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Tracy Bartley, An L.A. Parent, Writes a Letter to Eli Broad

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2017 //
18

Billionaire Eli Broad decided long ago that one of his missions in life would be to privatize public schools, even though he and his wife are graduates of Michigan public schools. He has never explained his passion to stamp out the institution that educated him. He has spent years funding organizations committed to diverting public dollars to private hands. I once was invited to meet him in his glamorous penthouse apartment in New York City, and he explained that he didn’t know anything about education, but he knew management. He believes that non-educators should run education, especially if they surround themselves with people who have degrees in business and business experience. When I was on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, he funded a “manifesto” declaring that principals should be managers, not educators. He started a Superintendents Academy to train urban superintendents in his philosophy. A startling number of his graduates have failed or been driven out by the local community. He has learned nothing from the failure of his business ideology in education. But children are not widgets. He doesn’t understand that.

This is the man behind the candidacy of Nick Melvoin for the Los Angeles school board, the man who wants to replace Steve Zimmer and has unleashed a barrage of negative ads.

A parent, Tracy Bartley, received a letter from Broad that was part of a mass mailing that his organization sent to everyone in Steve Zimmer’s district. Tracy is a parent activist who has spent years developing school gardens. She is for real. Unlike Eli Broad, she is committed to improving the Los Angeles public schools, not closing or privatizing them.unlike Eli Broad, her children are students in the public schools he wants to control and privatize.

Tracy wrote:

Eli Broad
2121 Avenue of the Stars
L.A., CA 90067

Dear Eli,

Enough IS enough.

Since you last wrote to me encouraging me to vote for Nick Melvoin for LAUSD school board, I have doubled down on my own research into the claims you’ve made regarding Steve Zimmer and his opponent.

– While Nick Melvoin has earned endorsements of a FORMER Senator, FORMER Secretary of Education, and two (!) FORMER Mayors of Los Angeles, Steve Zimmer has been endorsed by our CURRENT Mayor Eric Garcetti, a strong and smart CURRENT Congresswoman Maxine Waters, CURRENT Secretary of Instruction for the State of California Tom Torlakson, and numerous others including activist Dolores Huerta, and public education policy activists Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch. (Full list here: http://stevezimmerforschoolboard.com/endorsements/) These are the leaders taking us forward in Los Angeles, in California, and across the country, and I am impressed that they want Steve Zimmer fighting alongside them.

– Studying Nick Melvoin’s LinkedIn profile, it appears that he “worked in the Obama Administration” as a White House intern for four months as well as a turn as a clerk at the ACLU for four months. Contrast this with Zimmer, who spent 17 years at LAUSD schools and the last eight working as a tireless advocate for our kids as our school board member, fighting for them in Sacramento and Washington.

– I wouldn’t expect anything less from Nick than having a “genuine and selfless commitment to children, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, special needs or socio-economic class.” This is L.A. after all! (I love my city!) And I am sure you would agree Steve Zimmer has the same commitment. Along with the endorsement of the Stonewall Democratic Club, Planned Parenthood, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights… Steve Zimmer has a proven track record on this front.

– I struggle with the “Nick is a teacher” bit I’m afraid. I don’t feel 2 years a teacher makes. My mom was a teacher. I should say IS – because I think it is a calling rather than a profession 95% of the time. Steve Zimmer IS a teacher. I’ve witnessed his past students interacting with him at events. I’ve seen how he greets students at our community schools. It is very much who he is. I don’t get that from Mr. Melvoin. If he was a teacher, he’d be a teacher. (Yes – there is the adjunct position at LMU – though from my research it appears this is not a current gig, and was a special situation through TFA, am I right?)

So, you tell me we “need a school board member who will advocate for our children. who will strengthen our public schools ,and who will work tirelessly on behalf of families to make sure every child receives a world-class education.” I’ve found that. It is Steve Zimmer. You say he is supported by “special interests and bureaucracy” but I see it as 35,000 teachers alongside labor groups that work to ensure our schools are safe, clean, healthy environments for our kids to learn in. I see people doing much with little funding. I see communities forming around neighborhood schools. I see my LAUSD family. On the other side, I see a half dozen or so billionaires with a specific privatization agenda backing the special interests behind Nick Melvoin. I’m not ok with that.

As for a candidate who will work against the new administration that “preys on our fears… and engages in reckless information…” I will not “allow the election of our school board – the stewards of our children’s future – to be determined by damaging falsehoods.” I will continue to dig, and I fear learn more about the incentive for you, and the others in the privatization movement backing Mr. Melvoin. I’ve already learned of Doris Fisher’s (The Gap) support of Tea Party and Conservative candidates as well as her funding the opposition to Prop 30 (!), and Alice Walton’s (Walmart) donations to the privatization efforts of Betsy DeVos and the PAC supporting the election of Donald Trump. With you, and others, they are both supporters of Nick Melvoin’s campaign via the CCSA / Parent Teacher Alliance.

So, today, my husband and I will sign on again to volunteer for Steve Zimmer’s campaign. We will walk our community. We will call our neighbors. We will encourage them to cast their ballot for the best candidate for all LAUSD kids – for all LAUSD families.

Steve Zimmer for School Board 2017

Thank you,
Tracy
Proud LAUSD Mom

p.s. Looks like you spent $131,708.60 on printing and postage for your letters! What this could’ve done for a neighborhood school orchestra, or a school garden, community school park, or to fund an outdoor education experience! Oh well.

It’s your money.

It’s our kids.

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

Hawaii: Why Import Corporate Reformers from the Mainland?

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2017 //
15

Andy Jones’s a high school teacher in Hawaii. He writes here with profound dismay about the search for a new superintendent for the schools of Hawaii.

He was not sorry to see the current superintendent go. She was an avid supporter of test-based accountability and data-data-data.

“This week we learned that the new superintendent will likely be one of two products of the current educational Big Box: a nationwide collection of individuals with graduate degrees from institutions (many of them recent startups) that support a transformation of public education according to post-traditional business models – what critics refer to as the “corporate educational reform movement.

“This model – one to which Matayoshi adhered and which was largely responsible for facilitating the national failure that was No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – is founded on the idea that, where public education is “broken,” it can be “fixed” through methods that emphasize top-down standardization and systemic compliance.

“That’s precisely the model the state is doing its best to move away from – a desire encapsulated in the Blueprint for Public Education drafted by Governor Ige’s ESSA Task Force, as well as in the Hawaii State Teacher Association’s Schools Our Keiki Deserve report.

“A quick Google search on the proposed candidates leaves little room for optimism that either candidate is prepared or likely to jump start Hawaii schools out of their post-NCLB limbo and into the brighter, more wholesome future envisioned by HSTA and the Governor’s Task Force.”

Jones finds reasons to avoid both candidates when he googles. Both have red flags in their history.

He adds:

“The local educational community has requested candidates with deep teaching experience, extensive personal knowledge of Hawaii and its public school system, a collaborative mindset, and a commitment to teacher empowerment. The board’s selections demonstrate failure to acknowledge the input they solicited on their own survey.

“It may seem hyperbolic to ask for some sort of an explicit mandate for board members to do what is right. But perhaps because board members are appointed rather than elected, they don’t appear to be particularly concerned about holding themselves accountable to community opinion.

“Through the various missteps reported in the media over the past months, it has become clear that an appointed Board is not serving the interests of Hawaii schools and the children they serve.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hawaii, Testing

Bernie Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
11

The critical runoff election for school board in Los Angeles is Tuesday May 16.

There are two crucial races. One is Steve Zimmer Vs. Nick Melvoin. Melvoin has received millions from leaders of the charter industry, such as Eli Broad, Alice Walton, Michael Bloomberg, and Reed Hastings. He is the beneficiary of millions from people who do not live in Los Angeles.

The other is Imelda Padilla vs. Kelly Fitzpatrick Nonez. Nonez is a charter school teacher.

Steve Zimmer has been endorsed by Eric Garcetti, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and other current city officials.

He has also received the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders.

If you live in one of their districts in Los Angeles, please vote on Tuesday. The future of public education in Los Angeles depends on your vote.

Vote for Steve Zimmer.

Vote for Imelda Padilla.

Save public education!

CORRECTEDBernieFB050517-(1) (1)

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

Will the Trump-DeVos Alliance Win Control of Los Angeles Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
13

“In the Public Interest,” an organization that keeps track of privatization of the public sector, points out that Trump and DeVos have a lot riding on the outcome of the school board election in Los Angeles on May 16.

Their allies have invested millions of dollars in gaining control of the school board so they can turn students and schools over to private hands.

If they can defeat Steve Zimmer and Irma Padilla in run-offs, they will be able to divert public funding to charter entrepreneurs and corporate charter chains. They will squash democratic control of public schools. They will send tax dollars to corporate entities that are neither accountable nor transparent. They will widen the reach of an unregulated industry that has been marred by scandal, theft, fraud, misappropriation of funds, and self-dealing.

Citizens of Los Angeles. Stand up for democracy and public education! Vote for Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla!

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

Peter Dreier: Who Are the Corporate Plutocrats Trying to Defeat Steve Zimmer in Los Angeles?

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
1

Peter Dreier, professor of political science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, warns that a cabal of billionaires are trying to defeat Steve Zimmer in order to take control of the public schools and privatize them. The vote on May 16 is in the national spotlight.

Can a handful of billionaires buy control of the nation’s second largest school district?

Before naming names, Dreier writes:

Some of America’s most powerful corporate plutocrats want to take over the Los Angeles school system but Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and feisty school board member, is in their way. So they’ve hired Nick Melvoin to get rid of him. No, he’s not a hired assassin like the kind on “The Sopranos.” He’s a lawyer who the billionaires picked to defeat Zimmer.

The so-called “Independent” campaign for Melvoin — funded by big oil, big tobacco, Walmart, Enron, and other out-of-town corporations and billionaires — has included astonishingly ugly, deceptive, and false attack ads against Zimmer.

This morning (Friday) the Los Angeles Times reported that “Outside spending for Melvoin (and against Zimmer) has surpassed $4.65 million.” Why? Because he doesn’t agree with the corporatization of our public schools. Some of their donations have gone directly to Melvoin’s campaign, but much of it has been funneled through a corporate front group called the California Charter School Association.

To try to hoodwink voters, the billionaires invented another front group with the same initials as the well-respected Parent Teacher Association, but they are very different organizations. They called it the “Parent Teacher Alliance.” Pretty clever, huh? But this is not the real PTA, which does not get involved with elections. In fact, the real PTA has demanded that this special interest PAC change their name and called the billionaires’ campaign Zimmer “misleading,” “deceptive practices,” and “false advertising.”

These out-of-town billionaire-funded groups can pay for everything from phone-banks, to mailers, to television ads. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez described the billionaires’ campaign to defeat Zimmer, which includes sending mails filled with outrageous lies about Zimmer, as “gutter politics.”

As a result, the race for the District 4 seat — which stretches from the Westside to the West San Fernando Valley — is ground zero in the battle over the corporate take-over of public education. The outcome of next Tuesday’s (May 16) election has national implications in terms of the billionaires’ battle to reconstruct public education in the corporate mold.

The contest between Melvoin and Zimmer is simple. Who should run our schools? Who knows what’s best for students? Out-of-town billionaires or parents, teachers, and community residents?

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

Good News: Vergara-Copycat Lawsuit Tossed Out by Judge in New Jersey

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
11

A judge in New Jersey threw out a lawsuit intended to remove teachers’ seniority rights. This is the third loss for the corporate reformer groups that have tried to use the courts to strip away teachers’ job security. The “reformers” blame teachers and unions for low test scores while ignoring overwhelming evidence that poverty is the proximate cause of low scores.

The first was the Vergara lawsuit in California, where a group called “Students Matter,” founded by a Silicon Valley billionaire, claimed that teacher tenure (due process of law) denied poor children equal opportunity. The plaintiffs won in the lowest court. They lost on appeal. And they lost again when they appealed to the states’ highest court.

A group found by former TV personality Campbell Brown called the Partnership for Educational Justice filed copycat suits in other states. One was tossed by a lower court.

Earlier this month, a judge in New Jersey dismissed a legal challenge to teacher seniority rules.

Rachel Cohen of The American Prospect reports on the corporate reformers’ latest defeat in court:

“Another legal effort to weaken teacher job protections through the courts has been dismissed, this time in the Garden State. On Wednesday afternoon, a New Jersey Superior Court judge tossed the latest case, ruling that the plaintiffs—six parents from Newark Public Schools—failed to prove that seniority-based layoffs harmed their students.

“Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ), a national education reform group that aims to challenge teacher job protections across the country, funded the New Jersey lawsuit. Originally filed in November, the case marked the third time PEJ has gone after tenure provisions. Their first case filed in New York in 2014, is currently before the state Supreme Court. In October, a Minnesota district judge dismissed PEJ’s second suit, filed there in 2016. That case has since been appealed.”

Campbell Brown’s news site, The 74, reported the outcome of the case.

“A New Jersey judge swiftly dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that challenged state rules requiring school districts to base teacher layoffs on seniority regardless of performance in the classroom.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson told a Trenton courtroom that the plaintiffs had failed to establish how seniority-based layoff rules known as “last in, first out” were harming their children.

“I don’t see any link other than speculation and conjecture between the LIFO statute and the denial of a thorough and efficient education to these 12 children,” Jacobson said.

“The lawsuit, HG v. Harrington, was filed in November on behalf of a dozen Newark students, claiming that “last in, first out” mandates governing teacher layoffs violate their right to a “thorough and efficient” and “equal” education system under the state Constitution.

“The complaint was sponsored by The Partnership for Educational Justice, a national education reform nonprofit founded by 74 co-founder Campbell Brown. Named defendants include the New Jersey State Board of Education and Newark Public School District.

“The American Federation of Teachers and the New Jersey Education Association, considered “intervening” defendants in the case, filed the motion to dismiss.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Newark, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Weaponized Philanthropy: A Report on the Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
16

What do you know about the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation? Likely, not much. While Gates, Broad, and Walton go public with their eagerness to privatize public schools, Bradley has the same goals but stays under the media radar.

The Center for Media and Democracy now reveals what everyone needs to know about the Bradley Foundation.

It has more assets than the Koch family foundations. It was the driving force behind the voucher movement in Wisconsin. It funds anti-union organizations. For a 501(c)3 charity, the Bradley Foundation is deeply involved in partisan activities.

The report says (the links are on the site):

“Documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) expose a national effort funded by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation to assess and expand right-wing “infrastructure” to influence policies and politicians in statehouses nationwide.

“The documents were made public in October 2016 on two Twitter accounts that cyber security analysts have linked to one of the Russian hackers alleged to have breached the Democratic National Committee. The Bradley Foundation confirmed in a statement that the hack had taken place and was reported to the FBI. More information about how the Bradley files became public is available here.

“The documents open a window to the behind-the-scenes workings of one of America’s largest right-wing foundations. With $835 million in assets as of June 2016, the Bradley Foundation is as large as the three Koch family foundations combined, yet receives much less attention as a significant funder of the right.

“CMD has examined thousands of these documents, including Bradley board documents between 2013-2016. The documents indicate that Bradley has a new stream of funding to build this “conservative infrastructure” and is using a metric to assess the strength and depth of that infrastructure in individual states — including “receptive” politicians, right-wing “think tanks,” symbiotic “grassroots” groups, friendly media, litigation centers, and opposition research — to guide Bradley’s strategic funding initiatives.

“Bradley ranks states into four “tiers” of investment opportunities and prioritizes funding the top tier states. A re-creation of Bradley’s master chart listing all U.S. states and scoring their infrastructure needs can be found here and below.

“The documents also reveal that Bradley is bankrolling groups across the nation that are working to defund and dismantle unions. The political nature of this attack is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like the Daily Signal that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle…”

“The documents reveal that a key Bradley partner in this effort is the discredited Berman and Co. public relations firm and the many front groups it has spawned. Berman and Co. is run by Richard Berman, an aggressive propagator of industry spin and disinformation, profiled by “60 Minutes” as a “hired gun” for corporate America. Berman is best known for propping up propagandistic websites and launching public relations and social media campaigns to smear non-profit environmental, worker rights, consumer, and animal welfare organizations. The Center for Media and Democracy has specifically been targeted by Berman over the years.

“Representing clients in the restaurant industry, Berman has long campaigned against any rise in the minimum wage or tipped minimum wage, which has stood at $2.13 for 30 years. He has battled efforts at the state and federal level that make joining a union easier, has attacked organized workers and their leaders, and has been a primary opponent of labor-backed campaigns to raise the minimum wage.

“The documents reveal that Bradley is funding a new Berman project called the “Interstate Policy Alliance” to target its strategic infrastructure investments, as a “discrete channel” for cookie-cutter reports for member groups to publish to “maximize credibility,” and to train Bradley-funded groups in “crisis communication” and opposition research. Bradley cites the case of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was “caught flatfooted,” the documents say, after the Center for Media and Democracy published ALEC’s secret library of “model bills” — voted on behind closed doors with corporate lobbyists — and launched ALECexposed.org in 2011.

“The documents show that Bradley has funded ALEC to aid with “proactive reputation management,” and the “larger plan” includes “aggressive opposition research.” Bradley wants Berman to develop an “off-the-shelf public-relations strategy” for “conservative outfits caught in the media crosshairs.” The key to success, the documents say, is “well sourced opposition research already prepared and ready to deploy” against opponents (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 8/21/12).

“Berman engages in aggressive PR campaigns attacking teachers unions, a significant opponent of Bradley’s long-term agenda to advance taxpayer vouchers for private and religious schools, while other Bradley-funded institutions are funded to “defund teachers unions and achieve real education reform” (Barder Fund, 8/18/15). Bradley is so anxious to silence the organized voice of public school teachers it has pumped $1.77 million into a substitute, the Association of American Educators Foundation. “The NEA and AFT have already been substantially weakened by Wisconsin Act 10. AAE thinks it is well-positioned to help further weaken the unions and their political goals,” say the documents (AAEF, Grant Proposal Record, 8/19/2014).

“While I have not yet seen all of the documents, this appears to be more evidence that a few powerful private foundations are weaponizing philanthropy for their own private political purposes. The government gives charitable foundations tax breaks in exchange for furthering the public good. Instead, it sounds as if the Bradley Foundation has been furthering the good of its own political agenda. It really begs some serious legal questions,” said author Jane Mayer.”

Berman has run anti-teachers union campaigns in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere. His “Union Facts” website regularly attacks unions.

Why does this highly partisan Foundation qualify for tax-exempt status?

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

California State Board Votes to Close Two Charter Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
76

At a time when Los Angeles is about to choose between a candidate who favors unlimited charter expansion (Nick Melvoin) and an incumbent who wants some accountability for charters, the state board just denied renewal to two L.A. charter schools.

“California’s State Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to shutter two Los Angeles charter schools run by a nonprofit that is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education and the inspector general for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“Some parents and teachers at the schools cried through their testimony at an emotional hearing, which ended with the board declining to renew the charter petitions for the Celerity Dyad Charter School in South Los Angeles and the Celerity Troika Charter School in Eagle Rock. Explaining their vote, board members said they had lost confidence in the Celerity Educational Group, the organization that manages the schools, and expressed growing concerns about its governance structure and finances, as well as the potential for conflicts of interest.

“This seems to be a very troubling failure on the part of the adults who manage these organizations, rather than on the adults in the classrooms,” said board member Ilene Straus.

“The board’s vote comes at a time when charter school advocates are determined to increase the number of such schools in L.A., and it highlights the growing difficulty of regulating them. The state’s teachers union, which has fought against the growth in charter schools, has argued that all control over which charter schools are approved or rejected should rest with local school districts, rather than county or state boards.”

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

Los Angeles: The Scurrilous Smear Campaign Against Steve Zimmer

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
14

The run-off campaign in District 4 in Los Angeles for School Board has turned into a national issue. The race between Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles school board, and his challenger, Nick Melvoin, has become an epic struggle between supporters of public schools and supporters of privatization.

Zimmer entered teaching through Teach for America but, unlike the typical TFA, he stayed in the classroom in Los Angeles for 17 years.

Blogger “Red Queen in L.A.,” a parent of children in LAUSD, says this is a dirty and disgraceful campaign, and almost all the dirt has come from Nick Melvoin’s camp. Melvoin is running a campaign based on lies, propaganda, and smears. He is smearing not only Zimmer, but public education. He doesn’t deserve to be elected.

Steve Zimmer understands the gravity of his responsibility as president of the school board. He is a man of honesty, candor, and dignity. Melvoin is a puppet of out-of-town billionaires.

She writes:


Negative Ads Undermine Democracy

Mostly, the fourth board district school board race has been one of incessant negativity and lies. Why do we permit this uncivilized behavior? I can tell you in walking my neighborhood I am met with deep weariness, wariness and hostility. This is the legacy of democracy abused. This race has been nothing if not about Big Lies and electoral abuse, and that’s a lesson being bought – and paid for – dearly.

Independent Committee expenditures (IECs, the new normal for “PAC”s) in favor of both candidates have been about the same, averaging $1.8 million dollars at the moment. Each. You read that right. Think of the children. (Think of the printers.)

What is not similar is IC expenditures in opposition to their candidate. Melvoin’s IC devotes half an order of magnitude more in slandering Zimmer than his IC spends to oppose Melvoin.

Thus quite apart from the overall total spent which is obscene, a dramatic distinction between candidates is evident from what’s being spent to smear the other guy. Zimmer’s adherents spent less than one-quarter, 25%, of that average toward denigrating their opposition ($441K). Melvoin’s buddies sunk 140% of that average spent in support of their candidate ($2.4 million) on negative ads.

In fact, the amount Zimmer’s IEC devoted to negative campaigning is so comparatively trivial, the negligible difference between both campaign’s positive expenditures, which is just 6% – this sum ($114K) is 25% of what Zimmer’s camp spent in negativity altogether. His challenger spent 5.5x as much as the incumbent in stuffing our mailboxes with scurrilous lies.

So the current overall total of IECs is $6.4 million, and the electorate has responded with a resounding: “Beat It”.
The blowback to our electoral democracy is fierce. When I try to speak with my own neighbors with whom I have worked side-by-side for over twenty years improving their neighborhood, my neighborhood, everyone’s lives, their doors stay shut and they make clear they are fortressed against hearing anything “political”.

What they have absorbed are buzz words: “bad”, “failing”, “violent”, “drop-out”, “waste”, “fraud”, “scandal” – and on and on and on.

What they have forgotten is that their littlest neighbors, my children, are part of that system being smeared. And I volunteer within that system improving it just like I work to improve our neighborhoods….

That is what is Trumpian about the might of the California Charter Schools Association’s money and their power in this battle for the school board. Intimidation, slander and ultimately electoral paralysis. They strive to overwhelm us with false equivalence such that even the stark consequence of ideological differences so riven as represented by these candidates, is obscured.

Please do not let all this money win your single democratic voice. You must turn out to the polls in order to use it. This is the one and only way to assert Resistance.

VOTE FOR STEVE ZIMMER ON MAY 16:

KEEP OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM PUBLIC

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Lies, Los Angeles, Privatization

Center for Popular Democracy: Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
8

Is it reasonable to give taxpayer dollars to entities that are deregulated and unsupervised? That are unaccountable and non transparent? What do you think will happen when government funds are turned over to organizations that are basically on their own and who make campaign contributions to legislator who prevent accountability for their donors?

The Center for Popular Democracy explains what you expect under these circumstances: waste, fraud, and abuse.

Here is the executive summary:

“In 2014, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) issued a report demonstrating that charter schools in 15 states—about one third of the states with charter schools—had reported over $100 million
in fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement since 1994. In 2015 and 2016, we released additional reports documenting millions of dollars in new alleged and con rmed cases of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in charter schools.

This report offers further evidence that the money we know has been misused is just the tip of the iceberg. With the new alleged and con rmed cases reported here, the nancial impact of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in charter schools has reached over $223 million since our rst report.

“Public funding for charter schools (including local, state, and federal expenditures) has reached over $40 billion annually. Yet despite this tremendous ongoing investment of public dollars in charter schools, all levels of government have failed to implement systems to proactively monitor charter schools for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. While charter schools are subject to signi cant reporting requirements by various public agencies (including federal monitors, chartering entities, county superintendents, and state controllers and auditors), very few of these agencies regularly monitor for fraud.

“The rapid expansion of the charter sector in recent years is a particularly important factor in the fraud epidemic. Local and state entities charged with oversight of charter schools are quickly becoming overwhelmed, yet the federal government continues to pour taxpayer dollars into this expansion project. Over the past 20 years, the federal Department of Education has channeled over $3 billion into states to increase the quantity of charter schools without requiring strong oversight systems. As a result, millions in federal dollars have been lost to fraud, waste, and mismanagement. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in December 2015, required the federal Department of Education to increase the pace of spending signi cantly over the next 10 years, essentially doubling the total federal investment in charter schools in half the time. In 2017, President Trump and his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, have proposed to increase federal funding for charter schools from $333 million in 2017 to $501 million in 2018. This increase comes after a 2016 report from the US Department of Education’s Of ce of Inspector General which found “significant risk” in the US Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) charter school grant program.

“DeVos should be particularly familiar with the dangers of fraud and abuse in charter schools. As a staunch advocate for charter schools in Michigan, DeVos has spent millions in campaign donations supporting state candidates who favored “school choice” and opposing increased oversight and regulation. The result of Michigan’s experiment in charters has been a system of failing schools run by for-pro t companies, and millions of dollars lost in fraud and waste.

“With the perpetuation of inadequate oversight mechanisms and the new in ux of federal funding, the amount of federal, state, and local dollars at risk of being lost to fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter sector is only going to grow.

“The number of instances of serious fraud uncovered by whistleblowers, reporters, and investigations suggests that the fraud problem extends well beyond the confirmed cases we know about. Based on the widely accepted estimate of the percentage of revenue the typical charter organization loses to fraud, the deficiencies in charter oversight throughout the country suggest that federal, state, and local governments stand to lose more than $2.1 billion in 2017, up from $1.8 billion in 2016.8 The vast majority of fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because federal and state governments, as well as local charter authorizers, lack the oversight systems necessary to detect the fraud.

“Setting up systems of oversight that can detect and deter charter school fraud is critical. The money saved by these oversight systems will almost certainly offset the cost of implementation. We recommend the following reforms:

“■ Mandate audits specifically designed to detect and prevent fraud, and increase the transparency and accountability of charter school operators and managers

“■ Design clear planning-based public investment programs to ensure that any expansion of charter school investment also ensures equity, transparency, and accountability

“■ Increase transparency and accountability to ensure that charter schools provide the information necessary for state agencies to detect and prevent fraud

“State and federal lawmakers should act now in establishing systems to prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. ESSA unfortunately does very little reduce these vulnerabilities in the Charter Schools Program. Without state and local lawmakers passing policies to increase oversight, taxpayers stand to lose millions of additional dollars to charter school fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.”

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