Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Kipp Dawson: Our Fight for Public Schools is a Fight for Social Justice

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2017 //
8

In my travels these past few years, one of the most remarkable people I met was Kipp Dawson in Pittsburgh. She is a middle school teacher who is dedicated to her work and her students. She is a warrior for social and economic justice. Before she became a teacher, she spent ten years as a coal miner. I knew about her before I met her and expected to meet an Amazon. But Kipp is diminutive in size with a mighty heart. If I have not already named her to the honor roll of champions, I add her now for her tenacity in fighting for children and public schools.

She wrote:

“The article which follows is a vicious attack on public schools in Pittsburgh, and thus, by extension, on our public schools as a whole. It is on the front page of the Forum section of today’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I post it as a call to action to all of those who are fighting to save and improve our public schools, and against those who are working double-time to shut us down.

“Here is the response I just posted on the Post-Gazette page:

“No.

“Ms. Amankulor makes it personal, and I respond, at first, in kind.

“Like her, my family is biracial (my white mom married my black dad in 1952). Like her, I am from Northern California, via NYC, to Pittsburgh, though I have been here since 1977. LIke her, my grandmother was an Eastern European Jew who escaped the Holocaust by finding refuge, and becoming a social justice fighter, here in the U.S. (though she soon lost her husband to murder at the hands of xenophobic anti-Semites in Erie in 1922 — motivated much like the anti-immigrants of today). Like her, my passion is for our children. BUT.

“Unlike Ms. Amankulor, I have allied myself with those children — all of them — and WITH our public schools, even as Ms. Amankulor and her organization have been part of the billionaire-backed forces who first undermined our schools via hostile “reforms,” then stood back, looked at the problems they helped to create, pointed fingers at our public schools, and called them “failing,” even as their “solutions” are to do even more to destroy one of our most basic democratic institutions.

“The “reforms” included closing schools, overcrowding and under-resourcing those that remained, sending Gates-funded “evaluators” to terrorize teachers and drive out many who would not be thusly debased, replace trained teachers with untrained TFA-style passing-through young people (some of whom were highly motivated and so badly mistrained), destroy elected school boards and replace them (not here; not yet) with appointed anti-public-school politicians (Philadelphia and Chicago being among the most outstanding), and then use them to shut us — public education — down, by any means necessary.

“Please, everyone who cares, read up on PennCAN. Please read Diane Ravitch’s prescient book, “Reign of Error,” which predicted this demise.

“Then join us to do the hard but necessary work to make our PUBLIC schools the schools all of our children deserve. ALL of our children.”

Kipp Dawson

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2017/06/11/Pittsburgh-Public-Schools-are-still-flunking-after-all-these-years/stories/201706110130

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

Bad News from Dallas: Businessman and Corporate Reformer Wins RunOff Election for School Boar

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2017 //
7

Dustin Marshall, the businessman who sends his own children to private school, was re-elected to the Dallas school board in a run-off election against parent Lori Kirkpatrick.

The result was a significant reversal from May’s three-way race between Marshall, Kirkpatrick and Richard Young. Kirkpatrick almost won the seat outright, beating Marshall by 291 votes, but falling 23 votes shy of the required 50 percent threshold.

Kirkpatrick’s election would have flipped the board. Marshall’s election keeps it where it has been, in the status quo grip of fake reformers.

It always comes down to turnout.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Dallas, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

California: Audit Says Charter School Founder Misappropriated Millions of Dollars

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2017 //
16

California must be so flush with cash that it simply doesn’t care how many millions are lost to charter school scams.

In California, accountability ranges between lax to non-existent, and charter leaders use public money with no oversight. Sometimes they are honest; sometimes they are not. Does it matter? Apparently the public doesn’t mind squandering its tax dollars to help charter owners get rich.

Here is the latest:

“LIVERMORE — An audit released Thursday suggests Livermore’s two charter schools misappropriated public funds, including a tax-except bond totaling $67 million, and mainly pointed the finger at former CEO Bill Batchelor.

“The audit was ordered by the Alameda County Office of Education in November and conducted by the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

“Analysis shows that the Tri-Valley Learning Corporation, which oversees the charter schools: Failed to disclose numerous conflict-of-interest relationships; diverted, commingled and/or misappropriated public funds, including tax-exempt public bonds totaling over $67 million with various private entities; and contributed to an environment of significantly deficient internal controls, according to a county statement.

“The lack of internal controls coupled with financing schemes designed to divert millions of dollars by Batchelor and others through relationships fostered between board members, close associates and other professionals with his nonprofit public and private companies created an environment that made it possible for the essential elements of fraud to occur,” the report states.

“The audit states that internal controls were “so weak” that Batchelor was able to divert $2.7 million of public charter school funds without any supporting documents, covering a span of five years.

“Nathan Ballard, Batchelor’s spokesman, maintained Batchelor’s innocence.

“Mr. Batchelor is innocent of any wrongdoing, and this audit doesn’t change that fact. He is just seeing the audit for the first time, but one thing is clear: Its conclusions are vague and are based a series of inaccurate assumptions,” Ballard said.

“The audit revealed that Batchelor controlled to some degree eight different entities at once during the time that a 2015 bond was issued for TVLC.

“TVLC and California Preparatory Academy went before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to seek approval for a $30 million municipal bond to finance the purchase of a new high school building at 3090 Independence Drive in May 2015.

“The bond was approved and the Livermore Valley Charter Prep high school and the private school now share the same space.

“At the time of the bond, Batchelor, was the manager of Goldstone United Investments — the seller of the buildings and owner of the land purchased with public bonds. Batchelor was also the owner of California Preparatory Academy and San Francisco Bay Preparatory Academy, which were the co-tenants to the property at 3090 Independence Drive in Livermore.

“FCMAT points out conflicts of interests that Batchelor did not report. The paperworks reveals “a significant lack of disclosure of numerous entities in which Batchelor represented both sides of contracts and lease agreements, which benefited him personally.”

Here is a link to the audit.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization

Indiana Okays Failing Private Schools to Receive Voucher Students

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2017 //
18

The fraud of school choice continues.

“The Indiana State Board of Education approved four private schools with a history of low performance and academic failure to accept publicly funded vouchers to cover tuition for incoming students during a meeting Wednesday.

“The schools had lost their ability to enroll new students in the Choice Scholarship Program because they had been rated a D or F on the state’s accountability system for at least two consecutive years.

“A law recently signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb allows private schools in this situation to seek a one-year waiver from the standard rules that require years of academic improvements to again become eligible for vouchers.”

The members who voted for the approval said that if parents chose the schools, that was good enough for them.

The board voted 6-2 for each of the four schools’ requests – three from Indianapolis and one from Fort Wayne.

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

Arkansas: State Board Renews Failing Charter School But Won’t Restore Local Control to Little Rock Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2017 //
9

This is a shocking story, by Max Brantley, one of the leading journalists in Arkansas and an outspoken critic of the Waltons, who use their billions to dominate the state and the University of Arkansas.

Get this: the State Board of Education just renewed a charter school that has failed to meet standards for nine years in a row. But the state board refuses to relinquish its takeover of the Little Rock School District, which lost control because only six of its 48 schools were not meeting standards.

You have to read the whole thing to see the powerful tentacles of the Walton Family at work.

“Faced with a solid recommendation by a panel of state employees to revoke the charter of Covenant Keepers charter school in Southwest Little Rock, the state Board of Education voted again last week to forgive the school’s poor academic and financial record.

“Again, the state Board of Education accepted excuses it won’t tolerate from the Little Rock School District.

“The board took over the Little Rock School District two years ago and won’t let go, though 45 of its 48 schools exceed the performance of Covenant Keepers and the others are easily in its league academically.

“Covenant Keepers, 9 years old this August, has NEVER met proficiency standards. The grade 6-8 school showed about 28 percent of its students meeting the standard in reading and 20 percent in math in the most recent tests. It’s also been in a persistent financial mess.

“The school had a huge negative fund balance, in part because it was in arrears to the state for taking money in excess of its 160-student enrollment. (You wouldn’t think counting to 160 is high-order math.) Proper tax forms weren’t in evidence for employees and contractors. It failed to provide requested documentation for credit card charges, including out-of-state trips. Its director, Valerie Tatum, is paid a whopping $135,000, or better than $800 per student to run a 160-student school. No comparable school leader in Arkansas comes close.

“What’s the rub? Covenant Keepers has powerful friends. The Walton Family Foundation provided cash infusion to fix its red-ink-bathed books. The money was passed through an opaque, unaccountable charter management corporation. Jess Askew, a tall-tower Little Rock lawyer who lawyers for Walton-supported school “choice” initiatives, pled the case for Covenant Keepers. The head of the Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas — a charter school-promoting operation that owes its existence and pay subsidies to the Waltons — testified that Covenant Keepers was, well, doing a bit better and used the Little Rock School District as a whipping boy. She said Covenant Keepers in the most recent year of testing did as well as some nearby Little Rock district schools. Valerie Tatum said she’s getting valuable support from the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, another charter school advocate underwritten by, yes, the Walton Family Foundation.”

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Karen Wolfe: Why the Billionaire Boys Club Won the Los Angeles Election

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2017 //
16

Karen Wolfe is a parent activist and blogger in Los Angeles. She interviewed several of the leading figures in the recent school board elections and shares her thoughts about why the board president Steve Zimmer lost and his billionaire-backed challenger Nick Melvoin won. [Sorry for original error; Freudian slip.]

Back in the distant past, a person could raise $30-50,000 and run for school board. This race cost millions of dollars. The billionaires spent four times as much money as the supporters of Zimmer. Zimmer was backed by UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles), Melvoin was backed by billionaires like Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Alice Walton, Reed Hastings, and others with no connection to the schools other than their desire to put one of their own in control. It was the most expensive school board race in history (as the referendum last fall about the expansion of charter schools was the most expensive ballot question about schools in history–the billionaires hand over a million or two without thinking twice, when charters are involved.)

Melvoin had another advantage besides copious cash for TV and print advertising. He was able to spend full-time campaigning every day for the last 18 months, while Zimmer had a day job.

Melvoin and his campaign also lied shamelessly. They blamed Zimmer for John Deasy’s $1 billion iPad scandal. Deasy is now working for Eli Broad. Now, that’s chutzpah. Or a bald-faced lie.

Karen Wolfe is not as impressed by the power of the money and lies as I am. I think that Melvoin is a puppet of Broad, and his campaign excelled at mud-slinging and succeeded in depressing the vote.

My take: Steve Zimmer, an honorable and decent man, failed to present a sharp alternative to Melvoin. He was always on the defensive. He supported charter schools, but thought they should be held accountable. He did not make a compelling case for the importance of public education and the dangers of privatization. He had one foot in each camp. That’s not good enough. I wish he had come out against charter schools for draining hundreds of millions from the district and luring away the easiest to educate students. I wish he had called them parasites.

Now the new board president is likely to be run by Ref Rodriguez, who runs a charter chain that was recently under investigation. He has contracts with the board. He shouldn’t even be on the board. Doesn’t California have conflict of interest laws? Guess not.

What is the future of public education in Los Angeles? Ask Eli Broad. He considers privately managed and unaccountable charter schools to be “public schools.” There will be many more of them in the near future. That’s why the billionaires invested.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles, Privatization

California Legislator: For-Profit Charters Are Ripping Off Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2017 //
11

Kevin McCarthy, State Assemblyman from Sacramento, published a terrific article in the Sacramento Bee with Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, explaining what a rip-off for-profit charters are.

The last time the Legislature tried to prohibit for-profit charters, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed it. Let’s hope that as more legislators understand the frauds in both for-profit and non-profit charters, the Legislature will bar for-profits and regulate non-profits.

They write:

“Across California and the country, corporations are expanding their ownership and operation of charter schools and their profits, subsidized by taxpayers.

“In California, 34 charter schools operated by five for-profit education management organizations enroll about 25,000 students. These for-profit charter schools siphon hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money away from students to generate massive corporate profits, and in many cases provide an inferior education.

“They exploit loopholes in California’s charter school law allowing them to cheat our students and reap huge profits at taxpayer expense.

“We have a long way to go before California’s public education system is adequately funded and cannot afford to line shareholder pockets with scarce state revenues.

“The Legislature has the opportunity to fix this flaw in state law. Assembly Bill 406, authored by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, would prohibit for-profit corporations from operating public charter schools. The bill was approved by the Assembly on Wednesday and now heads to the state Senate.

“It is estimated that California taxpayers provide these companies with more than $225 million a year with little public transparency or accountability.

“K12 Inc., the state’s largest for-profit education management organization, received $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years. In 2016, it reported revenue of $872 million, including $89 million paid to its Wall Street investors.

“It pays millions to top executives while its average teacher salary is $36,000, thanks to heavy recruitment among young, inexperienced teachers, plus burnout and turnover.

“K12 Inc. operates 16 schools in California with about 13,000 students. The average graduation rate of its charter schools is 40 percent, while the statewide rate is 83 percent.

“Like many of these for-profit companies, K12 also overstates student performance and attendance data. Students who logged onto their computers for one minute per day were reportedly counted as full-time students, giving the corporation full average daily attendance funding from the state.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article154084079.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization

An Open Letter to the Education Minister of Liberia

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
8

Education International, which represents teachers unions around the world, issued a bulletin about disturbing developments in Liberia, which threaten freedom of research about the performance of corporate outsourced schools.

EI wrote in a letter I received:

“As you would be aware, just over 12 months ago, in an unprecedented move, the Government of Liberia announced its intention to out-source its entire primary and pre-primary school system to Bridge International Academies in 5 tranches.

“As a result of considerable opposition to the announcement, the Government announced a one year pilot program called Partnership Schools Liberia (PSL) involving 8 actors operating 93 schools.

“At the time of the announcement, the Government gave a number of assurances, including that the pilot would be subject to a rigorous evaluation.

“Approximately 6 weeks ago, less than 6 months into the “trial”, the Minister announced that he was preparing to announce a scale-up of the PSL without waiting for the outcome of the evaluation.

“On 18 May, in a further disturbing move, the Minister blocked an independent research team from the University of Wisconsin from conducting qualitative research into the PSL by denying them access to schools.”

Here is the letter:

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE WERNER, MINISTER OF EDUCATION, LIBERIA

We are writing to express deep concern about both your reluctance to permit independent research of the Partnership Schools for Liberia pilot programme and your rush to expand the pilot before evidence is available.

Education International, with support from ActionAid, commissioned an independent research team from the University of Wisconsin to conduct qualitative research which was designed to complement the Randomised Control Trial evaluation that is already underway in Liberia with the Center for Global Development (CGD) in partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). We understand that, having indicated your support for this complementary research, you withdrew that support at the last moment (just as the researchers were due to fly to Liberia) and will not now permit the researchers to access the pilot schools.

The Partnership Schools for Liberia pilot has a very high profile internationally and warrants detailed study. We understand that a lot has been invested in the RCT evaluation, but no single evaluation, however well-designed, will ever provide a comprehensive picture of a pilot programme as complex as the one you have initiated. By blocking independent research you are depriving the academic and policy community important opportunities to fully understand this pilot.

It is our view that permitting and facilitating independent academic inquiry is a precondition for transparency and good governance, particularly when you are seeking to challenge established practices and norms.

You will be aware of the widespread concerns about how Bridge International Academies blocked independent research in Uganda and have failed to allow external evaluation of their schools whilst making bold claims for their success based on their own internal data. This is very poor practice and we would be very concerned if the Ministry of Education in Liberia played a role in extending such practices.

Our second major area of concern relates to your plans to scale up the initial pilot programme even before findings from the evaluation and research come through. You have previously gone on record stressing that any scaling up would be subject to the findings from the initial pilot programme (over three years) but from the latest reports it seems you are now planning a significant expansion from September 2017, without any of those findings being ready. This flies in the face of evidence-based policy making and suggests that you are only paying lip-service to the importance of research and evaluation. Such a move makes the pilot programme appear to be one driven largely by ideology. Indeed it undermines the RCT evaluation as well as the value of any complementary research.

We urge you to move away from this present damaging path, to reassert the importance of using evidence to inform your policy choices and to commit publically to supporting and facilitating independent research at the start of the new school year in September.

Yours sincerely

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Corporate Reformers, International, Privatization

Georgia Reviews Low-Performing Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
5

Charter schools were supposed to “save poor children from low-performing public schools.”

But some of them are low-performing schools, worse than the public schools the children leave.

The State Charter School Conmission is meeting with some of the lowest performing schools to find out why they are getting such poor results.

The worst of them all is Connections Academy, the online school owned by Pearson. It dropped from a D to an F.

How do you save poor kids when they are trapped in failing charter schools and their old public schools are closed?

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

Alan Singer: Pearson and the Neo-Liberal Global Assault on Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
4

Alan Singer writes here about the global ambitions and activities of Pearson, the giant British corporation that seeks to dominate education.

He writes:

“Powerful forces are at work shaping global education in both the North Atlantic core capitalist nations and regions historically referred to as the Third World. Neoliberal business philosophies and practices promoted by corporations and their partner foundations, supported by international organizations, financiers, and bankers, and welcomed, or at least tolerated by compliant governments, are trying to transform education from a government responsibility and social right into investment opportunities. They defend their actions as reforms designed to increase educational equity and achieve higher standards; where possible they seek out local community support. But the underlying motivation behind corporate educational reform is extending the reach of free market globalization and business profits.

“An early twentieth century political cartoon from Puck magazine portrayed the Standard Oil Company as a giant octopus with tentacles encircling and corrupting national and state governments. The image can easily be applied to the British-based publishing company Pearson Education, a leader in the neo-liberal privatization movement. Pearson has tentacles all over the world shaping and corrupting education in efforts, not always successful, to enhance its profitability. Its corporate slogan is “Pearson: Always Learning,” however critics rewrite it as “Pearson: Always Earning.”

“Pearson’s business strategy is to turn education from a social good and essential public service into a marketable for-profit commodity.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, International, Pearson, Privatization, Testing
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