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Brazil: Former President Arrested for Effort to Overturn Election He Lost

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2024 //
102

Imagine this scenario: the hard-right president of the country warns that his upcoming re-election campaign will be rigged against him. He loses the election. He refuses to concede. He rallies his followers against the election, insisting it was stolen. His followers storm government offices in protest. His attempted coup fails. He was just arrested along with his top aides.

But it’s not Donald Trump. It’s Jair Bolsonaro, who looked up to Trump as his model.

The New York Times reported:

Former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil oversaw a broad conspiracy to hold on to power regardless of the results of the 2022 election, including personally editing a proposed order to arrest a Supreme Court justice and call new elections after he lost, according to new accusations by Brazilian federal police unveiled on Thursday.

Mr. Bolsonaro and dozens of top aides, ministers and military leaders coordinated to undermine the Brazilian public’s faith in the election and set the stage for a potential coup, the federal police said.

Their efforts included spreading information about voter fraud, drafting legal arguments for new elections, recruiting military personnel to support a coup, surveilling judges and encouraging and guiding protesters who eventually raided government buildings, police said.

Apparently justice is swifter in Brazil than in the United States.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, International, Trump

Unity Group of Chattanooga Protests Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2024 //
4

The supermajority of Republicans in the Tennessee legislature are driving fast and hard to enact universal vouchers, which means the state will subsidize the tuition of students in private and religious schools, regardless of family income. In every other state that has adopted universal vouchers, most of the students who sought them had never attended public schools. The voucher was used by families who could afford to pay tuition. The voucher was a nice plum for families that didn’t need it. And many of the voucher/receiving schools were openly discriminatory—against students not of their own religion, against LGBT students, against students with disabilities.

The Unity Group is a coalition of African American community leaders in Chattanooga.

It released the following statement:


February 6, 2024

Cc: Unity Group of Chattanooga Opposition to Universal School Voucher Program

This week, the Tennessee General Assembly is expected to begin the process of crafting legislation that would permanently affix universal school vouchers throughout the State.

On the surface, this would appear to be a worthwhile and noble goal. We hear numerous romanticized soliloquies to describe why this is justified, such as providing expanded access, flexibility, choice, and opportunity. The glossy and rosy pictures they paint would have one to believe that universal vouchers were the best thing for schools and students since assorted Crayola boxes, number two pencils, and Mr. Rodgers and Sesame Street starting on PBS.

Yet, the research and data paint a starkly different picture. In fact, at a budget hearing held in November 2023, the State’s own Department of Education had to concede that 63 of the 75 schools that received funding from the State’s budget program, well over 80%, were “private “religious “schools in nature. Even more shocking is that last week, a report from the Education Trust concluded that 39% of TN school districts receive less in per-student funding than students that used private school vouchers.

Also last week, a draft plan of the proposed legislation was leaked that illustrated that the expanded voucher program would have no accountability measures, no anti-discrimination provisions, and no safeguards for students with disabilities. It is no wonder that there was consideration to forgo federal education funding because not only does this proposal not pass the smell test, but it very well could be in violation of federal law under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

As a matter of record, there have already been multiple lawsuits launched that have challenged the constitutionality of the State’s voucher program, and in fact in January the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that Davidson and Shelby County families could go forward with a potential suit.

From a fiscal management sense, the projected amount universal vouchers will cost Tennessee taxpayers is murky at best. If the budget shortfalls we have seen occur in other States are any indicator, then we can expect major cost overruns that will go down the well so deep it will eventually run dry.

A 2023 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center provides a good analysis on this. In The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers, it was found that between 2008-2019, voucher disbursements in at least 7 states doubled in contrast to initial budgetary projections.

In Arizona alone, voucher spending for the current academic year is more than 300 million over initial estimates; it is expected that the State may spend close to 1 billion dollars for their voucher program. In North Carolina, there were reports where some schools received more vouchers than they had students. There are also numerous reports that voucher recipients from states across the country have made highly questionable purchases like theme park tickets, kayaks, trampolines and yes, in one instance a chicken coop.

It does beg the question, will one able to use universal voucher funds to build a chicken coop in Tennessee as we have witnessed in other states.

Perhaps most profoundly, the process in which the universal voucher program is being crafted is both procedurally and fundamentally flawed. While there has been a basic framework “leaked” to the public, there remains critical questions about transparency, accountability, and oversight. The general publichas received little to no official details on this plan, only that the voucher program is being filed as a caption bill which, if we can borrow from a metaphor taught to our youngest students, lacks the “who, what, when, where, why, and how.”

In a perfect world, legislation of such consequence would merit a public hearing where experts on all sides would gather to provide analysis, evaluation, insights, and recommendations. The directly impacted people such as your local school boards and local education agencies would be invited to detail if the proposed legislation would have a positive or negative effect on them. The people of Tennessee, the taxpayers who would ultimately have to foot the bill, would be allowed to give sworn testimonies like they do in their city councils, county commissions and school boards.

Without such a process along these lines, can the legislators in Nashville really be able to measure the temperature across the State? Will they truly be able to establish public faith, confidence or trust if a potentially harmful program is simply ramrodded down the taxpayer’s proverbial throats?

The Economic Policy Institute released a rather frank and somber assessment on the growing school voucher moment in 2023 entitled, “State and local experience proves school vouchers are a failed policy that must be opposed.” They noted that at least 23 voucher bills were introduced in state houses last year, with universal bills passing. They noted that there is, “growing evidence that voucher programs do not serve students and may deepen educational and economic inequality.”

Further assessments found within the report are: (1) Evidence and research suggests vouchers do not improve academic achievement or education outcomes; (2) Vouchers represented a redistribution of school funding; (3) Vouchers benefited more wealthy and affluent areas over low income and rural. Amongst other major points of contention, one of the more profound conclusions of this analysis is that universal vouchers are, “Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable.”

A decision that will affect schools and districts throughout the State, rural and urban, merits greater public discourse, fiscal analysis, and research-based evidence. The lack of this type of transparency will truly make the universal voucher program, “Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable.” For these reasons, the Unity Group of Chattanooga must be adamantly opposed because this program will not solely be about autonomy, school choice or expanded options, rather, it will be ushering in a new era of Separate but Equal; and for the sake of our children, we must be better than that.

 

Yours in Abundance,

Unity Group of Chattanooga

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Hoax, Justice, Privatization, Religion, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Separation of church and state, Tennessee, Vouchers

CNN: “Moms for Liberty” Is Encountering Stiff Resistance

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
69

When an education story is featured by a major media outlet like CNN, you can bet it’s captured mainstream attention.

Many educators have worried about the pernicious agenda of “Moms for Liberty,” which arrived on the scene in 2021 with a sizable war chest.

What is that agenda? Defaming public schools and their teachers. Accusing them of being “woke “ and indoctrinating students to accept left wing ideas about race and gender. Banning books they don’t like. Talking about “parental rights,” but only for straight white parents who share their values.

M4L got started in Florida, as do many wacky and bigoted rightwing campaigns, but it has been shamed recently by the sex scandal involving one of its co-founders, Brigitte Ziegler. The two other co-founders dropped her name from their website, but the stain persists.

CNN reports that this rightwing group is encountering stiff opposition from parents who don’t share their agenda and who don’t approve of book banning.

The story begins:

Viera, FloridaCNN —

In Florida, where the right-wing Moms for Liberty group was born in response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates, the first Brevard County School Board meeting of the new year considered whether two bestselling novels – “The Kite Runner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” – should be banned from schools.

A lone Moms for Liberty supporter sat by herself at the January 23 meeting, where opponents of the book ban outnumbered her.

Nearly 20 speakers voiced opposition to removing the novels from school libraries. One compared the book-banning effort to Nazi Germany. Another accused Moms for Liberty of waging war on teachers. No one spoke in favor of the ban. About three hours into the meeting, the board voted quickly to keep the two books on the shelves of high schools.

RELATED ARTICLEOusted Florida GOP leader Christian Ziegler won’t be charged with sexual battery

“Why are we banning books?” asked Mindy McKenzie, a mom and nurse who is a member of Stop Moms for Liberty, which was formed to counter what it calls a far-right extremist group “pushing for book banning and destroying public education.”

“Why are we letting Moms for Liberty infiltrate our school system?”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hypocrisy, Injustice, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Media, Parent Groups, Privatization, Racism

Houston: Principal Turnover Hits 20% After State Takeover

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
47

The Houston Chronicle reports an acceleration in principal turnover since the state took over control of the Houston Independent School District and placed non-educator Mike Miles in charge. The principals of nearly 60 schools have resigned or been removed. A military man, Miles was “trained” by the Broad Superintendents Academy. He is imposing standardized curriculum and instruction across the schools he directly controls (called the “New Education System”).

Even the principal of an A-rated school lost his job.

The memos came in one after the other, a laundry list of grievances listing all the ways Federico Hernandez was supposedly failing as principal of Houston ISD’s Middle College High School.

A teacher used Post-It notes rather than index cards during a lesson, according to one complaint from Hernandez’s supervisor. Others allowed students to sit in the back of a classroom or kept a light off during class. Some implemented multiple response strategies, “but not correctly,” read the memo shared with the Houston Chronicle.

Even though the campus run on Houston Community College’s Felix Fraga campus boasts an A-rated academic performance, those were among the infractions that got Hernandez removed from his job less than two months into the school year.

He is one of at least 58 principals who left their schools, involuntarily or otherwise, in 2023 since Superintendent Mike Miles was appointed to his post by the Texas Education Agency on June 1, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of HISD staffing records. After taking into account schools that share a principal, such as Jane Long Academy and Las Americas Newcomer School, or those that recorded multiple changes between June and December, such as Madison High School, the Chronicle confirmed there have been at least 61 leadership changes across 59 campuses…

Erica Harbatkin, an education policy expert at Florida State University who studies principal turnover, said it is not unusual for administrators to reassign principals in an attempt to shake up under-performing schools. They typically don’t do so during the school year, though, because principals need time to plan and coordinate their staff, and “coming in after the school year started… obviously undermines some of those strategies.”

Harbatkin said replacing a principal is one of the quickest ways to effect change at a school, for better or worse.

“The theory of action behind more contemporary school turnaround and improvement policy is that these schools are in this pattern of low performance, and they need something to get them out, some sort of big external shock … and one of the ways that happens is through replacing the principal,” Harbatkin said.

If not done carefully, however, principal turnover can lead to negative effects on student achievement, Harbatkin said. Her research found that principal turnover “is associated with lower test scores, school proficiency rates, and teacher retention.”

“When principals turn over teachers tend to turn over as well, and if that turnover is not well-planned, if there’s not good distributed leadership in the school or someone who can step into the role, that’s likely to make those negative effects even larger,” Harbatkin said.

No one explained the theory or rationale for removing a principal from a high-performing school. Maybe he failed to comply with an order…

Ebony Cumby, who served as principal at Askew Elementary in west Houston for 12 years, resigned within a week of Miles’ appointment after sitting through the first couple days of principal meetings.

“Throughout that period, there were things that I thought were exciting changes that needed to be made in the district, and there were other things that I could foresee being problematic, especially for a district as large as HISD,” Cumby said.

Cumby said she appreciated Miles’ attempts to “bring more consistency” to the district by standardizing the curriculum and other elements, but she was put off by what she described as “a cookie-cutter way of teaching” that she would be expected to enforce. After over two decades at HISD, she ended up leaving public education altogether for another industry.

“I noticed early on that there were things in place that, whether it was intentional or not, were going to take autonomy away from teachers and require them to conform to a certain way of doing things and really take away their creativity, which as a principal was a big deal to me,” Cumby said. “To kind of hear that its ‘our way or the highway’ did not sit well with me.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Disruption, Extremism, Failure, Houston, Principals, Texas

North Carolina: Vouchers for the Rich! Propaganda Wins!

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2024 //
6

Thomas Mills, a blogger in North Carolina, describes the hoax of “vouchers for all” in his state. Vouchers began as a way to offer new opportunity to poor kids. But since the General Assembly removed income caps on voucher families, vouchers have become a subsidy for rich kids who never attended public schools. The Republicans who passed universal vouchers knowingly and cynically turned them into a subsidy for the wealthy, a reverse Robin Hood scheme.

Mills writes:

This week, the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program, also known as the voucher scheme, began accepting applications. House Speaker Tim Moore tweeted, “The expanded NC Opportunity Scholarship Program is now open for applications! In fact, the website was so inundated that it crashed at 12:15 am, shortly after going live. Thanks to the NC General Assembly, ALL families of K-12 students are now eligible to apply.”

When Moore says “ALL families,” he’s referring to wealthy families since the legislature eliminated the income cap for the vouchers. The site crashed because North Carolina has so many people already in private schools who now are eligible for state subsidized education. Rich folks who send their children to private schools are about to get a windfall while poor schools are going to lose funding. It’s Robin Hood in reverse.

The whole program is a scam, the epitome of a bait-and-switch. Republicans pushed through their voucher program as a way to level the playing field, offering poor families a way to send their children to private schools when public schools weren’t working for them. Now, they’re saying that families that don’t send their children to public schools shouldn’t have to pay for them. They have dropped any pretense of helping struggling families and moved straight to subsidizing rich people. According to Republicans, rich people have no community obligations.

Let’s be clear. The name “Opportunity Scholarship” is pure propaganda. There are two types of scholarships, need-based and merit-based. Giving vouchers to rich people just because they decide not to send their kids to public schools is a tax break, not a scholarship. And it’s a tax break designed for wealthy people at the expense of poor people.

Republicans are working hard to damage public schools. They fundamentally don’t believe in the responsibility of the state to provide a sound, basic education. They have cut per pupil spending, let teacher pay lag, and reduced support staff in schools. They’ve tried to dictate curriculum to indoctrinate students in a conservative philosophy, all while claiming public schools are brainwashing our kids with left wing ideas. They’ve left us with demoralized teachers and overworked staff and our children are paying the price.

Now, the state Supreme Court is about to get into the act, too. Thirty years ago, a group of students from North Carolina’s poor counties sued the state, claiming that their school systems lacked the funding to provide the quality of education that the state constitution demands. They won their suit and, since that time, the courts have reviewed funding to ensure that poor counties got the money they deserve.

However, with a new court dominated by far-right Republicans, the decision may be overturned. Chief Justice Paul Newby and his band of conservatives justices have not been shy about throwing out precedent, giving new meaning to an activist court. They will decide if the most recent allocation determined by the court will be rescinded. The GOP legislature contends that the court has no business telling the lawmakers how to spend tax dollars.

If the Republicans win, they will have essentially reinterpreted the constitution. Article 9, Section 2 of the constitution reads, “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” Traditionally, the court has interpreted the “uniform system” of “equal opportunities” to mean the quality of education should be as good in poor counties as it is in rich ones. The GOP would render the clause either aspirational or maybe just a suggestion, despite the word “shall.”

The assault on public education in North Carolina is unprecedented and radical. Republicans aren’t just making cuts around the edges. They are changing the way we view public schools and our collective responsibilities. They are shifting resources and increasing the burden of financial responsibility on the poor while reducing the funds from the rich, just like they did with our tax system.

Ironically, the people who suffer the most are the people who make up the GOP base. Rural counties will watch their tax dollars go to wealthy families in urban and suburban areas while their public schools will suffer from increasing lack of revenue. Of course, Republican donors will almost certainly benefit. As they say, partisanship is a helluva drug.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Propaganda, Vouchers

Florida: State Attorney General Asks State Court to Strike Abortion Referendum Because Voters Won’t Understand It

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2024 //
58

The Orlando Sentinel editorialized about the DeSantis administration’s effort to kill a voter referendum that would put reproductive rights into the state constitution. Last year, Governor DeSantis signed a highly restrictive ban on abortion—that it was prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy, when few if any women realize they are pregnant.

Let it be noted that Republican legislators in Mississippi are also trying to block a state referendum on abortion. They are afraid it will pass, and they are not willing to take that chance.

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board wrote:

Next week, Attorney General Ashley Moody will come before the state Supreme Court and argue that Floridians can’t be trusted to understand a ballot initiative that would protect abortion rights in Florida — and because of that, they should be stripped of the right to demand them.

Moody is asking the state’s high court to crush an abortion rights initiative that’s already supported by nearly 1 million Floridians (and counting). If it makes the ballot, it’s likely to pass: Most polls show that voters support abortion rights, regardless of party. Without this amendment, the Legislature has already shown it will do everything in its power to destroy those rights.

Voters in six states, including solidly conservative Kentucky and Kansas, have already voted to project abortion rights. At least a dozen other states could vote on abortion this year.

That’s why Florida voters deserve to have their say — and why Florida’s anti-reproductive-rights leaders are so desperate to make sure they don’t.

Here’s what voters will see on the ballot:

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.

The DeSantis administration insists that voters won’t understand this amendment so should not be allowed to vote on it.

One million Floridians have already signed a petition to put it on the ballot.

The DeSantis administration is afraid that voters will understand it and pass it.

Will the conservative state Supreme Court of Florida allow the people to decide?

Categories Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Gender, Health, Science

Michael Hiltzik: The Most Dangerous Quack in the Nation

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2024 //
3

Michael Hiltzik is a regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times who writes about business and whatever else he wants. In this column, he calls out Florida’s “Surgeon General” as “the most dangerous quack” in the country.

That would be Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, chief medical advisor to Governor Ron DeSantis. The governor selected Dr. Ladapo because of his strident opposition to COVID vaccines.

Hiltzik writes:

It used to be fairly easy to dismiss Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, as a clownish anti-vaccine quack posing a danger mostly to residents of his home state.

That has become harder to do as time goes on, as Ladapo has moved from promoting useless treatments for COVID-19, such as the drugs hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, to waging an ever-expanding fact-free campaign against the leading COVID vaccines.

This month, Ladapo established a new low for himself. In a public advisory issued Wednesday by the Florida Department of Health, he declared the vaccines “not appropriate for use in human beings” and counseled doctors to steer patients to other treatments. He explicitly called for a “halt in the use of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.”

For several reasons, this advisory ranks as the single most dangerous statement by a government health agency since the start of the pandemic, if not for all time.

First and foremost, it’s based on a claim in a paper co-authored by known anti-vaccine activists that was almost instantaneously debunked upon its publication in October.

Hiltzik pointed out that Ladapo’s advisory comes at a time when COVID cases are on the rise and also when hesitancy about vaccines threatens to encourage refusal to take other vaccines. He points to a measles outbreak in Philadelphia,

Finally, he writes:

One must consider the source. Despite his state post and a tenured position as a professor of medicine at the University of Florida — courtesy of his patron Ron DeSantis, the extremist anti-vaccine Republican governor — Ladapo has zero credibility within the medical establishment. Taking medical advice from Ladapo makes about as much sense as taking investment advice from Sam Bankman-Fried or your view of academic integrity from Christopher Rufo.

Ladapo has become a card-carrying member of the anti-vaccine mafia. Just before Christmas, he appeared on a podcast hosted by anti-vax agitator Del Bigtree, who stirs up his audiences with hysterical rants against vaccines and who was recently appointed communications director for the presidential campaign of notorious anti-vax figure Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He also was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.

His colleagues at the University of Florida Medical School denounced Ladao’s claim that men between 18 and 39 should avoid the COVID vaccines because they posed a risk of cardiac failure.

Hiltzik noted:

In fact, the research indicated no such thing; rather, it showed that the risk of cardiac death from the vaccines was statistically nonexistent and, in any case, was lower than the risk of cardiac death resulting from catching COVID-19.

Dr. Ladapo then went full throttle, as you would expect, and insisted that no one should get the COVID vaccines. He maintained that they contained ingredients that damages one’s DNA.

In a Dec. 6 letter to the FDA and in the Florida Department of Health advisory, Ladapo raised “concerns regarding nucleic acid contaminants in the approved … vaccines, particularly in the presence of lipid nanoparticle complexes, and Simian Virus 40 (SV40) promoter/enhancer DNA. … The presence of SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA may also pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA integration into human cells.”

Followers of anti-vaccine propaganda will find familiar features in this statement. For one thing, it sounds science-y as hell, filled to bursting with abstruse terms and jargon. One would have to be an expert in the field to identify it as total balderdash. The statement also bristles with scary references to DNA contamination and cancer and to “billions of fragments [of DNA] per dose….”

The research paper on which Ladapo based his intimation that the vaccines breach the FDA’s DNA contamination standard is self-refuting. The paper, which was based on an analysis of 24 vials of the mRNA vaccines, actually found that in all cases the fragments were well below the concentration limits set by the FDA.

The FDA, in responding to Ladapo’s Dec. 6 letter, told him that studies of the vaccines showed “no evidence” that the shots damaged recipients’ DNA and that the experience of “hundreds of millions of individuals” who received the vaccines “indicate no evidence indicative of genotoxicity….”

Florida’s death rate from COVID of 375 per 100,000 people is among the worst in the country. (California: 283.) You can ignore the defense that the difference is due to Florida’s relatively older population; states with even older median ages have done much better: Vermont (170), New Hampshire (245) and Maine (252). The difference is the indifference of Ladapo and DeSantis to their own residents’ health.

Categories Disruption, Extremism, Florida, Health, Science

John Thompson: Oklahoma’s Leaders Engage in Strange, Irresponsible Behavior

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
16

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, keeps a close watch on state government and the state legislature. He has friends in both parties, so he is diplomatic. But since I don’t live in Oklahoma, I read what he reports in this post with a mixture of amazement and amusement. I can’t believe these people think they will improve education by their shenanigans. There are serious and reasonable people in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, they do not run the state.

John also forwarded to me a critique of pending legislation in the State Senate that would require every science teacher to give equal time to evolution and “intelligent design,” i.e. creationism. The critique came from the National Center for Science Education. I repeat: Where are the sane people? The grown-ups?

He writes:

Our Internet and phone went out for five days as the legislature’s bill filing period closed, so I was limited to learning the latest craziness of the national MAGA campaign, and national coverage of Oklahoma news. For example, State Superintendent Ryan Walters selected “Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the ‘Libs of TikTok’ social media account,” as member of the Oklahoma library media advisory committee. She has no background in education and does not live in Oklahoma. And the governor has already “banned the use of TikTok by any executive branch agency or employee and blacklisted the software from all state networks and state managed devices.”

But, the Oklahoman reported, “Walters said he put Raichik on the advisory committee because she was on the front lines showing the world exactly what the radical left is all about — lowering standards, porn in schools and pushing ‘woke indoctrination’ on kids.”

The Oklahoman also explained, “Last year, a ‘Libs of TikTok’ post drew attention to a video posted by an elementary school librarian in Tulsa.” The Libs of TikTok version “had been edited from her original TikTok” and identified the teacher and the school. The Oklahoman explained:

After the post was made, the Ellen Ochoa Elementary School in Tulsa received a bomb threat on Aug. 22. That day Ryan Walters had also retweeted the “Libs of TikTok” post.

The threat appeared to have been made in retaliation for a librarian’s public post on TikTok.

Also leading the recent news, Republican Senator Nathan Dahm’s Senate Bill 1837 sought to:

Create the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.” The measure requires criminal background checks of every member of the news media, licensing of journalists through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the completion of a “propaganda free” training course through the Oklahoma State Department of Education, a $1 million liability insurance policy and quarterly drug tests.

KOSU reported that they would also have to “attend an eight-hour ‘propaganda-free’ safety training developed by PragerU.”

Not to be outdone, Republican Rep. Juston Humphrey’s House Bill 3084, sought to ban:

“Students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries at school” from participating in class and school activities.

Humphrey would “require parents or guardians to pick the student up from school. … But, if parents are unable to pick the student up, the bill says ‘animal control services shall be contacted to remove the student.’”

Humphrey also filed:

House Bill 3133, as it is currently worded, states that any person who is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma; is a member of a criminal street gang as such term is defined in state statutes; and has been convicted of a gang-related offense enumerated in state statute shall be deemed to have committed an act of terrorism and will be subject to property forfeiture.

Humphrey had previously said “he intends to file legislation that will require any Oklahoma elected official known to be in support of a terrorist organization to be removed from their seat.” He did so to stop “Hollywood’s fake agenda.”

Other Republicans contributed bills such as Sen. Dusty Deevers’ Senate Bill 1958 “that would no longer allow Oklahomans to file for divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, also known as no-fault divorce.”

And Rep. Jim Olsen:

Filed legislation to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms.” It “would require each classroom to clearly display a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments, measuring at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year. The bill also outlines the specific text to be used for the display.

He did so because “The Ten Commandments is one of the foundations of our nation,” and “Publicly and proudly displaying them in public school classrooms will serve as a reminder of the ethics of our state and country as students and teachers go about their day.”

Olsen also “pointed to numerous passages in the Bible he said clearly endorsed corporal punishment as a part of proper child training, including Hebrews 12:11, which states, ‘Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterword it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.’”

Others continued the filing of bills to support Ryan Walters’ agenda. For instance, Rep. Tom Gann:

Said he is taking a proactive step toward safeguarding Oklahoma’s public school students with the introduction of House Bill 3112. The bill would prohibit schools and school districts from accepting financial donations or gifts from countries (meaning China) designated as “hostile” or “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)” by the United States Secretary of State.

And Chris Banning “released a statement applauding State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters for working to eliminate all references to American Library Association guidelines in Oklahoma’s Information Literacy Standards and proposing new standards that are aligned with Oklahoma values.”

I kept scrolling back from December and January filings until I got to two other types of statements For example Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall’s, praised:

The conservative rating for the Oklahoma Legislature after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Foundation’s Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA) released its 2023 ratings of the voting records of state legislators in all fifty states. Oklahoma was ranked as the second.  

But also I read a number of Republican statements condemning the bomb threats directed at the Tulsa Union Public Schools after the Libs of TikTok’s false post which likely prompted the threats. For example. “Rep. Ross Ford, R-Broken Arrow, vowed to help track down those who have made recent bomb threats made against several schools in the Union Public Schools district.”

So, what has the rightwing done in terms of policy when they could have been protecting children and educators? Gov. Stitt appointed Nellie Tayloe Sanders, “who last year helped advance a controversial Catholic charter school proposal (the St. Isidore religious school)” as his new secretary of education.

Worse, on Newsmax, Stitt seemed to warn of a civil war prompted by a confrontation between the Texas National Guard and President Biden. He certainly seemed to say that Oklahoma and our National Guard would side with Texas against the U.S..

And Ryan Walter’s confusing and flawed $16 million teacher bonus program is now clawing back $50,000 incentives they gave to teachers who were doing their best to follow the confusing application rules that Walters’ staff mismanaged.

That’s just the latest batch of the rightwing’s frightening behavior. Some serious reporters dismiss “headline-grabbing proposals such as prohibiting so-called furry costumes in public schools and the licensing and drug testing of journalists [that] have little chance of passage,” arguing that “scores of other bills, if passed, could mean big changes for Oklahomans in everything from land sales and medical marijuana to prescription drugs and state pension system investments.”

But, reading the proposed legislation, it seems overwhelmingly impossible that more good than harm could come out of the 2024 session. And, the historian in me worries that these irrational, but not passable, bills could do even more harm than the legislation that could come out of the Republican-controlled legislature. After all, they are parts of a continuing barrage against trust in government and democratic principles.

So, what can be done to curb the stress the MAGAs are imposing?

We can hope that more adult Republicans will push back against their extremist colleagues. Or, I guess we could wish for more ice storms that will shut down the Internet so we don’t need to dwell on their threats to democracy.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Ignorance, Oklahoma

Jeff Bryant: Two Federal Education Programs with Opposite Purposes

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2024 //
15

Jeff Bryant, independent education journalist, writes here about two federal education programs with disparate goals. One is the relatively small Community Schols Program, which aims to build and strengthen communities, and the other is the Charter Schools Program, which is wildly overfunded and which divides communities. His article appears on the website of the Independent Media Institute; it was originally published by The Progressive.

Bryant writes:

The Department of Education has separate grant programs for funding either charter or community schools; the latter provides money for what schools and families really need, the former, not so much.

[This article was produced by the Progressive. Read the full article here.]

Two education-related grant programs operated by the U.S. Department of Education—both of which dole out millions in federal tax dollars for educating K-12 children every year—present two opposing truths about government spending on public education: that it can be wasteful and misguided, or innovative and informed.

The first program enjoys the significant backing of industry lobbyists and wealthy foundations, and allows private education operators—some that operate for-profit—to skim public money off the top. It also adds to racial segregation in public schools, and squanders millions of dollars on education providers that come and quickly go, or simply fail to provide any education services at all.

The second program helps schools expand learning time and opportunities for students, especially in high-poverty and rural communities; promote parent engagement; encourage collaboration with local businesses and nonprofits; and become hubs for child- and family-related services that contribute to students’ health and well-being.

These strikingly different outcomes result from two different intentions: the first program’s goal to promote a type of school that is vaguely defined versus the second’s goal to expand a way of doing school that is supported by research and anecdotal evidence.

The first grant program is the Charter Schools Program (CSP), which funds privately operated charter schools and their developers and advocacy organizations. The program, started during the Clinton Administration and greatly expanded during the Obama years, gives money directly to charter schools and to state education agencies and charter school-related organizations to distribute to new, existing, or proposed charters.

In October, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the nation’s top lobbyist for the charter school industry, hailed the federal government’s release of $572 million in taxpayer dollars from the CSP, calling the money “the most essential funding to enable the existence of public charter schools.”

In New Mexico, local press outlets reported that a $52 million CSP grant went to a charter industry advocacy group called the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico, which in turn would award subgrants to individual charter schools. One reporter quoted the group’s leader who said, “There was a large application with several requirements in there. And we were scored based on, you know, how well we met the requirements and a peer review process.”

In Idaho, Idaho Ed News reported about the $24.8 million CSP grant going to Bluum, which the reporter called “a nonprofit charter support organization.” The grant is to be used “to grow and strengthen Idaho’s charter school network,” the article said.

Maryland’s top charter school industry booster, the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools, celebrated its $28.7 million CSP saying it would provide “subgrants to open new charter schools and/or replicate and expand charter schools.”

Not all CSP grants went to advocacy groups. The largest—totaling $109,740,731—went to the Indiana Department of Education. According to Chalkbeat, one out of three charter schools in Indiana have closed since 2001.

A 2019 analysis conducted by the Network for Public Education, a pro-public schools advocacy group, found that over its lifespan CSP has wasted as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and quickly closed.

Another CSP grant of $37,579,122 went to the Minnesota Department of Education. In Minnesota, courts have grappled for years with the question of whether racial imbalances in public schools, caused to a great extent by the expansion of racially segregated charter schools, violate the constitutional right of students of color to receive an adequate education.

Other CSP grants went to credit enhancement for charter school facilities, essentially giving public money to real estate development firms and investment companies that finance and build new charter schools.

[…]

Read the rest of this article on the Progressive.

Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Competition, Disruption, Education Reform, Funding, U.S. Department of Education

Private Equity is Buying Up Hospitals, Squeezing Out Big Profits, Letting Them Die

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2024 //
21

I am more than a little touchy on the subject of for-profit takeovers of hospitals that serve the community. That happened in my neighborhood a few years back. The city sold a major hospital to a for-profit firm. The hospital eventually went bankrupt and was sold off and converted to other uses. This hospital saved my life in 1998, when I walked in to the emergency room, short of breath and limping. As it happened, I had an advanced pulmonary embolism. Had I not gone to the hospital, I would not have survived the night, said the pulmonary specialist the next morning.

Larry Edelman of The Boston Globe in his column called Trendlines tells the story of what happened to a small chain of hospitals that served high-needs communities:

The hound from hell

It was a match born of voracity and desperation, as many private equity buyouts are. Cerberus Capital Management hit a home run with Steward Health Care. But Steward may be about to go down swinging.

Rewind: In 2010, Cerberus agreed to bail out Caritas Christi Health Care, a struggling network of six Catholic hospitals serving mainly poorer communities in cities including Boston, Brockton, Fall River, and Methuen.

The New York firm paid $246 million in cash, assumed more than $200 million in pension liabilities, and promised to invest $400 million in the company, rechristened Steward Health Care.

When the deal was announced, a Cerberus executive told the Globe it was “a big win for the hard-working communities of Greater Boston.’’

Fast-forward: After a national expansion, Steward is on the ropes. Last week, the Globe’s Jessica Bartlett broke the news that the company — now owned by a group of physician-managers — is having trouble paying rent and may have to sell or close hospitals.

But the deal was a big win for Cerberus. It cashed out of Steward in early 2021, quadrupling its money with an $800 million gain, according to Bloomberg.

The backstory: Cerberus bought Caritas Christi four years after a blockbuster hospital deal: the 2006 leveraged buyout of HCA for $21 billion by Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts and Bain Capital of Boston.

The sheer size of the acquisition — and the involvement of two respected firms — supercharged a health care buyout binge that extended beyond hospitals to nursing homes, physician practices, and home health providers.

Cerberus jumps in: After taking a high-profile beating on its 2007 bet on Chrysler, Cerberus saw an opportunity to profit on a turnaround of the “St. Elsewhere”-esque Steward. The plan: buy up other hospitals around the country, deploy new technology, improve efficiency, control costs, and bill Medicare and Medicaid as aggressively as possible.

It was a vision adeptly articulated by Dr. Ralph de la Torre, Caritas’ chief executive officer who remained in charge under Cerberus.

But it was a tough slog for the cardiac surgeon. His expansion plans were thwarted, and Steward didn’t make any money until 2015, when a reduction in pension payments put it in the black.

The big breakthrough: The following year Steward sold its hospital properties for $1.2 billion to Medical Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust that also paid $50 million for a 5 percent stake in the company.

Steward, which leased the properties back from Alabama-based MPT, earmarked the proceeds to buy more hospitals and pay down debt. It also returned Cerberus’ initial investment, though the firm held on to a controlling stake in the company.

In effect, de la Torre had landed a new financial backer, letting Cerberus off the hook.

“We look forward to expanding our relationship with Steward in the years ahead,” MPT chief executive Edward K. Aldag Jr. said at the time.

And MPT did just that in 2017, writing a $1.4 billion check and buying an additional $100 million of Steward equity. De la Torre used the money to buy IASIS Healthcare, a $2 billion purchase that gave Steward 18 hospitals in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah, making it the largest for-profit chain in the country.

The next year de la Torre moved the company’s headquarters to Dallas, where taxes are lower and regulations lighter.

Minimal disclosure: As a private company, Steward isn’t required to make its financial statements public. Moreover, it has largely ignored Massachusetts requirements that it file detailed financial information on an annual basis.

But publicly traded MPT discloses some Steward financials because the chain is its largest tenant, accounting for about 20 percent of revenue. That’s how we know that Steward booked operating losses of $322 million in 2017 and $270 million in 2018.

Steward’s leaseback deal with MPT significantly boosted its expenses, but as Jessica reported, the health system blames its dire financial straits on rising interest rates and labor costs, an increasing Medicaid population, and difficulty collecting bills.

MPT has been hit hard by Steward’s woes. Its stock tumbled nearly 40 percent after it announced earlier this month that Steward was having trouble paying rent.

Moreover, COVID clobbered all hospitals. Despite receiving government pandemic aid and hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from MPT, Steward is strapped.

Good timing: Cerberus was out before the bedpan hit the fan.

In May 2020, it swapped its stake with Steward doctors in exchange for a note paying interest. Then, in January 2021, Steward borrowed $335 million from MPT to pay off the debt.

Cerberus was free and clear.

Parting thought: It’s not the only time the firm — named after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades in Greek mythology — scored big on a company that went bust.

It did well on its buyout of Mervyn’s by selling off the department store chain’s real estate before it went bankrupt. And it recouped its investment and then some at arms maker Remington by paying itself a dividend before the company went broke. Such strategies are common in private equity.

You see, when firms like Cerberus do business, it’s often “heads I win, tails you lose.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Disruption, Economics, For-Profit, Funding, Health, Massachusetts
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