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Larry Lee: What Charter Pushers Don’t Understand About Rural Communities Like Fruitdale

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2019 //
22

Larry Lee writes about a small town in Alabama called Fruitdale. He describes the central role of the public schools in that community. It is the anchor of the community.

The charter lobby doesn’t care about Fruitdale, its history, its people, its future. They have dollar signs in their eyes.

He begins:

Sweet Jesus. It was hot, like really, really hot. But what do you expect on an August afternoon in the middle of a football field just 90 miles from the Gulf of Mexico?
I was there to watch the 2019 version of the Fruitdale Pirates practice. Fruitdale is one of five high schools in Washington County. It’s a 1A school, the smallest classification in Alabama high school sports. There are dozens and dozens of such schools across the state, places where Dollar General coming to town is a big deal. (Fruitdale recently opened one.)

Places where community and school are joined at the hip. Take away the school and you’ve jerked the heart from the community.

This August afternoon coach Johnny Carpenter was getting his 32 players ready for their first game against A. L. Johnson of Marengo County. Carpenter grew up just down the road in Citronelle, played football at Mississippi State and met a cheerleader in college who later became both his wife and an M.D. This is his first year as a head coach.

When you coach at this level, you do it all. From teaching class, to cooking ribs for a fund-raiser, to lining the field, to selling signs to merchants to help pay the bills and to actually coaching. His staff is another teacher/coach, John Hobbs. Former player Michael Dubose is a volunteer coach.
There was a pep rally before the first game. Elementary, middle and high school students sweated and yelled. Cheerleaders cheered. Players were introduced. Later that afternoon, fifth grade boys went home and ran around their yard with a football dreaming of the day they could be a Pirate scoring touchdowns and making tackles. Fourth grade girls jumped and pumped their arms and yelled for their team.

I know about dreams and memories. Fifty-nine years ago this fall number 83 of the Theodore Bobcats scored the only touchdown of his high school football career. Quarterback Charles Bryant threw a short pass to his left end, a 160 pound farm boy, standing in the end zone. That touchdown catch will always be mine. No one can take it away from me.

More than anything, that is what Fruitdale is all about. A small school in a small place where dreams are realized and memories are made.

Categories Accountability, Alabama, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Rural Schools

David Koch Dies, Funder of Attacks on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2019 //
117

David Koch died of cancer a few days ago. He and his brother funded the free-market libertarianism that fueled the rise of the Tea Party and Trumpism. They zealously fought to destroy any government program that helped people, from Medicare to Social Security.

They were major funders of ALEC. They opposed any government regulations.

The story in the New York Times falls to mention that they funded attacks on public education and teacher certification, and they zealously supported charter schools and vouchers.

Interesting from the article:

In addition to Southampton, Mr. Koch had palatial homes on Park Avenue in Manhattan, in Aspen, Colo., and in Palm Beach, Fla. He kept a yacht in the Mediterranean for summer getaways and rented it out for $500,000 a week. His friends and acquaintances included Bill and Melinda Gates, Prince Charles and Winston Churchill’s grandson Winston Spencer Churchill.

No mention of the fact that the Koch brothers set up institutes to spread libertarianism at more than 300 colleges and universities. A resistance group called Unkoch My Campus emerged to expose their malign influence.

They insisted that they adhered to a traditional belief in the liberty of the individual, and in free trade, free markets and freedom from what they called government “intrusions,” including taxes, military drafts, compulsory education, business regulations, welfare programs and laws that criminalized homosexuality, prostitution and drug use.

More:

Among the groups they supported was the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of conservative state legislators and corporate lobbyists. Alec, as the group is known, drafts model state legislation that members may customize for introduction as proposed laws to cut taxes, combat illegal immigration, loosen environmental regulations, weaken labor unions and oppose gun laws.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Privatization

California: Charters Criticize Inspire Chain for Poaching Their Students

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2019 //
15

Charter vs. charter!

Charters in California are angry at the Inspire Charter chain for poaching their students. Inspire is the chain that caters to homeschooling parents.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/investigations/Inspire-Charter-School-Unethical-Practices-557802161.html

Critics of Inspire accuse the charter of using unethical practices to entice parents and students to leave their current charter schools and go to Inspire. A spokesperson for Inspire says the criticism is the result of the charter school’s “incredible growth.”

Inspire Charter runs a network of home schools operating throughout California; some of those schools are authorized by the Dehesa School District…

Through Inspire, parents receive instructional funds totaling $2,800 per year for students who are in kindergarten through eighth grade, according to the charter school. High school students can receive $3,000 every year. That money is used for curriculum and extra-curricular activities…

Another critic is Terri Schiavone, the Founder and Director of Golden Valley Charter School in Ventura. Schiavone says her school is one of many that are losing students to Inspire Charter.

“They target a school and then they try to get as many of their teachers and students as possible,” Schiavone said.

Schiavone said families and teachers are enticed by incentives like using instructional funds to buy tickets to Disneyland and other theme parks. Schiavone says there is a lack of oversight and accountability.

No one is making sure teachers are checking up on students’ work, and Schiavone says parents can buy whatever they want from vendors who she says are not fingerprinted or even qualified.

“It’s very desirable for some parents to enroll in schools in which nobody’s looking over their shoulder,” said Schiavone. “They can utilize whatever curriculum they want, including religious curriculum, which is illegal if using public dollars…”

But while supporters defend Inspire, the charter school has made moves to change its operations. It ended the option of using instructional funds to buy tickets to Disneyland and other theme parks last year, according to a letter sent to parents.

Then on August 1, Inspire closed its “Enrichment Adventure Program.” Through the program, parents could use their instructional funds for dinner theater productions, tickets to the Smithsonian, for example, when a family is on an out of state field trip.

Inspire says the other charters are jealous of their success.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Jan Resseger: For-Profit MGT Did NOT “Turn Around” the Schools of Gary, Indiana

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2019 //
4

Jan Resseger noted that the Colorado state board of education awarded a contract to MGT Consulting based on their “success” in turning around the public schools of Gary, Indiana. She shows in this post that there was no turnaround.

She writes:

Colorado state school board members praised MGT’s record in the so-called turnaround of the only whole school district it has managed—for the past two years—in Gary, Indiana. The fact that MGT Consulting, a for-profit, was praised for work in Gary caught my eye. I have been to Gary, just as I have been to Detroit, whose public schools have shared some problems with Gary’s. Detroit’s school district was assigned a state emergency fiscal manager by former Governor Rick Snyder; in fact Detroit’s school district was assigned an emergency manager named Darnell Earley after he left Flint, where, as municipal emergency fiscal manager, he had permitted the poisoning of the city’s water supply. Fortunately Detroit’s schools have been turned back to the democratically elected local school board, which hired a professional educator, Dr. Nikolai Vitti.

And I have been to the cities in Ohio now in state takeover, and being operated by appointed Academic Distress Commissions. I am thinking of Youngstown, which in four years under an Academic Distress Commission and appointed CEO, has not turned around. I am thinking of Lorain, where outright chaos has ensued under an Academic Distress Commission’s appointed CEO, David Hardy. And I am thinking of East Cleveland, whose schools are just beginning the state takeover process, and ten other Ohio school districts—including Dayton and Toledo—being threatened with state takeover.

All of these Rust Belt cities and their school districts are characterized by economic collapse. They are industrial cities where factories have closed and workers moved away to seek employment elsewhere. When industry collapses, the property tax base—the foundation of the local contribution of school funding—evaporates, and as workers lose jobs or leave, local income tax revenue collapses as well…

In July 2017, the state took over the school district in Gary and turned the schools over to a private, for-profit management company: MGT Consultants. MGT hired Peggy Hinkley, a retired school superintendent to run the schools, but she resigned a little more than a year later. The Post-Tribune‘s Carole Carlson describes Hinkley’s tenure: “Hinkley served 14 months and ruffled the feathers of some elected officials who criticized her decisions, especially the closing of the Wirt-Emerson School of Visual and Performing Arts. When Wirt-Emerson closed in June (2018), it left the district with just one high school, the West Side Leadership Academy. It stoked fears of a continuing exodus of students who would leave for charter schools or other districts… Under Hinckley, Gary reached a deal resolving $8.4 million in back payroll taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS forgave a large portion of the debt, leaving the district with a $320,000 payment. The freeing up of the liens on buildings allowed Hinckley to list 33 vacant schools and properties for sale. By November, the district had accepted five offers, amounting to $480,000. More sales are still being weighed. In all, Hinckley erased about $6 million of the district’s $100,000 million in long-term debts and reduced its monthly deficit from about $1.8 million to $1.3 million… Academically, all seven elementary schools received Fs on state report cards this year.”

Clearly, in Gary, Indiana, MGT Consultants has not miraculously achieved the kind of quick school district turnaround Colorado’s state school board bragged about when it contracted with MGT to take over three school districts.

Read on to learn about the role of ex-Indiana superintendent Tony Bennett and the Corporate Reform-disruption-greed Movement.

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Indiana, Lies, Privatization

Providence Plans to Defund Its Public Schools to Expand “No Excuses” Charter

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2019 //
13

The evidence is clear that privately managed charters can get higher test scores by culling, exclusion, and attrition. It’s equally clear that charters drain resources from the public schools that enroll most students. Most public officials seem to understand that it costs more to run parallel systems, one public, one private.

But not in Rhode Island, where Governor Gina Raimondo is a big fan of charters (she was a hedge fund manager before running for governor). She is eager to expand Achievement First, a no-excuses charter known for high test scores and harsh discipline.

This article by Linda Borg in the Providence Journal lays out the findings of two independent studies that warned about the negative fiscal impact of charters on public schools (one from Moody’s Investors, the other from the Brookings Institution, which is erroneously described as “left-leaning”).

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190822/providences-achievement-first-proposal-refuels-charter-debate

Borg should also have Gordon Lafer’s significant study of the fiscal drain of charters on the public schools of three districts in California.

Click to access ITPI_Breaking_Point_May2018FINAL.pdf

Supporters of expanding Achievement First cite a report funded by the Arnold Foundation, a rightwing foundation that zealously supports privatization and opposes public sector pensions. Billionaire John Arnold was an energy trader at Enron.

The recently appointed state commissioner, a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, dismissed the controversy as an “old conversation,” showing her indifference to stripping nearly $30 million from the needy public schools of Providence.

“State Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, in an interview Wednesday, called this an “old conversation,” adding that the expansion plan was approved by the Rhode Island Council of Elementary and Secondary Education three years ago after a contentious debate between charter proponents and critics.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Stuart Egan Fact-Checks Baker Mitchell: He Prevaricates

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2019 //
13

Stuart Egan read Baker Mitchell’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal defending charters against critics who say they foster segregation, and he was flabbergasted.

Here is his post.

He includes Baker Mitchell’s Wall Street Journal article, fulminating against the critics.

Then he cites the ProPublica article, Lindsay Wagner’s reporting, and John Merrow’s commentary, all reinforcing that Baker Mitchell has made millions by operating four charter schools.

Then Stuart goes to the official North Carolina report card site to gather information about Baker Mitchell’s charters.

Three are overwhelmingly white; one is overwhelmingly black. In other words, this champion of charters, this man who told the world that charters do not promote segregation, is managing a charter chain that is highly segregated. Furthermore, contrary to what he claimed in his article, his schools do NOT outperform local public schools.

Baker Mitchell prevaricated Bigly.

Someone should tell the Wall Street Journal to do their own fact-checking.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Segregation

A Charter Founder Defends His For-Profit Charters in the Wall Street Journal

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2019 //
10

The Wall Street Journal editorial pages has been promoting school choice—charters and vouchers—for many years. It sees public education as a government monopoly, not a public service. It has published article after article explaining away the failures of school choice and re-interpreting negative evidence.

A few days ago, the paper may have struck a new low when it published a defense of charter schools by Baker Mitchell, the founder of a for-profit chain of charters in North Carolina, a non-educator who rakes in millions of dollars every year by owning four charters.

When he saw the WSJ article by Mitchell, North Carolina Teacher Stuart Egan pointed out that Baker Mitchell was reiterating the talking points created by Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public [sic] Charter Schools.

Who is Baker Mitchell? He is a retired electrical engineer and a libertarian in the Koch brothers’ mold. He moved to North Carolina in 1997 and soon became allied with Art Pope, a rightwing libertarian who funded the Tea Party takeover of the state in 2010.

ProPublica featured Baker Mitchell as an example of a businessman who was turning public education dollars into his own private profits.

Here is an excerpt:

The school’s founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Kochs’ free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits.

In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

Over six years, Mitchell’s two companies have taken in close to $20 million in fees and rent — some of the schools’ biggest expenses. That’s from audited financial statements for just two schools. Mitchell has recently opened two more.

The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.

The schools have all hired the same for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy, is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools’ administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell’s management company. The two organizations even share a bank account.

Mitchell’s management company was chosen by the schools’ nonprofit board, which Mitchell was on at the time — an arrangement that is illegal in many other states.

John Merrow wrote that Baker Mitchell could teach Jesse James a few tricks. Merrow reviewed the tax filings of Mitchell’s charter schools and hit pay dirt. Of the $55 million his schools had received by 2014, Merrow wrote, Baker had collected $19 million.

Baker Mitchell’s article charges that there is a “smear campaign” against charters. He begins:

Leland, N.C.

With a new school year ahead, the attacks on charter schools have begun anew. In North Carolina we’re hearing outrageous charges of racism. A public-television commentator claimed recently that “resegregation” was the purpose of charter schools “from the start.”

Meanwhile, parents are voting with their feet. Statewide enrollment in traditional public schools has declined four years in a row. Less than 80% of K-12 students now attend district schools. More than 110,000 are enrolled in charters and 100,000 in private schools. More than 140,000 are being home-schooled…

Charges of racism are intended to divert attention from the failure of traditional public schools to educate minority children….

The Roger Bacon Academy, which I founded in 1999, oversees four charter schools in southeastern North Carolina that are among the top-performing in their communities. All four schools are Title 1 schools, meaning 40% or more of the students come from lower-income households. One of the schools, Frederick Douglass Academy in downtown Wilmington, is a majority-minority school.

We succeed where others fail because we do things differently. Our classical curriculum, direct-instruction methods, additional instructional hours, and focus on orderliness are a proven formula for successful learning…

Charter schools do not seek to replace traditional public schools, but rather to complement them, providing alternatives to the existing system. Our way is better for some students, not all. Let parents decide.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, North Carolina, Privatization, Segregation

Pennsylvania: Bethlehem Superintendent Speaks Out Against Harm of Privatization

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2019 //
7

Take five minutes and watch as Superintendent Joseph Roy of the Bethlehem Area School District explains how private charters are harming the public schools and the unfairness of the funding formula, which is rigged on behalf of the charters.

This year, private charters will subtract $1.8 billion from the budget of public schools in Pennsylvania.

Governor Tom Wolf has proposed revising the charter law to prevent the defunding of the state’s public schools, which enroll the vast majority of students.

Please take action and show support for Governor Wolf.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Hollywood Divided About Charters

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2019 //
15

As the backlash against private charter schools intensifies, even Hollywood recognizes that the grand experiment in privatizing the nation’s public schools is a dying cause.

Reed Hastings, billionaire founder of Netflix, made charters a fashionable thing in Tinseltown, but critics have emerged to shatter the money-powered consensus. Some of them woke when charter founder and LAUSD Member Ref Rodriguez was indicted. Some no doubt did not wish to be allied with Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration. Perhaps some are graduates of public schools, like 90% of the populace.

In any event, the waning acceptance of charters and privatization is a sign of the changing times.

When LAUSD board member and charter school advocate Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July 2018 to a felony count of conspiracy, it seemed that Los Angeles’ charter school movement had hit a critical low. Rodriguez’s unraveling over campaign finance violations tipped the balance of power on the seven-member board that oversees the nation’s second-largest school district, weakening its charter school block.

Tensions between proponents of public schools and of charter schools — which are started by parents, teachers or community groups and receive government funding but operate independently of state school systems — were already high. The January teachers’ strike won concessions for LAUSD public schools ranging from smaller class sizes to hiring full-time nurses but was marked by heated anti-charter rhetoric. Critics of charters say they continue to drain much-needed resources from public schools. “If LAUSD were properly funded, then I think the choice that a charter school gives would be a nice one,” says writer Audrey Wauchope (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). “Unfortunately, it often seems that going charter is now just another way for parents to leave behind their neighborhood school.”

Public-school proponents contend that charters operate without sufficient oversight (proof of which came in May when California authorities arrested two men for allegedly stealing more than $50 million in state funds via a network of online charter schools). For their part, charter school operators argue that they provide parents with other, better options than LAUSD, which they say is failing many of the city’s underprivileged kids.

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

Rhode Island: State Senator Demands Ousting of Achievement First Because of Abusive Behavior Towards Students

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2019 //
9

Democratic State Senator Sam Bell called for the removal of Achievement First management after news spread about a pattern of abusive behavior towards students.

Achievement First is based in Connecticut and practices “no excuses” discipline.

“Dismantling the Achievement First Rhode Island network needs to begin with removal of the Achievement First Corporation from any managerial involvement with the schools. Closure would be too disruptive to the students, and converting the schools into public schools is a better approach,” Bell told GoLocal.

Bell sites a range of issues, including physical abuse of students. in Rhode Island, Achievement First operates under the names Achievement First Iluminar Mayoral Academy and Achievement First Providence Mayoral Academy.

Bell’s demand comes at the same time that the Mayor of Providence is trying to expand the Achievement First chain in his city.

In January of this year, the head of Achievement First Amistad High School in New Haven was caught on video shoving a student. This was one of a number of episodes linking faculty to physical contact with students.

The defenders of the chain say that Achievement First gets high test scores, and it appears that those scores matter more than abusive adults manhandling students.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Discipline, Education Industry, Privatization, Rhode Island
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