in the company because we feel it’s in the best interest of our schools.

“Despite this distraction, my colleagues at Cambridge and I will continue to focus on our core mission and the students we serve as we have always done.”

“Cincinnati businessman Steven Kunkemoeller also was charged in the First Judiciary Circuit, a regional court in Florida. Kunkemoeller is a longtime business partner of May, according to a Beacon Journal/Ohio.com report from December and a multi-state investigation that included help from the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office.

“Kunkemoeller was arrested Wednesday in Florida. May’s attorney has reportedly talked with authorities there. Neither man could be reached for comment.

“The Florida prosecutor alleges that the men fabricated invoices, embellished enrollment, misappropriated public funds and created an elaborate network of limited liability companies in order to bilk the federal and state governments, as well as parents and students.

“In Akron, where Cambridge manages Towpath Trail High School, Middlebury Academy and Colonial Prep Academy, school board members are taking caution but not jumping to conclusions.

“We are keeping a close eye on it and discussing alternatives if they are needed,” said Ron McDaniel, president of Towpath Trail High School. “But we need to be responsible and not make snap decisions. Our schools are running well and run responsibly. We verify things better than the Florida schools did from what I understand.”

“The mark up

“School and business records obtained by the Beacon Journal and detailed by a forensic accountant working on the case show that May and Kunkemoeller marked up the price of services and supplies provided to the charter schools they managed in Ohio and Florida, sometimes more than doubling the cost of school uniforms, desks, computers, chairs and website design.

“Florida investigators questioned the vendors who sold the goods and could find “no apparent business reason” for the mark ups. May and Stack, Cambridge’s executive director, have said that the schools pay more upfront for more flexible financing terms.

“Fabricated invoices

“Items listed on invoices, from iPads to furniture, could not be found when Florida investigators swept schools for evidence of how public dollar were spent…

“Property and bank records reviewed by investigators showed May and his wife, Mary May, purchased a Florida home soon after “rebate” payments began. In 2014, two payments of $175,000 were applied to Kunkemoeller’s mortgage and the May’s home equity line of credit. Investigators traced the money to a laundry list of other non-public expenses, including $381,631 for credit cards, $207,415 for Marcus May and his family, $52,388 for a homeowner’s association fees (including swimming pool services), $4,735 taken as cash, personal loans to other people, a $10,000 jet ski from Barney’s Motorcycle Sales in St. Petersburg, $5,000 to the Fairlawn Country Club, $11,000 for plastic surgery and additional money for trips to Amsterdam, the British Virgin Islands, Brussels, Cancun, China, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Japan, Los Cabos, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Italy.”

Florida officials are investigating; Ohio officials don’t seem to care.

The story goes on to detail massive fraud, double-billing, and other misappropriation of public money.

When will the mainstream media report this story? We know that Betsy DeVos won’t care. As long as parents are choosing these schools, why worry about the money?

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

Jeff Bryant Wins “Project Censored” Award for His Article on the Walmart Takeover of Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2017 //
24

Jeff Bryant has won one of the annual Project Censored awards for his brilliant article about the malign intrusion of Walmart into public education.

We may differ about which person is “the worst in the World,” but if there were a competition for the “Worst Corporation in the World,” Walmart would definitely be at or near the top. They treat their workers horribly. They fight unions. They fought paying a living wage or even a minimum wage. I have heard that Walmart workers are given advice about how to apply for food stamps and welfare.

But that’s not all. Walmart destroys Main Street. It undercuts all the Mom-and-Pop stores by offering shoddy foreign-made shlock and drives them out of business. Mom and Pop, who once lived in dignity, are lucky if they can get a job as a greeter at Walmart. The small towns of America are being hollowed out by Walmart’s cut-throat competition. If zwalmart doesn’t get the profit it expected, it closes, leaving behind the devastated small towns where the closed shops are for rent.

The Waltons, the richest family in America, have placed their bets and their billions squarely behind charter schools. They would support vouchers too, but charters are easier as their preferred method of cutting down public education, which the Waltons despise. They not only fund new charters and existing charters, they give millions to TFA and to mainstream media outlets with the hope that they can buy good coverage.

If I found a magic lantern and were granted three wishes, one of them would be that all our billionaires lost their billions. That would be the best hope for our democracy.

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

Carol Burris: The Broken Promises and Scams of the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2017 //
15

Carol Burris notes in this article that the NAACP passed a resolution last year demanding a moratorium on new charters until charters cleaned up their actioms and policies.

Instead of doing some self-examination and trying to right what was wrong, the charter apologists attacked the NAACP.

Burris reviews some of the notable charter scams and corruption in the past year or so.

Back in the 1990s, when I was a Charter fan, I believed that charters would cost less money (no bureaucracy), but now they demand the same funding as public schools. The slogan of the day was that charters would get autonomy in exchange for accountability.

Now we know, 25 years later, that charters want autonomy with no accountability.

That’s a bad deal for students, teachers, and taxpayers. It does not produce better education. It robs public schools of resources. We are re-creating a dual school system. This is not Reform. It is a massive scam.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Discipline and Suspensions, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Segregation

Newly Elected LAUSD Member Says He is not Going to Promote Charter Expansion

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2017 //
27

Surely to the surprise of the California Charter School Association, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings and the other billionaires who funded his election campaign, Nick Melvoin told EdSource in California that his election was not about expanding the number of charter schools.

No, what he is about is seeing public schools replicate the successes of charter schools. Melvoin was a TFA teacher for two years, so he knows what a successful school should be doing. For some reason, charter schools have discovered the secrets of success but public schools have not.

I don’t think districts like LAUSD have learned lessons from the charter movement the way that it was initially intended. I’ll ask charter principals, “Has the district come and asked what’s working and how to replicate it?” They laugh, as if that’s a crazy question, given the political climate. I’d like to see an increase in schools that are serving kids. I’m much less interested in whether that is a district school or a charter or a magnet school. I’d like to see us cross-pollinate, elevate the work of educators and have LAUSD lead the nation in terms of how to navigate this new public school ecosystem.

At no point in the interview does he suggest that charters can learn from successful public schools.

Nor does he acknowledge the number of charter operators who have been caught and prosecuted for theft, or the common practice of pushing out or excluding students with disabilities.

Maybe that’s the lesson the public schools can learn. Don’t accept kids who might cause your school scores to drop.

But what will Melvoin propose to do for the kids that no one wants?

He has hired Sarah Angel to be his chief of staff. Angel currently works for the California Charter Schools Association. But don’t interpret this as a signal that he is the puppet of the charter industry. We will judge him by deeds, not words.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization
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