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New Bedford, Mass: A Bad Deal that Puts a Charter School First

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2019 //
16

 

 

Chris Hendricks, State Representative for the 11th Bristol District in Massachusetts, explains why he opposed a deal to open a second campus for a charter school in New Bedford. 

He writes:

THE PROPOSED charter school expansion plan crafted by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, Alma del Mar charter school, and state education Commissioner Jeff Riley earlier this year was simply too risky for New Bedford. After reading the memorandum of understanding (MOU), which became public in March of 2019, I saw this as a bad deal.

This plan was a perceived as a compromise, which would have allowed Alma, which already operates a charter school in New Bedford, to open a second school with 450 seats, instead of its sought-after 1,188 seats. New Bedford, in turn, would have to provide Alma with a school building, free of charge. This new charter school, Alma II, would enroll children from the adjacent neighborhood only, as opposed to enrolling through the citywide lottery, which state law currently requires. If this proposal fell apart, the state education commissioner would grant Alma 594 seats through the traditional enrollment system and New Bedford would not be required to give a school building to Alma.

This is one of the strangest deals ever.

Under this agreement, a student living in the proposed neighborhood zone would, by default, be assigned to the charter school. That fact, alone, is jaw-dropping. But it gets worse. According to the MOU, no student would be guaranteed the option of going to a public school. Instead, all requests to attend a public school would require “the approval of the [New Bedford Public Schools] Superintendent.” In what world is it acceptable to tell a child they have to go to a privately-run charter school?

The MOU also mandates that the superintendent consider “Alma’s target enrollment and growth plan” when pondering a student’s request to attend a public school. Call me crazy, but I would prefer that the superintendent consider the interests of the child, not the interests of a privately-run charter school. Sadly, the MOU says nothing about what’s best for the child when considering requests to attend a public school. The superintendent can only consider what’s best for Alma II. Can you imagine the superintendent telling a child they have to go to a charter school because Alma II’s “plan” depends on it? Is this how we want New Bedford managing the education of our public school students?

No “waiting list” at Alma II. Just a promise that it takes the place of the public school.

Charter school giveaway alert!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization

Puerto Rico: Leaked Emails Show Contempt for Teachers, Their Union

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2019 //
10

 

Andrew Ujifusa writes in Education Week about a massive number of leaked emails from government officials in Puerto Rico that have caused an uproar on the Island. The emails touch on many issues, and education is one of them. In the wake of the data dump, many people are calling no the governor of Puerto Rico to resign.

 

Puerto Rico’s political leadership is unraveling at high speed, pushed along by an ex-education secretary’s arrest last week and the leak of private messages between Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and his top officials that include derogatory comments about the teachers’ union president. 

Julia Keleher, who was appointed by Rosselló as secretary in late 2016 and served as the island’s schools chief until April, was arrested last Wednesday on fraud charges related to how she handled millions of dollars in government contracts. Her arrest reignited ongoing debates about her and the governor’s successful push to expand educational choice, close hundreds of schools, and reform the island’s education bureaucracy, as well as her status as a non-Puerto Rican. 

Then on Saturday, the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico published hundreds of pages of private messages—mostly in Spanish—between Rosselló and some of his top advisers. The leaked messages have caused a political firestorm on the island, leading to several resignations and growing calls for the governor to step down. 

Among the messages’ targets was the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, the island’s teachers’ union, and its president, Aida Díaz. In a Dec. 19, 2018 exchange, the then-chief financial officer of Puerto Rico, Christian Sobrino, responded to a statement from AMPR about union negotiations by saying in English, “I DONT [sic] NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS!” 

If that epithet sounds familiar, you might be thinking of former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who once called the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”

Four days earlier, in response to other comments from Díaz in support of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, Sobrino said he was “salivating” at the idea of shooting a person or people. However, it’s not entirely clear from Sobrino’s remark about shooting if he meant Cruz, Díaz, or both of them, or someone else. In the messages, Rosselló responded that this would be helpful to him. (Sobrino announced his resignation on Sunday after these and other messages were made public.) 

The governor also referred to former Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, a staunch proponent of charters and vouchers, as a “monster,” upon learning that he was charging the bankrupt island $250 an hour to be a “consultant.”

On a related matter, a story from the Associated Press says: 

Federal officials said Wednesday morning that former Education Secretary Julia Keleher; former Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration head Ángela Ávila-Marrero; businessmen Fernando Scherrer-Caillet and Alberto Velázquez-Piñol, and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, who are sisters, were arrested by the FBI on 32 counts of fraud and related charges.

The alleged fraud involves $15.5 million in federal funding between 2017 and 2019. Thirteen million was spent by the Department of Education during Keleher’s time as secretary while $2.5 million was spent by the insurance administration when Ávila was the director.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Puerto Rico, Union, Vouchers

California: The Reasons Gavin Newsom Will Not Regulate the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2019 //
12

 

When Gavin Newsom ran for Governor in 2018, the big charter donors backed former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who ran third in the Democratic primary. Newsom was backed in the race by the California Teachers Association. Newsom’s victory in the gubernatorial race gave public school parents and teachers hope that the scandal-ridden, money-drenched, unregulated charter industry would finally be reined in. For years, we have read about unbridled corruption in the charter sector. Surely Gavin Newsom will insist on  reform of the law.

He won. He appointed a commission to make recommendations for reform. He made sure that at least six of the 11 members of the charter commission were high-profile leaders of the charter industry.

But the commission, on split votes, recommended some strong reforms.

The Legislature seemed poised to enact those reforms. But they got watered down, and the word is that it was Gavin Newsom who watered them down.

Why? Well, for one, his chief of staff is Ann O’Leary, is a strong charter supporter. She was Hillary Clinton’s Education advisor, and she has long ties with the pro-charter Center for American Progress.

But there is more: Gavin Newsom has long been funded by pro-charter billionaires. 

Among them are the Fisher family (The Gap, Old Navy), which has been a key funder of KIPP. And there is the Pritzker family, of both San Francisco and Chicago, which has funded charters in Chicago.

As usual, follow the money.

The charter billionaires covered their bases.

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

Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2019 //
10

Dear Governor Newsom:

It is with profound disappointment that I heard that your office was responsible for essentially gutting the main features of these charter reform bills. While I can only speculate on the reasoning for essentially caving to the charter industry (besides Ann O’Leary and the task force espousing all kinds of charter-friendly platitudes), I can say that as a California native, public school graduate (1983), advocate, and 16-year parent/volunteer (two sons in Oakland Unified), and now employee of Oakland Unified, I am well familiar with the education landscape in this state,  particularly the damage being done to schools in Oakland. I’m also familiar with what happens when districts don’t have local control over the schools for which they are responsible. You and I have something in common-we both attended well-resourced public high schools. You went to Redwood High School in Marin, and I attended Miramonte High School in Orinda, located in what is now one of the wealthiest suburbs in the East Bay. Lucky us. 

The irony regarding your potential alliance with privatization groups like CCSA is that, because of your severe dyslexia, you would have been rejected by the same schools that are now being touted as “high quality seats”, aggressively marketed as superior to real public schools because of test scores. According to the bio I read, you were rejected from a private prep school and enrolled in your local public high school instead. So you have first-hand experience with the idea that real public schools enroll all children, not just the easy ones. Charter schools aren’t interested in promoting their schools to children with learning disabilities such as yours, and consciously or unconsciously discourage SPED kids from applying. They don’t test well and they cost too much. Your own private-to-public school trajectory clearly illustrates how private schools select students. The same situation occurs when real public schools are allowed to be privatized into charter schools. These charters schools, because they are privately managed, are now able to choose and keep the students they want, not the other way around. Lotteries do not create equity. They only encourage more motivated families to self-select into the lottery. In many cases, SPED, ELL, and newcomer students need not apply. 
What is a good school anyway? I will bet Redwood High and Miramonte High were both good because of the usual reasons: wealthy families, well-resourced, free transportation (before Prop 13), experienced teachers, lots of enrichment like art and music, language classes, health care, and sports. Prop 13 had just been passed, so the facilities had not fallen into ruin yet. Later, when our sports and bus service were eliminated, my school (and probably yours, too) was able to rally the parents to pony up the cash for all the extras that had abruptly disappeared. Other schools weren’t so lucky.  Did that make them less “good”? No, it made them underfunded and unsupported, and it’s been that way ever since. 
I will speculate that you have no personal experience with any of the long-term damage done to school districts because of charter friendly laws in California, written by the very people who want public schools to go away. (Reed Hastings).  Because of this lack of real world experience in education, you therefore are relying on the advice of education reformers that aren’t as interested in improving outcomes for high-needs children as they are putting money in their pockets and/or heading up the next rung of the political ladder. 
Over the years, I’ve heard all kinds of excuses why charter schools deserve more protection, more appeals, and more expansion. For the uninitiated, there seems to be an underlying assumption that charters are of higher quality (“high quality seats” is a marketing term thrown around a lot for charters schools that JUST opened), that they perform better than the neighborhood schools, and therefore deserve up to three chances for authorization or renewal.

In the past, the charter-friendly state board made it nearly impossible for any local control to happen, which is wrong but also purposeful. Our own traditional district schools are not given the same opportunity to appeal their closures, and they are simply closed for any reason, without any more due process. There is this pervasive idea that maybe a “good” charter will fall through the cracks somehow, and therefore must be given another chance. But, in this case a good district school is not given the same opportunity. So, by this definition, district schools and charter schools, in order to be on equal footing, both would deserve the same appeals process. Otherwise, this charter appeals process automatically games charter expansion by rubber stamping any appeal to the county or the state board. We’ve seen this happen over and over and it needs to end. The CCSA’s agenda is unfettered charter expansion and privatization of our public schools. Do not allow them to use their power and billionaire influence to gut AB1505 and AB1507. Reed Hastings and Eli Broad have dictated their privatization agenda and charter expansion for far too long, and the local community deserves to take back control of its own schools, regardless of which type their students attend.
 I’d like to discuss a few characteristics of the current charter school landscape and debunk a few myths that your advisers, like Ann O’Leary and the charter-friendly task force appear to be selling to either curry favor with the charter industry or to curry political favor with Latino families, many of which have been sold on the promise of “quality” charter schools. 

Myth-a school is “good” because it has high test scores
Reality-test scores don’t measure anything and are essentially used in our district and others to weaponize school closure. There is no agreed upon measure for learning. Test scores correlate with wealth. Therefore, a high-testing school is often labeled “good” because it is well-resourced and well-funded with a rich curriculum and supports. What else is new? Charters can also manipulate test scores by keeping out low-testing populations, and high student attrition that concentrates better test takers at these schools.  They also favor a lot of test prep, which is not authentic learning and is a strategy that would never be tolerated or accepted at the kind of wealthy public schools we attended.
Myth-charters perform better than neighborhood schools based on test scores
Reality-the population of the neighborhood district school is often far different than the charter school. In Oakland, most district schools support far more SPED students, and other high-needs groups like ELL and newcomers.  Often, the poverty levels can be significantly different. Motivated families that are willing to even enter a lottery often attract a student population that test better. The populations between these two groups aren’t the same and therefore one can’t make any sort of statistical inference as to whether one school is better than the other based on test scores. Because population differences usually skew test scores in favor of the charter, these schools often discourage certain students to apply, or encourage certain students to leave. And don’t kid yourself if you think this doesn’t happen. 
Myth-charters do more with less
Reality-charters do less with less. As a privately managed business, they operate on revenues and expenses. Charters keep expenses low by hiring inexperienced TFA teachers and churning them constantly. They generally offer fewer supports, such as afterschool programs, transportation, or meals. They may not provide a rich curriculum that a lot of us had before Prop 13: art, music, sports, clubs, nurses, counselors, etc.  Charters don’t want to pay for these “extras”, but they are essential to a quality education. This business model can’t supply a high-quality product to all, and was never designed for that. Charters are a privately managed business that first and foremost have to offer an acceptable ROI to their investors. These investors are the real customers, not the students.
Myth-there is so much demand for charters, they must be doing something fantastic and amazing
Reality-Oakland has become a target for privatization because of its urban setting, combined with its valuable real estate. If opening charters was all about the kids, then there would be several in surrounding areas like Hayward and San Leandro, with similar student populations. Hayward, with a population of around 25K students, has 4 charters. San Francisco, with a population of 60K has 18 charters. Oakland, with a total student population of 50K has 46 charters. It is simply a business saturation model that has nothing to do with “quality” and everything to do with disruption and school closure. Twenty years ago, many parents in Oakland were thrown a lifeline called a charter school. Fast forward, and the model now isn’t much different than saturating the poor neighborhoods with cheap fast food. I heard an East Oakland resident say, in a public meeting, that charter schools were like having drug dealers on every corner. 
How to create demand? The current strategy is as follows: close your neighborhood elementary schools, which then feed into the middle schools (demand dries up there as well). Then, open a charter right near these same schools. Out of the last 18 school closures in Oakland, 14 were converted to charters. Doesn’t take a genius to see how that will turn out. Ask the students at Roots International how they feel about their neighborhood school closure. But our charter-friendly ($$$) school board fully supports this portfolio model; there are charters right around the corner that former Roots students can attend instead. Instant charter demand creation.
Myth-there are so many students on waitlists that charters must be allowed to expand
Reality-giant wait lists are created when students are allowed to apply to multiple schools. A pool of 100 students can create demand for 500 seats if each one applies to 5 different schools. Each of those schools then puts the student on a waitlist. But the student only attends one school. The rest of the seats on the waitlist are phantoms once the student enrolls. But they remain and are presented as proof of demand, when that proof is only an illusion.
Myth-It’s the charter parents vs. the teachers’ union
Reality-that language is purposeful. It is used by CCSA and its billionaire allies to pit these groups against each other, and it’s working. News flash-it’s the billionaires vs. the rest of us that want and deserve good neighborhood schools that aren’t defined by a piece of paper with test scores on it. Parents and students from all walks of life deserve the same clean, well-resourced schools that you and I attended. Any rhetoric spouted by Reed Hastings (school board hater extraordinaire) and Eli Broad, along with the Koch Brothers and the Waltons about charters being a civil rights issue would make Martin Luther King turn in his grave. There are no civil rights to be had when your school doesn’t support your child’s unique academic needs (like dyslexia), doesn’t provide programs or wraparound services, doesn’t provide food, transportation or a playground, no arts programs, no sports, doesn’t support SPED, sticks your child in front of a computer all day, and test preps them to death. And if your child is suspended or expelled, there is no due process. Nothing you can do about it. Parents are voiceless and that’s what these billionaires want. 
 Our school district loses $57M a year to unfettered charter expansion. It’s time to get back to some no-nonsense approaches to this problem such as real local control, as well as including impact to district finances. Charter schools don’t have the right to expand just because it’s what the Waltons and Reed Hastings want. This failed experiment on our most vulnerable children must end, and your office needs to reevaluate the amendments of AB1505 and AB1507 and ask yourself who really benefits from those amended bills.  It is obvious that these bills were gutted to satisfy your charter friends and allies, which an insult to all hardworking teachers and public school parents who have seen firsthand what kind of devastation this education model has caused over the years.
As these bills wind their way through the legislature, keep in mind how different your life might have been if you had attended a “good” charter school and been rejected (“You have dyslexia, so this school isn’t right for you”). Your entire life, career, and political aspirations might have been completely sabotaged if you had not had that well-resourced, authentic public school to fall back on. And remember what it was that made it a quality school. And remember that it’s a school model that all kids deserve, not just those in Orinda or Marin. Thanks for listening.
Jane Nylund
Oakland, California
Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Rachel M. Cohen: Democratic Candidates Wary of Charter School Issue

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2019 //
39

 

Rachel M.Cohen wrote in the American Prospect that the Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from the charter school issue, which only a few years ago was deeply embedded in the Obama administration education policy.

This is progress. In 2016, it was nearly impossible to get any candidate to discuss K-12 education. At last they notice that it is not cool for a Democrat to support charters. Most are trying to play the issue cautiously, being against “for profit” charters, but not acknowledging that large numbers of nonprofits are managed by for profits.

This far, Bernie Sanders is the candidate who has taken the strongest stand against charters, endorsing the NAACP call for a moratorium.

Other candidates are hedging their bets.

Hours after Sanders’s education plan was released, Elizabeth Warren told reporters that she agreed for-profit charters are “a real problem.” She has not yet released her own K-12 plan. While the Massachusetts senator has supported charter schools in the past, in 2016 she came out against a high-profile ballot initiative that would have allowed charters to expand much more quickly in her state. The measure ended up failing, with 62 percent of voters siding against it. 

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg also came out to say he supports Sanders’s proposal to ban for-profit charter schools, though he affirmed a month earlier that charters “have a place” in the education landscape “as “a laboratory for techniques that can be replicated.”

Beto O’Rourke, who opposes a national moratorium on new charters, told the NEA presidential forum that “There is a place for public nonprofit charter schools, but private charter schools and voucher programs—not a single dime in my administration will go to them.” O’Rourke has supported charters in the past, and his wife is a former charter school leader who now sits on the board of a local education reform group that supports expanding charters in El Paso. 

A friend in California forwarded an email showing that charter zealot and billionaire Reed Hastings is hosting a gathering for Mayor Pete, which suggests that he would be a strong charter guy. His background at McKinsey points in the same direction.

The Network for Public Education Action will be following and grading the candidates on the issues that concern us. Feel free to let us know what you learn at town halls.

If you meet one of them, ask them if they will pledge to eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program, which currently funnels $440 Million each year to charters, mostly the big corporate chains like KIPP, which do not need a federal subsidy.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization

Jake Jacobs: Democratic Candidates Speak Double-talk about Charters

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2019 //
7

 

Jake Jacobs, a teacher in New York and BAT activist, writes in the Progressive about the pathetic evasions of Democratic Candidates when asked directly about their stance on charter schools.

Public school educators and advocates have been working for years for this to become a major campaign issue, but so far, most candidate statements have been conflicted, incomplete, clumsy, and/or vague, while media coverage has been equally as incomplete, inaccurate, and in many cases baldly biased in favor of charters. 

Read the article to see how they bob and weave to avoid taking issue with privatization of public schools.

Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat so far who has come out in support of the NAACP proposal for a moratorium on charters.

The others are trying to walk a fine line between “good” charters and “bad” charters, which ignores the fact that all charters divert money from public schools that enroll nearly 90% of US students.

Cory Booker can’t escape his long history with charters. Beto loves charters. Mayor Pete (ex-McKinsey) likes charters.

Here is the bottom line: REAL DEMOCRATS SUPPORT REAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

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

Mercedes Schneider: The Very Profitable Career of an ex-TFA-er

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2019 //
9

 

Mercedes Schneider writes here about the itinerant but very profitable career of Alison Serapin. A Texan, She went from a short stint in TFA to working as a TFA executive to somehow getting herself on the Nevada State Board of Education, where she was vice-president. She had to resign because of a potential conflict of interest when she decided to apply for a $10 million grant. Fancy that!

Schneider writes:

In April 2016, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an article about former VP of the Nevada State board of Education, Allison Serafin, who resigned from the board in December 2015 because of a conflict of interest involving her decision to apply for state money to partially fund a charter-promoting nonprofit that Serafin started in 2014, Operation 180. In April 2016, Serafin’s nonprofit, Opportunity 180, won a state contract. From thr LV Review-Journal:

The former vice president of the State Board of Education, who resigned last year citing a potential conflict of interest, won a $10 million contract Tuesday to recruit high-quality charter school operators to Nevada.

When she stepped down from the state board in December, Allison Serafin noted her intent to submit a bid for the state’s new charter harbormaster fund, which matches grants from private philanthropic groups to attract the “best-in-class” national charter management organizations.

The contract authorizes Opportunity 180, an educational nonprofit group that Serafin founded in 2014, to drive two key components of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s education reform agenda: expanding access for low-income families to high-performing charter schools and creating a state-run Achievement School District to take over and turn around chronically underperforming campuses. …

As of Friday, Opportunity 180 already had collected more than $4.1 million in committed or cash donations from the Englestad Family Foundation and three other philanthropic groups, Serafin said.

So, Serafin arguably saw an *opportunity* to tailor her nonprofit toward creating Nevada’s newly-legislated Achievement School District and chose to pursue it.

IMG_1547
Schneider traces the remunerative path of this TFA  entrepreneur.
The good news in this story of “follow the money” is that the Nevada Legislature voted in May 2019 to abolish its failed Achievement School District. So Alison quickly adjusted to find new opportunities in the EdDeform world.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry

Breaking News! NY Commissioner Elia Resigning

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2019 //
27

 

The news just broke on Twitter and on Orthodox Jewish websites.

New York Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is resigning  at the end of August. No reason given.

She was a champion of testing, Common Core, and sanctions for parents to dared to opt out of state testing.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New York

Bill Phillis: Who Is Protecting Imam Gulen?

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2019 //
10

Charter schools associated with the Gulen movement are found in many states. They have many different names, like Magnolia, Harmony, Sonoran and more. There are more than 150 of them. If asked, they always deny that they are Gulen schools. The best source for identifying Gulen schools is the list of names compiled by Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins. Gulen schools can usually be identified by their unusual number of Turkish teachers and Turkish board members.

Bill Phillis raises a question.

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Fethullah Gulen lives in exile in Saylorsburg PA in a luxurious compound while 151 of his devotees receive life sentences for participating in the July 15, 2016 military coup attempt
For reasons unknown to the public, the U.S. government gave Turkish Islamic leader Fethullah Gulen asylum several years ago. Gulen operates his worldwide religious/political movement from Saylorsburg PA. His movement includes nearly 200 tax-supported charter schools which help fuel a vast business/political/religious enterprise in the U.S.
Gulen was accused by the Turkish government of inspiring (ordering) the 2016 military coup. The U.S. government has rejected the call of Turkey for the extradition of Gulen.
The Gulen charter schools are used to bring thousands of Gulenists into the U.S. on H1B visas.
Although the FBI and other state and federal agencies have raided several Gulen charters (including some in Ohio and the Concept Management company), the reports of the investigations never seem to surface. Gulen is protected by individuals and agencies at the highest level of government. Meanwhile, the Gulen charters in the U.S. continue to “educate” American students in the Gulen political/religious world view.
It would seem that state officials and the sponsors of the Gulen charters—ESC of Lake Erie West and Buckeye Community Hope Foundation—would scrutinize the operation and educational programming of the Gulen charters operating within the borders of the U.S.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
School Bus
Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

D.C.: Famed Philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein Endorses Charter School Dominance In D.C.

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2019 //
48

 

To understand the charter industry, you must appreciate that it is driven by extremely wealthy people and has no grassroots. It has mastered the arts of marketing and branding, but does not have a plan to improve education other than to draw students and resources away from public education, which belongs to all of us.

People often ask me, “Why do the super-rich cluster to the cause of privatization?” The Answer is not simple because many different motives are at work. Some see giving to charters as a charitable endeavor, and their friends assure them that they are “giving back,” helping poor children escape poverty. Others want to impress their friends in their social strata, their colleagues in the world of high finance. Being a supporter of charter schools is like belonging to the right clubs, going to the right parties, sharing a cause with other very rich people.

Perhaps infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein fits into the last category. Perhaps he fits into all those categories.  He is a man who grew up in modest circumstances in Brooklyn, attended public schools, and owed his start in life to the New York City public schools.

But once he achieved wealth and could call himself a “philanthropist,” he realized that choosing the right causes was important as a way of burnishing his image, showing that he was running with the In Crowd.

So, of course, he announced that he supported charter schools, not the public schools to which he owed a debt for launching him in life.

In 2013, his foundation issued a press release announcing that he looked forward to the dominance of charter schools in Washington, D.C. and predicted that they would succeed because they were unregulated. That, in a sense, was his own secret: he succeeded because he was unregulated, neither his appetites nor his activities were regulated. Supporting charter schools showed that he moved in the circles of the DFER elites, the hedge fund kings. No longer was he the boy from Lafayette High School in Brooklyn; he was a philanthropist encouraging the growth of school privatization, not just as competition but as a replacement for public schools.

Now that he has been indicted yet again, this time in New York, for his crimes against young girls, it is interesting to read his fulsome self-praise for investing in the charter industry.

This press release was issued by the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation:

NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — For the first time, more students in Washington DCenrolled into charter schools than public schools. Last year, charters had an 11% increase in student enrollment, while public schools had a 1% increase. Mayor Vince Gray noted that the nation’s capital is only a few years away from being evenly split between the two school systems.

The shift was welcomed by financier and well-known education philanthropist, Jeffrey Epstein and his foundation, the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. Jeffrey Epstein founded the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University with a $30 million dollar grant in 2003 and has since expanded his support into early development, Head Start and charter school programs across the nation, including Washington DC.

Some of the charter schools that the Jeffrey Epstein has supported include, Harlem Link Charter School, the Maya Angelou Schools in DC and the Bard High School Early College in New York. “Charter Schools have the freedom to self-regulate. It’s a critical component of their success. They also reduce the burden on the public school system,” Jeffrey Epstein asserted.

In fact, last year, the DC Schools Chancellor, Kaya Henderson, decided to close fifteen public schools due to the shift to charters.

Despite this growth, there is concern about the number of charter schools that close every year. According to The Center for Education Reform, 15% of charters close every year. However Jeanne Allen, President of the Center for Education Reform explained that unlike the public school system, this closure rate reflects a healthy level of accountability. Today 41 states have charter school laws and audit requirements. 52% of charter schools are also now authorized by school districts and 48% independently.

“We need to enhance state standards of excellence,” Jeffrey Epstein noted. “But it’s essential that these laws are just that, standards, and not management policies.”

Jeffrey Epstein is a trustee of the Institute for International Education, a former board member of Rockefeller University, the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, New York Academy of Science and sits on the board of the Mind, Brain and Behavior committee at Harvard.

SOURCE www.jeffreyepsteineducation.com

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization
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