On Friday, a large continent of Black students walked out of North Star Academy, a high-scoring no-excuses charter school in Newark, New Jersey. The students were protesting the mistreatment of Black students and teachers.
Hundreds of students walked out of a Newark charter school and rallied outside City Hall on Friday to call attention to what students said is the frequent mistreatment of Black students and faculty.
Around 9 a.m., students began streaming out of the Lincoln Park High School campus of North Star Academy, which is New Jersey’s largest charter school operator with more than 6,000 students in Newark and Camden. After marching from the Central Ward campus to nearby City Hall, student organizers and a former teacher gave speeches about a culture of anti-Blackness they said pervades the school, while scores of students cheered and waved signs.
“We’re tired and we’ve been fed up,” 12th grader Kwadjo Otoo called out from the steps of the historic building, adding that some Black teachers and students continue to feel disrespected despite efforts by the charter operator’s leadership to address complaintsabout the schools. “Now they’re trying to pretend like something changed, but we know it’s the same school we’ve been going to forever now.”
Several students said multiple Black teachers over the years have left the school, which the students said is because the teachers felt overworked and undervalued. When well-liked Black teachers depart, their absence can leave students feeling isolated, they said.
“It’s very upsetting for us to build bonds with our teachers, to build relationships and connect,” said L. Drummond, a senior at the Lincoln Park campus, “and then see them chased out by the school.”
The school went into lockdown during the protest, and students who left were not allowed back in after they returned from City Hall. Locked out of school, the students began to disperse around 10:30 a.m.; some said they planned to walk home while others set out for a different North Star campus downtown.
New Coalition Forms to Stop DeVos Voucher Proposal
For MI Kids, For Our Schools launches campaign to oppose DeVos voucher effort to take hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools
MICHIGAN – On Wednesday, March 16 at 1 p.m. EST, a coalition of organizations will announce the launch of the For MI Kids, For Our Schools ballot question committee (For MI Kids, for short) during a Zoom press call. For MI Kids is focused on defeating the DeVos-backed “Let MI Kids Learn” voucher proposal that would rip hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools across Michigan.
The coalition that makes up For MI Kids includes: 482Forward, American Federation of Teachers Michigan, K-12 Alliance of Michigan, Michigan Association of School Boards, Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators, Michigan Education Association, Michigan Education Justice Coalition, Michigan Parent Teacher Association, and the Middle Cities Education Association.
WHO: For MI Kids, For Our Schools
Casandra Ulbrich, PhD, who serves as the president of the State Board of Education
Andrew Brodie, Superintendent, Flat Rock Community Schools and MASA Board President
Arlyssa Heard, a Detroit schools special education parent, 482Forward education organizer
Twanda Bailey, a retired educator from Detroit with 30 years of teaching experience
Owen Goslin, a Cheboygan schools parent
Rick Catherman, a retired educator from South Haven with 30 years of teaching experience
WHY: For MI Kids, For Our Schools is a ballot committee opposing the Let MI Kids Learn voucher proposal because it would take hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools, hurting every public school across Michigan during a historic teacher shortage. The coalition is made up of parents, educators, support staff, administrators, and community-minded folks who love our public schools and want to see them improve and thrive so every student can get a great education.
Andy Spears is the publisher of the Tennessee Education Report. He writes in the current issue of The Progressive about the well-funded effort to privatize education funding in Tennessee. Republican Governor Bill Lee and the legislature are determined to gut local control and to outsource taxpayer dollars to out-of-state organizations to open charter schools. This drive for privatization ignores the abject failure of the Tennessee Educational Achievement Authority, which burned through $100 million without achieving anything.
Spears writes:
If you are wondering what it looks like when school privatizers are close to total victory, Tennessee is a prime example. Here, the forces that want to take public money and hand it over to private entities are on the verge of completing their conquest.
Tennessee’s current legislative session features a range of attacks on public schools. Some of these would have immediate impacts, while others take a longer-term approach to fully privatizing K-12 education in the state.
First, it is important to understand that groups backing privatization in the form of charter schools and vouchers are among the top spenders when it comes to lobbying state legislators. For example, the American Federation for Children—an organization founded and previously led by the family of Betsy DeVos, a school privatization advocate and former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education—spent $887,500. Another big spender, the Tennessee Charter School Center, spent $732,500.
Based on this year’s full-frontal assault, these investments appear to be paying off. There are three key issues that currently pose the most significant threat to Tennessee’s public schools. They include: a partnership with Hillsdale College, a private fundamentalist Christian college in Michigan, to run fifty or more charter schools; legislation that would create a charter school real estate grab; and school funding reforms that set the stage for a statewide voucher program.
In his State of the State address, Governor Bill Lee restated his commitment to set aside $32 million to help launch new charters in Tennessee and announced the Hillsdale College partnership, which could bring close to fifty Hillsdale-run charter schools into the state.
Beyond the use of public funds to open schools run by a private, Christian college, there is reason to be concerned about the nature of the Hillsdale curriculum. As educator and blogger Peter Greene explained, “[Hillsdale President Larry] Arnn has been a Trump supporter, and the college has fallen right into MAGAland as well. . . . The college uses Trump mailing lists to raise money. They used to sponsor Rush Limbaugh’s show. They get grads placed on the staff of legislators such as Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy.”
Over the past decade, I have consistently referred to charters as part of the privatization movement, a first decisive step towards vouchers. Charter advocates have frequently written to insist that charter schools are “public schools.” They are, because the state law (drafter by charter lobbyists) calls them “public schools.”
But the Tennessee push for charter schools makes clear that they have become a Trojan horse for privatization. Governor Lee is rewriting the school funding formula so “the money follows the child,” a back door path to vouchers, which a state court ruled unconstitutional.
Spears writes:
Potentially millions of dollars worth of real estate assets in local districts across Tennessee could soon be up for grabs at prices below market value. No wonder privatizers tied to the charter industry have spent $8 million lobbying the legislature.
The final element in the push for privatization is being billed as a “reform” of the state’s school funding formula. Governor Lee recently released his plan to revamp how the state directs money to local school districts for public schools. The bottom line, according to Lee, is that the approach is “student-centered” and that funds “follow the child” no matter what. This plan is based on model legislation from the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
This statement, first of all, creates the erroneous impression that charter schools operate as “public” schools. Although called public schools under Tennessee law (as in most states), these schools function with less government oversight and an array of private operations, from real estate management to the sourcing of substitute teachers to overall school management.
Lee has been fighting to redirect public money to private schools since before he was elected governor.
Second, the proposed change to school funding is quite simply the gateway to a full-on voucher scheme. As Tennessee teacher Mike Stein wrote on his personal blog, the final form of funding reform is a workaround for a school voucher law that Lee enacted and was ruled unconstitutional.
Can the privatizers be stopped? Will charters pave the way for vouchers? Will Governor Lee succeed in destroying local control of public schools?
By now, we have observed that the Koch-Walton-DeVos oligarchs take every opportunity to undermine public confidence in public schools. Wherever there is an organized attack on public schools and their teachers, it’s a safe bet that there’s dark money from libertarian billionaires.
Opportunistic politicians are also attempting to limit classroom discussion of other controversial topics. In late February Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill to ban “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in the state’s primary schools. Governor DeSantis has indicated that he will sign the bill if the Senate passes it. [The legislature passed the bill and DeSantis will sign it.]
Of course, the GOP maintains that it’s doing this for parents “Speaking to legislators on the House floor, Rep. Joe Harding, the Republican who introduced the bill, said the measure is about “empowering parents” and improving the quality of life for the state’s children.” Florida isn’t alone. According to the highly regarded publication Chalkbeat, at least 36 states have adopted or introduced laws or policies that restrict teaching about race and racism.
As New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote recently, “Defenders of this push for censorship say they are simply working to protect the nation’s children from prejudice, psychological distress and inappropriate material. ‘To say there were slaves is one thing, but to talk in detail about how slaves were treated, and with photos, is another,’ said Tina Descovich, a leader of (a Florida chapter of) Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that seeks to enshrine ‘parental rights’ into law.”
Ms. Descovich, who lost her seat on a local school board in 2020, is a parent, but many of the adults who have been disrupting local school board meetings not only do not have children enrolled in those schools; they are classic outside agitators, perhaps even from neighboring states.
Simply reviewing curricula and banning discussion aren’t enough for some. Legislators in Florida, Iowa, and Mississippi want cameras installed in classrooms so parents can watch what’s going on. “The Iowa bill, H.F. 2177, would require that cameras be placed in every public school classroom in the state, except for physical education and special education classes. The cameras would feed to livestreams that could be viewed on the internet by parents, guardians and others.” Educators who fail to keep the cameras operational would lose 5% of their salary, per infraction. The bill died in Committee, but its supporters haven’t given up.
The pandemic has created opportunities for opponents of public education. Twenty-two states created or enlarged school voucher programs in 2021, and more are in the offing. “School voucher proponents in statehouses across the country have spent much of the past year working to pass legislation that transfers critical public school funding to the private sector. Framing these debates around education “reform” and the inauthentic culture wars surrounding public schools, voucher proponents have been steadily working to undermine public education on the state level.” That’s from the publication of the National Education Association, which explains the loaded language.
But the NEA numbers are correct, as others have reported. ”Nearly half of all state legislatures last year increased funding for school choice programs in their state budgets or passed laws to expand or create new Education Savings Accounts or scholarship programs. They also notably expanded eligibility requirements to include home-schooling, charter schools and private schools. Four states created entirely new programs; three created new and expanded programs, and Ohio created the most improved programs of them all, according to the analysis. The majority, 14, either expanded or improved their existing school choice programs.”
While this isn’t the time or place to debate vouchers, let’s stipulate that money dedicated to vouchers would otherwise have gone to public schools.
COVID and the ensuing closure of most public schools frustrated many parents, some of whom felt that teachers cared more about their own health than their students’ learning. Teacher unions, a favorite whipping boy of the right, may have hurt their own cause by defending members who did not want to risk contracting COVID–but defending their members is what unions are supposed to do.
But what’s happening now has very little to do with education and far more to do with politics. Republicans feel that being ‘pro-parent’ is a winning position, even though barely 20% of households have school age children. I don’t think most Republican politicians really care whether parents dig deeply into curriculum. What they hope is that the other 80%–those without children–will be outraged at the idea of meddling teachers indoctrinating America’s children. Their goal is for the other 80% to go to the polls and vote Republican.
The following article describes a victory for parents and communities, which blocked a privatization plan to close 23 schools. It appeared on “Parent Voices for Public Schools,” which is sponsored by the Network for Public Education.
What’s the best way to improve public education? That question, hotly contested in communities across the country, has prompted an intense debate in Charleston, SC, a thriving city that is experiencing a boom in growth and economic development and has in many ways become a symbol of the New South. But too often missing from these discussions are the voices or perspectives from individuals from within the actual communities who will be directly impacted or affected by policies to improve their neighborhood public schools. We rarely hear from the parents who rely on public schools to educate their children and even the actual young people themselves, particularly those old enough to articulate and discern what they would like to experience in terms of a quality public school education. While the community organizations putting forth proposals to improve or reform schools in the South Carolina Lowcountry may be well-intentioned, excluding parent and student voices is a critical omission.
The most recent example is the Coastal Community Foundation (CCF) and its Reimagine Schools Proposal. South Carolina legislators recently expanded the state’s “Schools of Innovation” law, which authorizes the takeover of individual schools by an unidentified “Innovation Management Organization” or IMO. CCF’s Reimagine Schools plan calls for these IMOs to manage some 23 struggling public schools in Charleston, all serving students of color from surrounding communities.
In Charleston, the Coastal Community Foundation looms large, managing nearly $300 million in assets. But what it doesn’t have is any proven track record working in PK-12 education, a major concern of local area groups engaged in public education advocacy, grassroots roots leadership, and other critical voices from within the community.
Just how CCF’s Reimagine Schools plan would address the critical issue of community involvement is also unclear. The proposal calls for the establishment of District Innovation Commissions consisting of consolidated and constituent school board members and as many as ten members from the community-at-large consisting of faith and business leaders and other stakeholders. But what entity will determine who these individuals will be? This is a critical question at a time when local area groups and grassroots organizers have been pushing for more community voice regarding the direction of Charleston’s public schools. These advocates are concerned that CCF and its allies are moving forward with a vision that is open to privatization and financial profits for vendors without receiving input from the community, including the parents who rely on the twenty-three schools that are to be ‘reimagined.’
Community voice isn’t just an abstraction. Parents, teachers, faith leaders, and other local stakeholders are at ground zero when it comes to truly understanding the educational needs of children in their communities and the challenges they face when it comes to receiving a quality education. Most importantly, they are not in the game to profit financially through contractual relationships with various outside vendors.
CCF’s Reimagine Schools proposal calls on the Charleston County School District’s consolidated school board to spend $32 million to support privatization schemes. Voices from within the community are calling for these funds to be invested directly into the district to support greater wraparound services for students and their parents, provide two teachers in every classroom and provide additional psychological services given the shortage nationally of qualified clinical psychologists working in PK-12 education. These are common-sense solutions that meet the needs of schools within the local community that elected leaders would be wise to consider.
Since CCF introduced Reimagine Schools late last year, pushback from community groups and public school advocates has been fierce. Recently the school board announced that the proposal is being tabled indefinitely, a response to pressure from grassroots organizers. While experience teaches us that we must remain vigilant, this was a huge victory for believers in public education.
Dr. Kendall Deas is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Race, Freedom, and Democratic Citizenship with the African American Studies Program and Institute for African American Research at the University of South Carolina. He is also the Director of the Quality Education Project, a community-based research organization in South Carolina committed to public education advocacy.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a front-page story about the financial shenanigans associated with a charter school founded by two TFA teachers (one of whom was the son of the former mayor). The school has a large number of uncertified teachers and an uncertified high school principal and boasts of its staff’s lack of credentials. Its teachers have a high attrition rate. And its academic performance is mediocre. The school handbook says that staff must keep all financial records confidential. Nonetheless, the school Hoovers up millions of taxpayer dollars from local, state and federal governments and claims it wants to “proselytize” about its “method.” Whether they mean to spread their “method” of sucking up public funds or producing unimpressive academic results is not clear.
Despite stories like this one, the Republican-led legislature wants to authorize more charters.
ST. LOUIS — The sponsor of Kairos Academies, a charter school in the Marine Villa neighborhood, has raised red flags over the school’s financial and leadership practices involving a shadow group that employs nearly two-thirds of the staff.
The school’s founders created Kairos Academies Vanguard for “charitable and educational purposes” before the school opened three years ago, according to records with the Missouri Secretary of State. The nonprofit has since grown to employ 36 staff members out of 56 who work at the school, including 10 teachers and all administrators.
Kairos has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to Vanguard for bookkeeping, human resources, student recruitment, special education and other services, all without a contract. While Vanguard staff members work full time at Kairos, are listed in the school directory and share a staff handbook, school leaders say they are exempt from state laws requiring the release of financial information and participation in an educators’ pension fund.
Vanguard qualifies as a quasi-governmental body subject to Missouri Sunshine Law because its primary purpose is to contract with a taxpayer-funded school, said St. Louis lawyer Elad Gross.
“Schemes like this one to spin off a nonprofit organization are trying to do what a lot of corporations do,” Gross said. “Folks are using those same Wall Street-type practices to avoid liability and public transparency.”
In a “letter of concern” sent this month, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission that sponsors Kairos outlined a 13-point correction plan for the school to complete by March 31. The plan calls for an approved contract with Vanguard, separate audits of the school and the nonprofit, and legal oversight and training on open records laws.
Kairos violated Missouri regulations by not following policies regarding its relationship with Vanguard including approval from its sponsor, according to Robbyn Wahby, the charter school commission’s executive director.
“These requirements exist to ensure that public funds for the education of Missouri students are managed transparently and appropriately,” Wahby wrote in the Feb. 4 letter.
After receiving Wahby’s letter, Kairos set up a mailbox for Vanguard at a coworking space across the street from the school on south Jefferson Avenue. The Kairos board held a special meeting Wednesday to approve a temporary contract through March that pays Vanguard $282,480 per month. Clayton lawyer Hugh Eastwood serves as president of the board of both organizations.
The charter commission “is demanding that the school have a detailed contract with Vanguard so that the commission and taxpayers will know how public funds are used” by the March 31 deadline, Wahby said. “We are pleased that Kairos Academies’ board agrees with our findings and is working to put in place the remedies we are requiring of them.”
$3.3 million
Kairos Academies opened in fall of 2019 led by CEO Gavin Schiffres and chief strategy officer Jack Krewson, son of then-mayor Lyda Krewson. The founders were both 25 at the time and graduates of the two-year Teach for America program. The education reform group Opportunity Trust contributed more than $300,000 in startup costs and continues to provide annual grants.
Kairos now enrolls about 400 students in fifth through eighth grades and will start a high school with ninth graders in the fall. Last spring, 35% of students tested proficient in English and 33% in math on state standardized tests. Only eight current staff members, including Krewson and Schiffres, were with the school when it opened in fall of 2019, according to the school directory.
Schiffres said Vanguard was formed with the “idea of creating a vehicle where we could take what we learned and potentially bring it to other regions, take the Kairos method and proselytize that.”
Charter schools are publicly funded and independently operated. Under Missouri law, charter school employees are required to participate in the Public School Retirement System of the City of St. Louis. Kairos pays 15% of the salaries of 20 teachers into the retirement fund, according to an audit of fiscal year 2021 by St. Louis accounting firm KEB.
The school’s administrators, plus Spanish, art and special education teachers, the principal and head of athletics and secretarial staff are considered contractors who are exempt from the fund. Those 36 employees can receive up to a 3% match for a separate retirement fund, according to the Kairos staff handbook.
The audit of Kairos included Vanguard as an affiliate because “the entities are commonly managed.” It shows the two organizations combined received $3.3 million in local, state and federal tax revenue in fiscal 2021.
No certification
A review of state and school records shows other examples of Kairos operating like a private organization:
• Eight teachers including three English teachers have no Missouri teaching certificates. An additional seven have substitute certificates, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Nilesh Patel, who is slated to lead Kairos’ high school this fall, has no state certification. The Kairos community handbook reads, “Please assume that your child’s teachers are not certified to teach in their assigned grade level or subject. Although most are, Kairos takes cues from the best private schools around the country and recruits talent with diverse, real-world experience.”
• Like traditional public schools, charter schools are not allowed to discriminate in admissions. The Kairos staff handbook suggests that family income can play a role. “Enrolling another low-income student will make it harder to get the high academic results my team is striving for … disadvantaged students tend to come in below grade level,” the handbook describes as a hypothetical admissions decision. “On the other hand, our Finance Team understands the economic value associated with any student: they’re ‘customers’ the state pays us to educate.”
• Kairos received $163,000 in 2020 through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. The school also anticipates receiving about $2 million in coronavirus relief for public schools from the U.S. Department of Education, according to its records.
• The Kairos handbook says staff must keep financial information, vendor contracts and curriculum confidential.
The expansion of Torchlight Academy Schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, is in trouble. Despite their mishandling and misreporting of students in special education, their financial irregularities and missing records, they are still in business. The state charter board has closed two of their charters, but others are still operating, and Torchlight hopes to add more charters. One–the Three Rivers Academy–was closed in January after numerous deficiencies were identified. According to NC Policy Watch:
Don McQueen, operator of Three Rivers Academy, allegedly padded enrollment numbers, paid families so students would attend class, and took other extreme measures to ensure state per-pupil funds kept flowing to the troubled charter school in Bertie County.
A state advisory board will discuss Monday the fate of a 600-student Raleigh charter school that is under fire for for its handling of special education programming.
Monday’s meeting will be the latest in a string of tense meetings with state charter school officials for Donnie McQueen, executive director of Torchlight Academy Schools. In less than a year, the state has revoked charters for two of his schools because of violations.
The meeting will take place just days after records show the state was still waiting for Torchlight Academy to produce financial and contractual records — including records that would be legally public for traditional public schools but that are not legally public for public charter schools…
The school is on the highest level of state noncompliance status, following state findings that the school had been “grossly negligent” in its oversight of the exceptional children program, also known as special education. The state is now overseeing, but not controlling, school finances.
The State Board of Education asked the Charter School Advisory Board to review:
Potential misuse of federal and state funds, including grant funds.
Governance concerns, including a lack of oversight.
Potential conflicts of interest by its principal and executive director — Cynthia and Donnie McQueen. Specifically, whether their actions on behalf of or in lieu of board of directors or management organization have benefited them personally…
The school has posted average performance grades and academic growth in recent years.
Last year, the state found the school didn’t properly implement the program as required by the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, altered and falsified student records, falsely reported training compliance, did not provide adequate access to student and finance records, and had unqualified staff.
The school protested being moved to the highest level of noncompliance, citing new training for staff and other changes the school was making to improve.
Officials complained of the voluminous records requested by the state and argued it was being treated differently than others schools…
Charter schools are public schools, but they are not subject to the same public disclosure laws as traditional public school districts. For example, charter schools don’t have to make employees’ salaries public. They also don’t need to disclose contracts, such as a lease contract.
The records the state sought related to financial documents included any records between the school or Torchlight Academy Schools and three organizations owned by other school officials.
Torchlight Academies currently manages two charters and hopes to manage another five.
When a bright young man or woman gets an idea to replace experienced educators with inexperienced tyros and is quickly funded by billionaire foundations, you can guess that the ultimate goal is privatization. For one thing, the enterprise rests on a base claim that “our schools are failing,” and that experience is irrelevant and probably harmful.
The idea was so spot-on that the organization attracted millions of dollars from the plutocrats of privatization: Eli Broad, Bill Gates, the Walton Family Foundation, and many more.
Where are the miracle schools led by New Leaders? That’s a hard question to answer.
What Ultican demonstrates is the continuing relevance of New Leaders for New Schools. One of its illustrious graduates was behind the recent decision by the board of the Oakland Unified School District to resume closing schools, despite overwhelming opposition by students, parents, and educators.
Jennifer Hawes Berry of the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, wrote this account of a Charleston high school struggling to improve and raise its graduation rate, even as its enrollment dwindles in the era of school choice. The main effect of school choice seems to be the damage inflicted on the local public high school. The original story was published in 2015 and updated in 2020.
She writes:
Once a powerhouse Class AAAA school, North Charleston High can barely field sports teams anymore. Half of its classrooms sit empty. Saddled with a reputation for fights, drugs, gangs and students who can’t learn, middle-class families no longer give it a chance.
This is the unintended consequence of school choice.
Berry writes about the senior prom. Before “choice” drained the school of students, the prom drew 250 graduates. Now only about 60 attend.
She writes:
Fresh from jail, the 17-year-old has been at North Charleston High for six days. Principal Robert Grimm fought enrolling the teen given he came with an armed robbery conviction.
A district official said: You have to.
So, the new kid walked into the glass front doors and down the cinder block hallways, bringing with him only a handful of credits and a rap sheet.
Six days later, as students surge into the hallways during a morning class change, he starts shouting and bumping into another boy on the third floor.
Assistant Principal Vanessa Denney responds to the call for help. An ebony-haired Jersey girl, this is her first year at the school. She rushes toward the teens, fueled by an instinct to protect.
But the new kid crosses an invisible and clearly understood line.
With both hands, he shoves her down onto the floor hard enough to leave bruises. Denney doesn’t top 5 feet in stilettos. He outweighs her by 50 pounds.
Other students hurry over to help. Rodrik Rodriguez, the school’s burly North Charleston police officer, barrels in. He orders the student to calm down.
The 17-year-old doesn’t calm down. Rodriguez arrests him.
Then the teen crosses another clear line: He threatens to come back and shoot the officer, Rodriguez writes in a police report. “Watch what happens when I get back. I’m going to straight drop you, brah.”
New charges accompany the teen’s return to jail: threatening the life of a public official and second-degree assault and battery. He faces prison time, if convicted, and expulsion.
So the 17-year-old who Grimm didn’t want to enroll, who arrived with few credits and stayed six days, may wind up counting as a non-graduate on North Charleston High’s critical graduation rate.
The numbers game
It’s Wednesday morning, when several North Charleston High staffers will gather around an oval conference table next to Grimm’s office to tackle an onerous task: scouring the list of students who will count as dropouts because they have vanished from these hallways.
With the seniors set to cross the stage in a month, time is running out to find students who last enrolled here but might be going to school elsewhere — or who could be persuaded to come back and finish high school.
Denney sits in her office poring over a roster of students counted as enrolled at the school. An educator turned detective, she must track down those whose names show up on the list but whose bodies aren’t warming a classroom seat.
If she can prove the teens are enrolled somewhere else, North Charleston High can scratch them from its rolls — and boost its graduation rate. If not, they count.
Report in hand, Denney heads downstairs to a conference room beside Grimm’s office, joining Data Clerk Kathleen Luciano.
Grimm huffs in, radiating ire.
A parent scheduled to meet with him didn’t show up. For the seventh time. And he’s just learned that two new students have appeared on the school’s non-graduate list. Both enrolled here as freshmen, then never stepped foot on campus.
Now he fears they’ll look like two more dropouts on the school’s graduation rate this year.
Grimm grabs his cell phone, dials the school district offices and makes his case.
“But she never stepped foot on this campus!” he insists.
As of today, the school has 84 students who should be seniors and graduate this year.
Of those, 58 likely will cross the stage in a month. Another 12 are self-contained special education students who are unable to pursue traditional diplomas. Yet they will count as non-graduates on North Charleston High’s state report card because rules about treatment of children with disabilities require all students be calculated alike.
But it means that this school, which has the highest percentage of special education students of all high schools in Charleston County, can achieve at most a 77 percent graduation rate, still below the district’s goal, even if every other student here graduates in four years.
The state likely will give it closer to 66 percent.
That’s because, as of this meeting, 14 students who should be crossing the stage are God knows where instead.
Denney recently found one should-be senior on Facebook posting photos of herself partying at clubs, new baby at home. Another earned a GED — but will count as a non-graduate per state reporting rules. One is in a psychiatric hospital refusing to do school work.
Then there is the 17-year-old charged with assaulting Denney. Another new student just was arrested for two gun violations in his neighborhood. Both likely will be expelled. Both could spend time in prison.
A student peeks into the conference room door. He just arrived at school, an hour late because he relies on a CARTA bus. He just moved — again — this time to live with an older sister.
Twenty-two years later, she is promoting a plan that would bypass the Governor and the public. Under Michigan law, the Governor can’t veto it, and the public can’t repeal it. No state referendum has ever gone well for voucher advocates. To avoid Governor Whitmer’s veto and a public referendum, Republicans have designed a plan to bypass both.
Former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, an avid and longtime proponent of school choice, headlined a virtual kick-off Wednesday for a GOP-supported ballot measure opponents argue would suck funds out of public schools.
“I trust parents and I believe in students. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a shared value in Lansing,” DeVos told parents and supporters during the “Let MI Kids Learn” Facebook livestream Wednesday morning.
“I’ve been told what many of you have been told over the years: ‘Sit down, go away. This isn’t your role. You’re not the expert, we’re the experts. Leave it to us,’” said DeVos, a former Michigan GOP chair who ran the U.S. Education Department under former President Donald Trump. “Well, I happen to believe that the best expert for a child is that child’s family. … It’s why I believe that we have to change the power structure in education and give students and families more control.”
DeVos joined a panel of pro-school choice parents during the virtual event to launch the Let MI Kids Learn initiative. The ballot initiative was unveiled by Republicans in November to create a school voucher-style system that would use public tax dollars to fund private education.
Opponents argue the plan violates the Michigan Constitution. In 1970, voters passed the Blaine Amendment, which prohibits public money from going to private schools. And opponents to these bills say they violate that constitutional amendment.
The DeVos family already had given the measure $350,000, plus $25,000 from the DeVos-backed Great Lakes Education Project, the Detroit News reports. Other big donors include Get Families Back to Work, which has the same address as the Republican Governors Association, and gave $800,000. The State Government Leadership Fund, an offshoot of the Republican State Leadership Committee, also contributed $475,000.
The initiative came after Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed voucher-style education bills earlier that month that would have given tax credits to Michiganders who contributed to a scholarship program for non-public schools.
But now, since the Let MI Kids Learn ballot drive has been approved by the state Board of Canvassers, supporters — including the powerful right-wing DeVos family — can begin drumming up support and collecting signatures.
If the group successfully collects 340,000 signatures, the GOP-controlled Legislature will be able to vote the petition into law instead of voters deciding in November. Whitmer’s signature is not needed for this to happen, nor can the Democratic governor veto the measure.
“I’m more fired up now than ever. … It’s hard to believe anyone would oppose this opportunity,” DeVos said Wednesday.
Democrats and groups like AFT Michigan — a union which represents 35,000 educators and healthcare providers in schools across the state — oppose the measure and others like it, arguing they redirect public dollars from already-struggling public schools to fund tuition for private educations.
The Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools (MiPASS) also opposes the initiative. Members released a statement Wednesday blasting DeVos for “exploiting the pandemic to push her charter school agenda.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 