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Adam Laats: Betsy DeVos and the Politics of Fear

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2021 //
7

Adam Laats, a historian of education and history at Binghamton University, explains why Betsy DeVos was stunningly ignorant and indifferent to the nation’s public schools. She didn’t care about them and considered it to be a waste of time to learn about them. And he adds some lessons from America’s past that illustrate the dark fears that conservatives express about public schools as sinister places where children are indoctrinated to leftist ideology.

The strange career of Betsy DeVos has been only the latest instance of this long legacy of conservative educational activism. Even before she became Trump’s education secretary, she harangued conservative audiences that public schools were nothing but a “dead end.” It wasn’t merely that public schools offered worse academics, DeVos warned. In a speech in late 2020, DeVos articulated some of her guiding beliefs about the dangers of public education. Public schools, DeVos suggested, threatened to yank children from the loving care of their homes and churches and wipe away “every distinctive feature of families.” Instead of sustaining and reinforcing the religious beliefs of conservative Christians, DeVos agreed, public schools would only cram “uniform guidance” down every student’s throat.

By injecting toxic strains of fear and suspicion into every dialogue, DeVos poisoned educational politics from the very top. Her strategy of attacking public education helps explain why she was so successful in keeping her seat in Trump’s Cabinet. President Trump himself harped on the same refrain...

The odd tenure of Betsy DeVos doesn’t make much sense in traditional terms. She was a department leader who despised her department, a spokesperson for public education who didn’t have any idea what to say. In more normal political times, it would have been impossible for her to keep her job. However, in the poisonous atmosphere of Trump’s White House, DeVos fit right in. Like her boss, she did not deal in facts and figures, in policies and plans. Instead, she drew on the long tradition of right-wing fright campaigns.

Why didn’t she bother to learn anything about public education? Because she knew her success lay elsewhere. As conservative activists have done for generations, Betsy DeVos only needed to attack a figment of the conservative imagination. She did not need to know what went on in real schools, because she only needed to resurrect a cartoonish misrepresentation, a bogeyman that had long haunted conservative nightmares.


Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry

Julian Vasquez Heilig Schools Jonathan Chait about Charters

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2021 //
21

This post was originally published on January 6. The day turned into a full-scale riot as Trump urged his devoted followers to march on the Capitol. They did, they invaded it, they vandalized it, they went looking for legislators and the Vice-President with murderous intent. We narrowly averted a coup that day, and thank God, none of our legislators were killed, though several of them feared for their lives, and five people (including a Capitol Police officer) died.

Thus, due to the national Insurrection, many people did not get to read this outstanding critique by Heilig.

Julian Vasquez Heilig directly refuted journalist Jonathan Chait on the subject of charters, citing research that is unknown to Chait.

Here is an excerpt from Heilig’s brilliant article:

In this blog I respond to Jonathan Chait’s grossly unfounded opinions in the New York Magazine article entitled Unlearning an Answer with data, peer reviewed research and by highlighting the work of scholars who have conducted extensive research about charter schools. I will also recognize when the predominance of the research supports his opinions.

Political support for Charters is waning among Democrats Chait writes that “political support among Democrats has collapsed.” Chait is right on this point, it’s true political support amongst Democrats has dropped. In a recent meeting I was shown internal polling from the November 2020 election that indicates this fact. I also saw in the same data that Republicans are bigger fans of vouchers than they are of charters. The memory of Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump’s unwavering support for charters will probably have a longstanding and poisonous political legacy for Democratic party support of charter schools. Also, this past year, I met with legislative staffs on the Hill and they relayed that previously increased federal funding for charters was a requirement for Republicans in previous budgets but in recent years they have had other priorities besides charters— such as vouchers.

Charter Schools do not deliver extraordinary results— in fact on average their results are quite limited.Contrary to Chait’s argument, as an academic, I can assuredly tell you that “education researchers” HAVE NOT been shocked by charter schools gains— I think unimpressed is probably a better word. Check out this extensive list of more than 30 National Education Policy Center “top experts” whose peer reviewed research findings are largely contrary to Chait’s grandiose claims about school choice. Also, Chait cited studies produced by The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) located at the conservative Hoover Institution. CREDO studies are not blind peer reviewed. But Chait and charter school supporters point to CREDO’s 2015 urban charter study to say that African American and Latino students have more success in charter schools. Leaving aside the methodological integrity of the study for a moment, what Chait and charter proponents don’t mention is that the performance impact is .008 and .05 for Latinos and African Americans in charter schools, respectively. These impact numbers are larger than zero, but you need a magnifying glass or telescope to see them. Contrast that outcome with policies such as pre-K and class size reduction with far more unequivocal measures of success than charter schools— often more than double and triple the impact of charter schools. Also, CREDO doesn’t usually compare schools in their studies. Instead, researchers use statistics to compare a real charter school student to a virtual (imaginary) student based on many students attending a limited subset sample of neighborhood public schools. Considering the limited impact, criticism of CREDO’s methods, and lack of blind peer review— Chait problematically leans on the CREDO as important evidence demonstrating charter school success.

New Orleans is not a charter success story. Chait mentioned New Orleans as a charter success story. Notably, New Orleans charters and Louisiana have been last and nearly in most educational data (NAEP, ACT scores, and Advanced Placement scores, dropout, and graduation). Further, a near majority of charters schools in New Orleans are rated D or F. Does that sound like a success story to you? Where education reformers actually succeeded in New Orleans was in realizing their goal to close NEARLY ALL the neighborhood public schools and replace them with (primarily poorly performing) charters.

Virtual and for-profit charters are performing poorly. Chait is correct when he says, “One variant of the charter-school model — schools operated by for-profit organizations, which account for about 12 percent of the category — tend to do badly. Another kind, “virtual” charters that conduct classes online, are regarded by experts almost uniformly as a scam.” Research using federal data by the Network for Public Education (NPE) will soon show that the national percentage of for-profit charters is actually underestimated nationally by charter school lobbying groups— it is a larger proportion than reported by Chait (stay tuned). For research on the problematic performance of for-profit schools and virtual schools, I recommend you take a look at research by Kevin Welner (University of Colorado) and Gary Miron (Western Michigan University).

Charter school admissions and student retention is not as simple as “lotteries” and “voting with your feet.” Thus, due to widespread access and inclusion issues. Charters are NOT a perfect laboratory for research or— on average— bastions of student success. While students may enter charters via lottery, student attrition is an extensive problem for charter schools. For example, we conducted an analysis of state data and published the work as a peer reviewed study in the Berkeley Review of Education. We found that approximately 40% of Black students left KIPP before graduation and identified a similar problem in other independent and network charters. This is not an unusual finding in peer reviewed research. I asked several nationally known scholars of school choice research to share articles that the public could consider in the debate surrounding charter access and inclusion. You can read that crowd sourced list of research here. The research they cited indicates that charter schools have extensive issues with access and inclusion. 

The Chait talking point that charter schools provide an ideal laboratory for elite studies because of lotteries is not grounded in fact. First, from my experience, charter schools don’t particularly like to be studied by academic researchers. One of my former doctoral students at the University of Texas at Austin sought to study access of special education students to charter schools in Texas. She contacted hundreds of charter schools in Texas and less than ten agreed to participate in her dissertation research. Also, years ago I had agreed to conducted a study to explain extensive African American student attrition at KIPP Austin. KIPP Austin changed their mind once they discovered we planned to publish the study in a peer reviewed journal. Second, Chait points out a policy brief about charters and the achievement gap. It is notable that the review he cited stated at the outset that, “a number of which share a no excuses philosophy, tend to produce the largest gains.” It is well known in the peer reviewed research literature that “no excuses” charters school serially crop and suspend students of color which creates a creamed population of students. Scholars of colors such as Laura Hernández (Learning Policy Institute), Janelle Scott (University of Pennsylvania), Terrenda White (University of Colorado), Kevin Lawrence Henry (University of Wisconsin), Chris Torres (Michigan State University), Joanne Golann (Vanderbilt University), and Chezare Warren (Vanderbilt University) have extensively studied the “carceral” practices, pedagogies & experiences of parents/students of color in no excuses charters (The words of Professor Janelle Scott in this thread on Twitter). A quick Google search of any of these scholars will reveal their important and critical work about charter access and inclusion the incorrect framing of the issue by Chait.

In summary, due to extensive access and inclusion issues, the predominance of the peer reviewed research has demonstrated that charter schools have been problematic for students of color and less importantly are NOT a perfect laboratory for studying student success due to student attrition and exclusion. Furthermore, the proposition that charters can produce dramatic learning gains on average and without expunging students is STILL in serious question in the field of education policy analysis considering the extensively documented access and inclusion issues in the peer reviewed research. Thus, Chait’s arguments on access and equity largely deal in charter school talking points rather than research and data deep dives.

Was school choice created to empower students and families of color or instead derived from other ideological goals? Writing in the 1960s, the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, followed by John Chubb and Terry Moe in the 1990s, argued for a profit-based education system where resources are controlled by private entities rather than by democratically elected governments. They recommended a system of public education built around parent-student choice, school competition, and school autonomy as a solution to what they saw as the problem of direct democratic control of public schools.

According to Chait concern about charter schools is primarily from “white liberals.” Actually, there is a long-term history of opposition from communities of color to private-management of public resources and charters schools. NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois, in his essay Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism in the U.S., extolled the virtues of collaborative social and government action. He railed against the role of businesses and corporate control that “usurp government” and made the “throttling of democracy and distortion of education and failure of justice widespread.” Martin Luther King Jr. argued that we often have socialism in public policy for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor. Du Bois and King would have recognized the current pattern we see— charters (on average more segregated than nearby neighborhood schools) located primarily in urban and poor areas rather than wealthy suburban enclaves. Conservative think tanks and other neoliberal proponents pressing for market-based school choice in the name of “civil rights” ignore this history of African American civil rights leaders advocating for collaborative, democratic systems of social support and distrusting “free market” policies. Furthermore, the NAACP has for years been consistent in its critique of charters schools. At the 2010 convention, the NAACP national board and members supported a national anti-charter resolution saying that state charter schools create “separate and unequal conditions.” More recently, in 2014, the NAACP connected school choice with the private control of public education in a national resolution. A 2016 national resolution, voted on by more than 2,000 NAACP delegates from across the nation, called for a charter school moratorium based on a variety of civil rights-based critiques such as a lack of accountability, increased segregation, and disparate punitive and exclusionary discipline for African Americans.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Hoax

Emiliana Dore: Charter Schools Are Not the Answer!

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2021 //
15

Emiliana Dore wrote a powerful article at Medium about the importance of public schools and why charter schools do not promote racial or social justice. Her article was posted by Carl J. Petersen, a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.

Dore, a public school parent and advocate, wrote in response to an article at The 74 contending that charter schools were models for teaching kindness and anti-racism. Dore strongly disagreed.

In response, she wrote:

I agree with Ms. Nurick that kindness, caring and an awareness of diversity are very important qualities to teach in our schools. I also believe that we should be doing more to integrate our schools and communities. But demonizing our public schools and creating carefully curated charter schools that cater to a few select students is not the way to nurture future social justice leaders. We have a long way to go before we reach an equitable education system in this country, but charter schools are not the answer.

Dore cited the ample evidence of embezzlement and self-dealing in the charter industry and the instability of charter schools, which open and close at a dizzying rate.

Yet, despite these clear bad faith players in the charter industry, charter advocates fought tooth and nail against all of the charter accountability bills. If you really want to create schools that foster greater equity, why fight against transparency and accountability? In memos uncovered via a recent public records request, two charter advocacy groups, Los Angeles Advocacy Council (LAAC) and California Charter School Association (CCSA), gleefully celebrated their role working with pro-charter school board members to remove the Office of the LAUSD Inspector General’s (OIG) oversight of charter schools. The memo claims that this “should be seen as a major win by and for the charter community.” It may be a win for the “charter community”, but it is not a win for the BIPOC [black, indigenous, and people of color] and low-income communities that are so often targeted by questionable charters.

Both the NAACP and Black Lives Matter conducted studies about the impact of charter schools on BIPOC communities. The hope was that charter schools might be the silver bullet that they promise to be. Instead, the studies concluded that while some BIPOC families do benefit from charter schools, on the whole, charter schools do not outperform public schools, and they are causing a great deal of harm to minority and low-income neighborhoods. The NAACP study also found that charter schools were causing our schools to be more segregated. The Students Deserve group here in Los Angeles has also called for our leaders to invest in public schools and stop charter expansion. When will our local leaders start to listen?..

The problems with charters extend beyond politics. Due to the ill-conceived Prop 39, charter schools like Citizens of the World can co-locate on public school campuses. In theory, two small schools sharing space on one campus might not sound so bad, but when all of the advantages are on the charter side, it becomes a much more questionable practice. Prop 39 requires the district to provide charter schools with a list of schools that have available space. By law, that means any part of a school that isn’t actively used as a classroom is up for grabs — computer labs, gardens built by the community, after school enrichment programs — can all be taken away from local public school kids to make way for a charter. Public school families have zero say in this process. Even worse, co-location requests are based on prospective charter school enrollment. Many charters have been caught posting on local parent boards asking parents to sign up for their school, even if they do not intend to enroll. This practice of inflating enrollment means that imaginary charter school kids can take away space from actual public school kids. Charter schools are supposed to pay an over-allocation penalty for space they take from public schools but do not use. Within the LAUSD many charters are woefully behind on payments with one charter school openly scoffing at the idea of paying funds that it legally owes to the LAUSD...

My big hope is that we can start working together to make education better for all of the kids in our neighborhoods — not just the lucky few who are selected by lottery. To my fellow white parents, especially, please consider sending your child to a local public school. Ignore Great Schools, which was founded with charter money specifically to seed doubt in our local neighborhood schools. Join the Integrated Schools community and listen to podcasts like Nice White Parents or Season 2 of The Promise. Instead of creating our own schools, imagine if we pooled all of our resources and worked hard together to support and strengthen our neighborhood schools. Imagine providing exceptional learning opportunities for every single child.

Charter proponents have long pushed a narrative about our public schools failing, but maybe we need to reframe that discussion and realize that we are the ones who are failing our public schools. We have been shamefully underfunding them for years — especially here in California where we spend close to $8,500 less annually per student than New York City. I am encouraged that President-elect Biden has committed to reigning in charter failure and fraud, and has appointed public school educator Miguel Cardona as Secretary of Education. If we truly want to build an education system that works for everyone, the answer is not privately run charter schools. The only true solution is fully-funded, equitable public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Supporting public schools

Will Jeff Bezos Seek Control of American Education?

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2021 //
66

This is the scariest article of the week or month, not counting the violent rampage of Trump allies on January 6.

Dominik Dresel writes in Edsurge about Jeff Bezos’ entry into the education “market.”

He begins:

Bezos, more than any other tech entrepreneur, is known to play the long game, masterfully. In a now-famous 1997 interview, he candidly explained why Amazon started out by selling books. (Hint: It had nothing to do with Bezos’ love for literature. Books were simply a stepping stone, the “best first thing” to sell.) Less than three decades later, Amazon has become not just the world’s largest online retailer, but also a global leader in areas as diverse as cloud computing, home security and digital content production. And we’ve only seen the beginning—within the next few years, the company is poised to disrupt the healthcare market, become the market leader in online advertising, establish itself as a competitor to USPS, FedX and UPS, and provide global access to broadband internet through a network of satellites orbiting the planet… to name but a few examples.

It would be easy to think that Amazon’s rapid expansion into industry after industry is just the natural, opportunistic path of a cash-flush company seeking to invest in new, lucrative markets. But Jeff Bezos, himself a graduate of a Montessori preschool, doesn’t think in short-term opportunities. His early annual shareholder letters bear titles such as “It‘s All About the Long Term” (1997), “Building for the Long Term” (1999) and “Taking the Long View” (2000), and they are testimony to the fact that every strategic decision he makes is part of a larger, long-term plan.

Becoming a driving force in public education may, at first, seem like a long shot for Amazon. While Google, Microsoft and Apple have been pursuing their ambitions in K-12 and higher education for more than a decade, Amazon has mostly remained at the sidelines.

But foraying into the complex sphere that is public education is a matter of when, not if, for Jeff Bezos. To understand why, it is worthwhile to consider three principles that have guided Amazon’s strategic investment and growth decisions since its founding days.

Read the article to understand Bezos’ three principles and why he might see public schools as ripe for disruption, like the other billionaires before him. As I explained in my recent book Slaying Goliath, the tech billionaires love to disrupt the lives of other people’s children. They have had no success, only failure. But that doesn’t stop them.

Categories Billionaires, Data, Education Industry, Privatization, Technology

Letter from a Connecticut Teacher to Dr. Cardona: Stop the Spring Tests!

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2021 //
21

Ann Cronin, retired teacher in Connecticut, posted a letter on her blog written by another Connecticut teacher and addressed to Secretary of Education-Designate Miguel Cardona:

Jeannette C. Faber writes to tell Dr. Cardona that it is time to end standardized testing, now!

Dear Commissioner Cardona:

Connecticut is proud that you, our Commissioner of Education, was chosen as the Biden/Harris administration’s Secretary of Education. 

Educators support your dedication to: increasing graduation rates, closing the achievement gap, and ensuring equity for all students. All educators should be committed to making these goals a reality. America’s children need and deserve this. 

However, educators also know that the regime of profit-driven standardized testing will not improve teaching and learning. They never have.

  • If educators are forced to teach to a test in order to increase graduation rates, students are merely learning how to take a test. This is antithetical to what 21st-century learning should look like: problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, project-based learning, capstone projects, creativity, and more. 
  • If schools are pressured to close the achievement gap, but their only tools are computer programs that hold students hostage to rote “learning”, then students are not experiencing rich and meaningful learning. Only 21st-century learning experiences will increase graduation rates that are credible and that actually prepare students for a growingly complex world.
  • If equity means giving students in impoverished areas less rich and meaningful learning, by continuing the standardized testing regime, the equity gap will only increase. What students in impoverished areas need is much more of what students in more affluent areas already have. Connecticut’s discriminatory per-pupil expenditure disparity tells the whole, sad story. 

Dr. Cardona, what holds schools back from making meaningful progress are ill-conceived federal mandates. These mandates have never improved the quality of teaching and learning. They never will. Test scores may have increased. As well as graduation rates. However, those are meaningless if they are not products of rich and meaningful teaching and learning. 

No standardized test can measure 21st-century skills. Hence, standardized tests cannot cultivate the acquisition of those skills.

We ask you, Dr. Cardona, to recommit yourself to the vital goals you have set by shifting the paradigm. Shift how we achieve those goals. That requires ending the testing regime started with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (2002 – 2015) and continued with Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” (2012 – 2016).

We, Dr. Cardona, are asking Connecticut’s teachers, parents, and students to send a strong message to you by refusing the standardized testing planned for this spring.  

We are also asking all who oppose the standardized-testing regime to sign this petition, which will be delivered to you, Dr. Cardona.

We are all trying to survive a global pandemic. In my 25 years in the classroom, I have never seen my students so stressed, depressed, and anxious. It is unnecessary and insensitive to add to the weight of their mental health struggles by adding the stress of standardized testing. Also, when thousands of stressed, depressed, and anxious students are forced to take a standardized test, will the results be accurate? Were they ever really accurate? Able to capture what students know and can do? Teachers know the answer: No!

Now is the time to end standardized testing. 

#RefuseTheTest 

#DoNotTakeTestingToDC. 

A faithful teacher,

Jeannette C. Faber – MS, MALS, EdD

Categories Cardona, Miguel, Connecticut, Education Industry, Resistance, Students, Teachers

John Thompson Reviews “A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door”: A Frightening Future Ahead

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2021 //
15

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews historian Jack Schneider and journalist Jennifer Berkshire’s A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door. Schneider and Berkshire have collaborated on podcasts called “Have You Heard.”

Thompson writes:

The first 2/3rds of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, is an excellent history of attacks on public education. It taught me a lot; the first lesson I learned is that I was too stuck in the 2010s and was wrong to accept the common view of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos as a “joke” and a “political naif.” The last 1/3rd left me breathless as Schneider’s and Berkshire’s warnings sunk in.

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door starts with an acknowledgement that DeVos isn’t the architect of the emerging school privatization tactics. That “radical agenda” has been decades in the making. But she represents a new assault on public education values. As Schneider and Berkshire note, accountability-driven, charter-driven, corporate reform were bad enough but they wanted to transform, not destroy public education. They wanted “some form” of public schools. DeVos’ wrecking ball treats all public schools as targets for commercialization. 

Schneider and Berkshire do not minimize the long history of attacks on our education system which took off after the Reagan administration’s A Nation at Risk blamed schools for “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation.” They stress, however, that it was a part of Reagan’s belief that our public schools and government, overall, were failing, and how it propelled a larger attack on public institutions.

Forty years later, free marketers are driving a four-point assault. They contend that “Education is a personal good, not a collective one,” and “schools belong in the domain of the Free Market, not the Government.” According to this anti-union philosophy, it is the “consumers” who should pay for schooling.

The roots of this agenda lie in the use of private school vouchers that began as an anti-desegregation tool. Because of “consumer psychology,” the scarcity of private schools sent the message that they were more valuable than neighborhood schools. But, neither private schools nor charter schools made good on their promise to deliver more value to families. Similarly, Right to Work legislation and the Janus vs AFSCME ruling have damaged but not destroyed collective bargaining.

Neither did online instruction allow the for-profit Edison schools or, more recently, for-profit virtual education charter chains to defeat traditional schools. Despite their huge investments in advertising spin, these chains produced disappointing outputs. For instance, DeVos claimed that virtual schools in Ohio, Nevada, and Oklahoma had grad rates approaching 100%. In reality, their results were “abysmal.”

To take one example, the Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy had a 40 percent cohort graduation rate, not the 91 percent DeVos claimed. It received a D on the Oklahoma A-to-F Report Card for 2015-16. Also, in 2015, a Stanford study of 200 online charters found that students lost 72 days per year of learning in reading and 180 in math in a 180-day year.

Such dismal results prompted more calls for regulations for choice schools. Rather than accept more oversight, free marketers doubled down on the position that parents are the only regulators. To meet that goal, they borrowed the roadmap for Higher Education for-profits, adopting the tactics that failed educationally but made them a lot of money.

So, Schneider and Berkshire borrow the phrase “Lower Ed” from Tressie Cottom  as they explain how privatizers patterned their movement after Higher Ed where 10 percent of students attended for-profit institutions. Their profits came from the only part of public or Higher Education that could produce big savings, reducing expenditures on teaching. This meant that since the mid-1970s tenure-track faculty dropped by ½, as tenured faculty dropped by 26 percent. Consequently, part-time teachers increased by 70 percent.

Moreover, by 2010, for-profit colleges and universities employed 35,000 persons. They spent $4.2 billion or 22.7 percent of all revenue on marketing and recruiting. 

In other words, the market principles of the “gig economy” are starting to drive the radical “personalized” education model that would replace “government schools.” Savings would begin with the “Uberization” of teaching.  A glimpse of the future, where the value of a teaching career is undermined, can be found on the “Shared Economy Jobs” section of JobMonkey where education has its own “niche.” Teachers could expect to be paid about $15 per hour.

And that leads the system of “Education, a la Carte,” which affluent families need not embrace but that could become a norm for disadvantaged students. What is advertised as “personalization” is actually “unbundling” of curriculum. Algorithms would help students choose courses or information or skills and teachers (who “could be downsized to tech support”) that students think they need.

Worse, this “edvertising” is full of “emotional appeals, questionable claims, and lofty promises.” Its “Brand Pioneers” started with elite schools’ self-promotion and it led to charters adopting the “Borrowing Prestige” dynamic where the implicit message is that charters share the supposed excellence of private schools. And then, charters like Success Academy took the “brand identity” promotions a step further, spent $1,000 per student on marketing SA logo on You-Tube, Twitter, Instagram, baby onesies, and headphones.

Schneider and Berkshire also described the KIPP “Brand Guidelines” video which compares the charter chain to Target, which wouldn’t represent its business differently in different cities. So, it says that every conversation a KIPP teacher has about the school is “a touch point for KIPP’s brand.”

Similar edvertising techniques include the exaggerated size of waiting lists for enrolling in charter chains. Their marketing role is sending the message, “Look how many people can’t get in.”  Charters have even engaged in “market cannibalism,” for instance issuing gift cards for enrolling children in the school.

Worse, demographic trends mean that the competition between choice schools and traditional schools will become even more intense as the percentage of school age children declines, For instance, 80 percent of new households in Denver since 2009 didn’t have children. And even though corporate reformers and DeVos-style free marketers have failed to improve education, their marketing experts have shown an amazing ability to win consumers over.

So, here’s Schneider’s and Berkshire’s “Future Forecast:”

The Future Will Be Ad-Filled;

The Future Will Be Emotionally Manipulated;

The Future Will Be Micro-Targeted;

The Future Will Have Deep Pockets;

The Future Will Tell You What You Want.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Data, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Vouchers

In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos Lives On

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2021 //
6

The nonpartisan, independent organization called “In the Public Interest” reports on efforts to privatize public services. Its education newsletter is called “Cashing In on Kids.”

Here is its latest updates on the DeVos education agenda:

Welcome to Cashing in on Kids, an email newsletter for people fed up with the privatization of America’s public schools—produced by In the Public Interest.

Not a subscriber? Sign up. And make sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Sure, Betsy DeVos resigned. But, as Marianna Islam, director of programs and advocacy for the Schott Foundation, says, “Betsy Devos has not really left until all of her harmful policies are overturned and policies that advance racial equity are put into place.” Retweet this

And now other news…

Which federal agency has funded more charter school facilities than any other? The U.S. Department of Agriculture. At least according to Chicago-based Wert-Berater, LLC, the self-described “leading” company in facilitating the charter school industry’s lucrative real estate sector by providing “feasibility studies.” WBOC

Is the charter school industry on the skids? Journalist Jeff Bryant looks at the charter school industry’s rate, particularly in North Carolina. “Much of the rationale for the perceived need for charter schools often seems to boil down to marketing.” AlterNet

Pro-charter money goes to California governor recall effort. The right-wing charter school backer, John Kruger, has given $500,000 to an effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). GV Wire

Georgia lawmakers eye vouchers. Georgia state lawmakers will be taking up the issue of private school vouchers in their new session. “Proponents could limit efforts to expanding Georgia’s current special needs scholarship program benefitting students with disabilities. A similar bill passed the Senate last year but failed in the House.” AP

Texas too. A voucher bill has been introduced into the Texas legislature. “Do we really have time to rehash this?” tweeted Charles Luke of the Coalition for Public Schools. “The legislature has only voted vouchers down repeatedly for 25 years!”

New Hampshire takes the money. New Hampshire’s governor and executive council have accepted controversial funding for the expansion of charter schools in the state. In Depth NH

Following the money. Pennsylvania’s online charter schools have used federal COVID-19 relief funds to purchase technology and cleaning supplies and send Target gift cards and phones to families. The Times-Tribune

And the good news…

Local Indiana council supports charter school ban. Indiana’s Gary City Council has unanimously backed a resolution calling for a moratorium on new charter schools in support of state legislation being introduced by a local lawmaker. Chicago Tribune

Pennsylvania school district speaks out. School district officials in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County have spoken out on charter school funding. “Recently the United States Department of Education awarded a five-year $30 million grant to Pennsylvania Brick and Mortar Charter Schools to increase their academic success. All the while, many Pennsylvania Public Schools are cutting programs in order to continue to pay for charter school costs, some even becoming financially distressed due to this burden.” Skook News

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, School Choice, Vouchers

Atlanta: Charter Schools Rake in Millions in PPP Funds for “Not-Public Schools”

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2021 //
7

Ed Johnson, fearless advocate for public schools in Atlanta, obtained a list of the charter schools in that city that received Paycheck Protection Program funding from the first CARES Act. Public schools were not allowed to apply for PPP funding. But charters were, because…they are not public schools!

After reviewing the millions in CARES money that went to Atlanta charters, Ed Johnson wrote to members of the Atlanta Board of Education:

Atlanta Board of Education members:

Some of you are, of course, pro-school choice and pro-charter school, thus serving contrary to your sworn Oath of Office vis-à-vis the Charter of the Atlanta Independent School System.

Nonetheless, hopefully all of you now know and understand the truth that charter schools in Atlanta are not Atlanta public schools, to wit:

https://mailchi.mp/4c303dcdd2b5/updated-aps-charter-school-businesses-rake-in-millions-of-ppp-loan-dollars

Thus:

·         Public schools must be spoken truthfully of as public schools, and as public goods.

·         Charter schools must be spoken truthfully of as charter schools, and as private businesses and corporations.

·         Partner schools must be spoken truthfully of as partner schools, and as public schools the Board outsourced to private businesses and corporations.

Just three types of school, thank you.

Ed Johnson

Advocate for Quality in Public Education

Atlanta GA | (404) 505-8176 | edwjohnson@aol.com

As noted in the link in Mr. Johnson’s letter, here are a few of the big winners of federal dollars (they also received a proportionate share of the meager dollars allotted to public schools, so they were double-dipping in both funds):

  • Purpose Built Schools Atlanta, Inc., received a PPP loan in the amount of $4,822,200.00, based on the business needing to protect 408 reported jobs, which figures to $11,819.12 per reported job.  SBA reported the business as being located at 1670 Benjamin Weldon Bickers Drive SE, Atlanta, GA 30315.
  • The Kindezi Schools Atlanta, LLC, received a PPP loan in the amount of $3,855,982.00, based on the business needing to protect 300 reported jobs, which figures to $12,853.27 per reported job.  SBA reported the business as being located at 950 Joseph E Lowery Blvd, Atlanta, GA 30318.
  • Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School, Inc., received a PPP loan in the amount of $1,850,000.00, based on the business needing to protect 120 reported jobs, which figures to $15,416.67 per reported job.  SBA reported the business as being located at 688 Grant St SE, Atlanta, GA 30315.

Unlike small businesses which lost revenue and were forced to lay off employees or close their doors, charter schools never lost revenue during the pandemic. Their stream of government revenue never was cut off. Meanwhile, as they sucked up CARES dollars, hundreds of thousands of small businesses that needed the money went bankrupt and closed forever.

No public school received this large amount of money. The average public school received $134,500 in federal aid in the first CARES Act.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Education Industry, Funding

Valerie Strauss: Growing Number of States Want Waivers from Annual Testing

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2021 //
32

Valerie Strauss writes in her Washington Post blog called “The Answer Sheet” about the growing number of states that want waivers from the federal requirement for annual testing. DeVos granted waivers last year but said she would not do it again. But she will be gone. Now it is up to Joe Biden and Miguel Cardona to decide whether it is wise to subject students to high-stakes standardized tests in a year where schools have repeatedly opened and closed, beloved teachers have died, family members have fallen ill, and many families are without food or a secure home.

I am sorry that the Secretary of Education-in-waiting describes the standardized tests as “an accurate tool,” because the only thing they accurately measure is family income, disability status, and English language proficiency. There are cheaper ways to get this information than to subject millions of children to useless standardized tests of reading and mathematics The tests are completely useless and provide no information to teachers about student progress: None. As Strauss points out, the results come in months after the tests were given, the students have different teachers, the teachers seldom see the questions and are not allowed to discuss them, and they never discover how their students answered any given question.

Let me repeat: The tests benefit no one other than the testing corporations, who collects hundreds of millions of dollars. Whatever we want to know about test scores and “achievement gaps” could have been gleaned at far less cost and inconvenience from the biennial National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), which was canceled this spring. The annual tests for individual students in grades 3-8 should have been canceled instead. No high-performing nation gives a standardized test to every student every year as we do.

Strauss writes:

There are growing calls from across the political spectrum for the federal government to allow states to skip giving students federally mandated standardized tests in spring 2021 — but the man that President-elect Joe Biden tapped to be education secretary has indicated support for giving them.

The issue will be an early test for Miguel Cardona, the state superintendent of education in Connecticut whom Biden picked for education secretary, and his relationship with teachers and others critical of giving the exams during the coronavirus-caused chaos of the 2020-2021 school year.

The current education secretary, Betsy DeVos, approved waivers to states allowing them not to administer the annual exams last spring as the coronavirus pandemic led schools to close. She said recently she wouldn’t do it again, but Biden’s triumph in November’s elections means the decision is no longer hers. It’s up to Cardona — assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, as expected — and the Biden administration to decide whether to provide states flexibility from the federal law.

The annual spring testing regime — complete with sometimes extensive test preparation in class and even testing “pep rallies” — has become a flash point in the two-decade-old school reform movement that has centered on using standardized tests to hold schools and teachers accountable. First under the 2002 No Child Left Behind law and now under its successor, the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, public schools are required to give most students tests each year in math and English language arts and to use the results in accountability formulas. Districts evaluate teachers and states evaluate schools and districts — at least in part — on test scores.

But just how much the scores from the spring tests ever reveal about student progress, even in a non-pandemic year, is a major source of contention in the education world.

Supporters say that they are important to determine whether students are making progress and that two straight years of having no data from these tests would stunt student academic progress because teachers would not have critical information on how well their students are doing.

Critics say that the results have no value to teachers because the scores come after the school year has ended and that they are not allowed to see test questions or know which ones their students got wrong. There are also concerns that some tests used for accountability purposes are not well-aligned to what students learn in school — and that the results only show what is already known: students from poor families do worse than students from families with more resources.

Enter Cardona into this testing thicket. Biden last week surprised the education establishment by naming Cardona, who less than two years ago was an assistant superintendent of a 9,000-student school district. One big factor in his favor for the Biden team was that he has not been a partisan in the education reform wars of the past two decades. Yet he won’t be able to avoid it over this issue.

Last spring, Connecticut, like other states, did not administer spring standardized tests after receiving waivers to the federal law from DeVos.

Cardona has said he wants students to take the exams this spring but with a caveat: He doesn’t want the results used to hold individual teachers, schools and districts accountable for student progress on the scores. (DeVos, too, had said she would have granted that kind of flexibility to states in 2021.)

“This [academic] year, we want to provide some opportunity for them [students] to tell us what they learned or what gaps exist so we can target resources,” Cardona said at a recent news conference before he was tapped by Biden, according to the Connecticut Post.

The education department he heads in Connecticut released a memo in October calling state assessments “important guideposts to our promise of equity.” It said: “They are the most accurate tool available to tell us if all students — regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, English proficiency, disability, or zip code — are growing and achieving at the highest levels.”

Cardona’s press secretary, Peter Yazbak, said the Biden transition team was answering all questions about his role as education secretary. The Biden team did not immediately comment about whether the new administration would consider providing waivers from the tests.

Cardona is already facing a growing chorus of voices who are demanding some flexibility from the federal law, including some that say forcing students to take the tests for any reason is a waste of money and time.

The Council of Chief State School Officers, a nonprofit that represents state education chiefs, released a statement this month calling for unspecified flexibility around the spring testing requirements. While its members are “committed to knowing where students are academically,” it said, “states need flexibility in the way they collect and report such data.” The CCSSO said it wants to work with the Biden administration “on a streamlined, consistent process that gives states the flexibility they need on accountability measures in the coming year.”

Others were more direct, including the two major teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. In a letter to the Biden transition team, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote:

“We know there are concerns that not having this data will make student achievement during covid-19 and particularly deeply troubling equity gaps less visible, that this will mean two years of lost data. However, there is no way that the data that would come out of a spring 2021 testing cycle would accurately reflect anything, and certainly not accurate enough to hold school systems accountable for results. But curriculum-linked diagnostic assessment is what will most aid covid-19 academic recovery, not testing for testing’s sake.

Another issue is whether the tests can be administered to all students safely this spring. Millions of students are still learning remotely from home as the pandemic continues to infect and kill Americans. Though Biden has called for the safe reopening of most schools within 100 days of his inauguration, it is not clear whether that will happen or whether the tests can be securely administered online.

Bob Schaeffer, interim director of a nonprofit called the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which works to stop the misuse of standardized tests, noted that DeVos recently sought the cancellation of the 2021 administration of the national test known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) because it could not be administered effectively and securely.

“IF NAEP is cancelled for 2021 due to pandemic-related concerns, how can federal and state mandated exams be administered safely and accurately this academic year?” Schaeffer said. Meanwhile, his group, FairTest, has launched a national effort for a suspension of all high-stakes standardized tests scheduled for spring 2021.

“This is why a waiver strategy is so necessary,” it says.

It’s not only state superintendents, teachers unions and testing critics who are looking for flexibility from the federal testing mandate.

As early as June, officials in Georgia said they would seek a waiver from the spring 2021 tests. DeVos’s Education Department denied the request, so this month, state officials agreed to dramatically reduce the importance of end-of-course exam grades for the 2020-2021 school year. They will have virtually no weight on students’ course grades.

In South Carolina, SCNOW.com reported, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a Republican who is among Trump’s strongest supporters, signed onto a letter calling for a testing waiver for spring 2021, as did Rep. Tom Rice (R).

Scores of Texas state representatives from both sides of the political aisle have joined to ask State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath to seek necessary federal waivers to allow the Texas Education Agency to cancel the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, test in the 2020-2021 school year.

A letter, sent by the office of Democratic Rep. Diego Bernal said: “The covid slide, an academic deficit that the agency has widely recognized, has resulted in students, across the state, being behind grade-level in nearly every subject. Instead of proceeding with the administration of the STAAR as planned, the agency, along with our districts and campuses, should be focused on providing high-quality public education with an emphasis on ensuring the health and safety of students and educators.”

In Ohio, Dayton schools Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli recently said that that state should seek a federal waiver from the spring standardized testing, WHIO-TV reported. “Using the standardized testing as we typically have done is inappropriate and ineffective,” Lolli said.

“The only thing it does is it rates poverty,” she said. “We know that the lowest scoring schools across this country are schools that have high numbers of children who live in poverty. That’s the only thing we’re doing [by testing] is identifying those locations once again.”

In North Carolina, the State Board of Education in early December tentatively approved a proposal that would have students take the exams but that would ask the federal government if it can have flexibility in how it uses the scores of the tests.

In Colorado, advocates for English-language learners have asked the state Board of Education to cancel ACCESS, the test these students take annually, or to make sure parents know that they can opt their children out without penalty.

Other actions are being taken in other states to persuade officials to seek and lobby for federal waivers, and that is likely to pick up in pace as spring approaches.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Cardona, Miguel, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Hoax, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Standardized Testing

Carol Burris: The CARES 2 Act Allows Charter Schools to Double Dip

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2021 //
4

As you probably know by now, charter schools took federal money from two different pots in the CARES Act passed last spring. They got a share of the money allocated for public schools, then had the privilege of getting more money from the Paycheck Protection Program, which was intended to save small businesses in danger of shuttering their doors.

Now there is new relief Act, which is far more generous to public schools, but still allows charter schools to count as both public schools and not-public schools.

Carol Burris did research on the new CARES Act (which she calls CARES2) and found that once again charters will be allowed to double-dip.

On December 21, Congress passed the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021.

CARES 2 (which I am dubbing the Act for simplicity) includes $54.3 billion for K-12 schools, which is about four times more than the last bill. It will be allocated to states to give out as subgrants to Local Education Agencies (LEAs). LEAs are school districts as well as the majority of charter schools. Those charter schools that are not independent of a school district will receive their funding in the same manner as district schools.

According to the law firm Arnold and Porter, which has an excellent summary of the Cares 2 here,  “Like the requirements in the CARES Act, the Secretary of Education must allocate ESSERF (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) funding based on the state’s share of Title I, Part A funds under ESEA, and states will allocate at least 90 percent of funds as subgrants to Title I schools.”

There is also more leeway on how funds can be used—practically, schools can use it for any activity allowed under federal law.

There is an additional pot of money ($4 billion) that the Secretary of Education will distribute. $1.3 billion can be used by the Governors for public schools and higher ed institutions that were the hardest hit by the pandemic. $2.75 billion can be distributed by governors to private schools. Congress expressly prohibits in the Act the use of any of that money to fund vouchers or tax credits for tuition. The funds must be used to keep the school going, and private schools with high-needs students get priority. 

Can private schools and charter schools dip into the SBA’s Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) funding again? 

Private schools that get money from the $2.75 billion cannot. The CARES2 specifically says they cannot double-dip.

However, there is nothing to prevent a charter school from double-dipping, that is, getting both the ESSERFand PPP2. PPP2 will allow charter schools that are first-time borrowers to apply without stipulation. Suppose the charter received PPP in the first round. In that case, they could apply again if they show a 25% decline in revenue. 

In the first round, charter schools received at least $1.5 billion dollars in PPP. Once again, public schools get the short end of the stick. 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization
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