Archives for category: Education Industry
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Tom Ultican on the Privatizers’ Efforts to Sabotage Reform of the Charter Law in California

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2019 //
8

 

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics, has become a scholar of the privatization movement.

in this post, he reviews the efforts of the charter lobby to undermine the effort to reform the egregiously defective charter law in California.

At times like this, you need a scorecard to keep track of the multitudinous organizations created by the billionaires who want to replace public schools with charter schools.

Ultican is one of the few people able to sort out the charter menagerie.

The Waltons, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and assorted billionaires think they can create the illusion of popular support by spinning off more and more AstroTurf groups that have no connection to parents or teachers. Just money. Their ruse is failing. Betsy DeVos must be enjoying the charade.

Congratulations to Superintendent Tony Thurmond for getting a reasonable set of recommendations for charter law reform from a deeply divided task force.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Capitol & Main: Can California’s Run-Away Charter Expansion Be Curbed? Plus: Why EE failed

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2019 //
4

 

Bill Raden of Capitol & Main has a sharp analysis of the recommendations from Superintendent Tony Thurmond’s Charter School Task Force.

Plus, public school advocate David Tokofsky explains why Measure EE—which was supposed to raise $500 million annually for the schoolsof Los Angeles—failed.

With allies like L.A.’s neoliberal supe Beutner running the Yes on EE campaign, who needs enemies? Beutner’s biggest blunder, according to Tokofsky, came last year when he and his pro-charter allies on the board torpedoed the efforts by board members Dr. George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson to get the tax on the November, 2018 midterms ballot, when polling suggested that a larger, more liberal turnout would have made it a shoo-in.

Beutner  compounded that error by not only scheduling EE for June’s low-turnout, single-measure special election but by bunglinga last-minute language change that effectively translated as millions of dollars worth of free publicity for the measure’s opponents — anti-taxers like the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

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

Los Angeles Times: What Tony Thurmond’s Charter School Task Force Recommended

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2019 //
17

A few months ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appointed a task force to make recommendations to the State Legislature about the needed reforms of the state charter law. Of the 11 people on the Task Force, several had ties to the charter industry, two work for the California Charter Schools Association, and others are employed by charter schools. I had my doubts. But Superintendent Thurmond read my posts and called me to say, don’t judge me until you see what happens.

When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.

Twenty percent of students in LA attend charters. At least 80% of LA charters have vacancies, contrary to phony claims about “long waiting lists.” The UTLA commissioned an audit which concluded that public schools lose $600 million every year to charters.

Howard Blume explained the recommendations of the Task Force report in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Blume writes:

When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.

California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.

The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.

One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.

The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.

But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.

To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.

The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.

A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.

The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.

“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students….”

One problem up and down the state has been inconsistent oversight of charters. The panel said California should create one or more entities to develop consistent standards and to train school districts in how to use them.

Some recommendations received majority but not unanimous favor, including limiting when another agency can overrule a local school district’s decision to reject a new charter or close down an existing one.

A majority also wanted to prohibit school districts from authorizing charters located outside district boundaries. Some tiny districts used these faraway charters to generate revenue but provided little to no oversight, as outlined in a Times investigation.

A panel majority also recommended a one-year moratorium on “virtual” charters, which enroll students in an online program. Prosecutors recently indicted 11 people from online charters on criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Los Angeles, Privatization

Surprise! Texas State Board of Education Rejects Gulen School!

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2019 //
15

 

In a nail-biter, the Texas State Board of Education turned down a request to authorize a Gulen-affiliated charter school by a vote of 8-5.

The applicant was Soner Tarim, who is leader of the Harmony Charter chain and applicant for a charter school called Woodlands Hills Charter School in rural Washington County in Alabama.

Gulen charter schools always deny that they are Gulen charter schools but they are typically led by Turkish men and have a board dominated by Turkish men and a large number of Turkish teachers who have visas.

Soner Tarim was hoping to start a new charter chain called Royal. After the state board turned down his request, he promised to appeal the rejection.

The Gulen charter chain is the second largest in the nation, after KIPP.

It is odd, don’t you think, to outsource community public schools to a foreign entity?

To learn more about the Gulen schools, see Mark Hall’s documentary “Killing Ed.”

To See a list of Gulen schools, see Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins’ website.

 

 

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

West Sacramento’s Charter Schools Have a Segregation Problem

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
6

 

Bill Raden of Capital & Main writes here about racial segregation in West Sacramento’s charter schools. 

Capital & Main has done an outstanding job covering the charter industry in California.

Raden writes:

Representing the newest form of green line in West Sacramento are charter schools — publicly funded but privately operated academies that are free from many of the regulations governing public schools. Although that freedom was once supposed to encourage innovation, the door it has opened has also made charters the latest flavor of school segregation. For a state like California, which enshrines diversity in a statutory balancing test that requires charter schools to “achieve a racial and ethnic balance among its pupils that is reflective of the general population” of their districts, unregulated school choice can be like putting out a fire with gasoline.

West Sacramento is hardly alone when it comes to racially isolating charter schools. A 2017 Associated Press study was the latest to find rampant self-segregation in the national charter sector, reporting that charters are “vastly overrepresented” among so-called apartheid schools — those with at least 99 percent minority enrollments. Even in majority-minority California, which scores higher on charter school integration than other states, black students have been shown to typically move from a traditional public school that is 39 percent black to a charter that is 51 percent black.

“The problem with charters is their fundamental premise that if something’s not public it’s going to be better,” says Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project (CRP) and a research professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. “We learned in the civil rights period that you had to have requirements on [school] choice if you’re going to get a positive outcome. But a lot of these charter schools are set up in a way that explicitly [segregate]. They don’t reach out for other groups of kids and have no integration policies at all, which raises big constitutional issues…”

The tendency of charters to isolate students by race and class is baked in by what education researchers call selection biases — features that attract certain kinds of families at the expense of others. Because California doesn’t fund transportation for charter schools, for example, simply by being a charter in the Golden State is to select out the most disadvantaged, single-parent families that live the furthest away from the campus. Impose a complicated application process, or require pricey uniforms or “voluntary” parent labor, and that effect is magnified.

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

Pennsylvania: Governor Wolf Will Veto Expansion of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
9

The Republican-controlled Legislature in Pennsylvania passed a bill to expand vouchers for religious schools. Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced that he would veto the bill.

This is good news for public schools in the Keystone State!

Here is a roundup of stories from the Keystone State Education Coalition:

HB800: Gov. Wolf to veto $100M private and religious schools bill in Pennsylvania

Post Gazette by ASSOCIATED PRESS JUN 12, 2019 3:38 PM

HARRISBURG — Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf plans to veto legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to substantially expand taxpayer support by $100 million for private and religious schools in Pennsylvania. Wednesday’s statement from Wolf’s office comes a day after the Senate approved the bill on a party-line basis. The bill was sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai and just four Democrats voted for it in the House. Wolf ran for office pledging to boost aid for public schools. He has said that public schools remain underfunded and that the tax-credit bill is at odds with the need for accessible public education. It would nearly double the Educational Improvement Tax Credit to $210 million annually. The program lets corporations direct tens of millions in tax dollars to favored private and religious schools.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2019/06/12/pennsylvania-governor-tom-wolf-veto-private-school-religious-tax-credit/stories/201906120136

 

HB800: Wolf says he will veto bill to expand tax credits for private, religious school scholarships

PA Capital Star By  Sarah Anne Hughes| John L. Micek June 12, 2019

Gov. Tom Wolf will veto a bill to expand a tax credit program that funds private and religious school scholarships, he told the Capital-Star on Wednesday. “I’ve seen enough to know that this is not something I think is good for Pennsylvania,” Wolf said after an event in Philadelphia. The legislation, sponsored by House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, would increase the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program budget from $110 million to $210 million immediately after passage — the largest single-year increase since the program was created in 2001. Under the bill, the program cap would also increase by 10 percent in years where 90 percent of the credits are claimed. “It distracts from what we ought to be focusing on, which is educating every child through our public school system,” Wolf said Wednesday. The House passed the legislation 111-85 in May, while the Senate voted 28-21 to approve the bill on Tuesday. Currently, there is not enough support in either chamber to override a veto from Wolf.

“As the governor knows, we are preparing to increase our funding for public education in the forthcoming budget, and the increase in EITC funding is an appropriate complement to that investment in our public schools,” Turzai said in a statement after the bill’s passage in the upper chamber.

https://www.penncapital-star.com/education/wolf-says-he-will-veto-bill-to-expand-tax-credits-for-private-religious-school-scholarships/

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

National Education Policy Center: Phony Voucher Report

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
20

 

The National Education Policy Center published a review of an annual report by EdChoice, an advocacy organization for vouchers.

KEY TAKEAWAY:

Questionable methodology and misrepresentation of the research result in a misleading report not useful for decision-making or research purposes.

 

BOULDER, CO (June 11, 2019) – A recent report from EdChoice presents itself as a yearly updated list and synthesis of empirical studies exploring the impacts of school vouchers across a set of outcomes. But a new review of the report finds that it fails to provide a robust summary of the research literature on vouchers and their full range of positive and negative impacts.

T. Jameson Brewer, of the University of North Georgia, reviewed The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice: 2019 Edition.

EdChoice’s report attempts to convince readers that a solid body of research evidence shows voucher benefits such as an increase in test scores, parental satisfaction, increased civic values, improvements in racial segregation, and fiscal benefits through governmental cost savings.

What Dr. Brewer found instead was a limited collection of cherry-picked studies, largely from non-peer-reviewed sources, and primarily authored by voucher advocates. The report’s misrepresentation of the existing research, combined with its use of the questionable methodology of simply counting up results categorized as positive or negative, results in an overall appearance of stacking the deck to create an illusory compilation of studies that profess to bolster EdChoice’s predetermined commitment to cheerleading school vouchers.

Find the review, by T. Jameson Brewer, at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/school-choice

Find The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice: 2019 Edition, written by Andrew Catt, Paul DiPerna, Martin Lueken, Michael McShane, and Michael Shaw, and published by EdChoice, at:

https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/123s-of-School-Choice.pdf

NEPC Reviews (http://thinktankreview.org) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools on the State and City’s Floundering Charters

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2019 //
6

Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

 

June 5, 2019

For immediate release: Statement of APPS Re CREDO study

 

The CREDO study released today presents more evidence that the charter experiment foisted upon the state’s children has been a resounding failure, especially considering the enormous amount of taxpayer dollars that have been spent on charter schools.  

 

For many reasons, comparing charters to district schools is not an apples-to-apples exercise. Charter schools receive outside funding from private donors, including significant amounts every year from the Philadelphia School Partnership.  PSP identifies as a non-profit funder of schools, but they have been strong financial and political advocates for privatization and charter expansion. The bulk of their corporate funding goes to non-district schools. 

 

Charter schools have been cited over the years for unfair practices such as presenting barriers to enrollment, failure to inform students and parents of their due process rights when facing disciplinary action, and expelling students for trivial offenses including being out of uniform and lateness.  Thus, many charters are able to exclude students with special needs, both behavioral and academic.  

Studies done by both Philadelphia City Controller’s Office and the State Attorney General’s Office have documented fraud and questionable spending in some of the city’s largest charter organizations.   Organizations including PCCY and the Education 

Law Center have conducted in-depth studies that show charters do not outperform district schools in most categories. ELC’s recent report shows: 1) the population of economically disadvantaged students is much lower in Philadelphia’s charter schools—70% in the District, 56% in charters; 2) the percentage of English learners is nearly three times higher—11% in District, 4% in charters; 3) few of the special education students in the traditional charters are from the low-incidence disability categories, such as autism and intellectual disability, that are most expensive to serve.

The diversion of public funds to privately managed charters has made it more difficult for public schools to fund essential programs, but public schools still manage to outperform charters in most categories.  Lack of oversight, both on the state and local level, has resulted in a lack of accountability in the charter sector. 

The CREDO study confirms that the claim of charter investors and operators that charter schools are a better choice has never been true.  Harrisburg must reform the PA Charter Law so that the voters in each district can have the means to fully fund and strengthen their public school systems.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Privatization

Capital & Main: Charter Teachers Burn Out Faster Than Public School Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2019 //
48

 

Larry Buhl writes in Capital & Main that teacher churn is a serious issue in the charter industry, but high turnover rates may be a feature of the charter business model, because it keeps labor costs low.

In Los Angeles, a 2018 study comparing charter- and traditional-school teachers between 2002 and 2009, found that elementary-school charter teachers saw 35 percent higher turnover than their traditional public-school peers. And the gap is even wider at the high school level, with charter-school teachers nearly four times more likely to leave than their peers.

“The conventional wisdom, which our study backs up, is that charters recruit very young teachers,” said study co-author Bruce Fuller, an education and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Fuller added that teachers are also more likely to be white in charter schools than in traditional district schools, and many received their education background through the nonprofit teacher-recruitment organization Teach for America, rather than at a university or college.

“[CMO management] will say this in small groups but not to reporters — that they want younger teachers because it saves on wages and benefits,” Fuller said. “Our study shows that younger teachers are more likely to leave than older ones. There is no benefit to staying longer. Science-oriented STEM teachers were also more likely to leave in both charter and private schools, possibly because they had more lucrative opportunities in the private sector….”

Growing anecdotal evidence and studies point to several causes, including the startup-like culture of some charters, which leads to “seat of the pants” teaching, as well as inadequate help from administration for charter teacher burnout.

Rachel Schlosser, a fourth-grade teacher at Los Angeles’ Para Los Niños elementary charter school, turned to teaching after working as a grant writer for a nonprofit organization. She had considered going to a district school but was drawn to PLN’s smaller class sizes and student-centered approach. Now, however, she said it’s “student-centered at the expense of teachers.”

She claimed that the school is currently not investing in its teachers: It’s not providing enough professional development or support, nor adequate guidance for handling disciplinary problems, a science curriculum or a long-promised resource library. (Para Los Niños’ administration did not respond to requests for comment.)

“The administration can make or break your experience,” Schlosser added. “If you are not your best self and not feeling supported, the students won’t benefit. Teacher burnout is real.”

Indeed, the “Stay or Go” study showed that the levels of support from administrators for teachers were closely tied to teachers’ decisions to walk away. And teachers aren’t the only ones feeling the urge to move on. A study of New York schools shows that charter-school principals are much more likely to leave than their public-school counterparts.

KIPP has invested in retention strategies, but it still retains fewer teachers than public schools.

Only 11% or so of charter teachers are unionized, so they have no way to bargain for better working conditions.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Shawgi Tell: CREDO Study of Pennsylvania Charters Reports Mediocre Results

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2019 //
8

 

Shawgi Telll writes that the latest study of charter schools in Pennsylvania by CREDO, the Stanford-based research group, reports unimpressive results. 

CREDO’s overall conclusion:

The analysis shows that in a year’s time, the typical charter school student in Pennsylvania makes similar progress in reading and weaker growth in math compared to the educational gains that the students would have had in a traditional public school (TPS). Thinking of a 180-day school year as “one year of learning”, an average Pennsylvania charter student experiences weaker annual growth in math equivalent to 30 fewer days of learning. Our online charter school analysis reveals that attending an online charter school leads to substantially negative learning gains in both reading and math, which negatively affect the overall charter impact on student progress.

The report notes phenomenal growth of enrollment in  online charters, where students actually lose ground in both reading and math.

According to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, charter school enrollment has grown dramatically since the mid-2000s, with noteworthy expansion in both urban and rural areas. In addition, Pennsylvania experienced a 75 percent increase in online charter school enrollment between 2006-2007 and 2010- 2011.2 Currently one quarter of Pennsylvania’s charter school students enroll in online charter schools. These trends motivate the current study.

Tell says:

A June 4, 2019 press release from CREDO states that: “Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found over four years of study that the typical charter school student in Pennsylvania makes similar progress in reading and weaker growth in math compared to their traditional public school peer (TPS).”

The press release does not mention what sort of selective enrollment practices are practiced in Pennsylvania’s charter schools, but it is well-known that charter schools across the nation regularly cherry-pick their students. It is also worth noting that, “Of the state’s 15 cyber charters, 10 are operating with expired charters.”2

The CREDO Pennsylvania finding is extra significant given that it comes from an organization that is unrelentingly pro-charter school and funded heavily by billionaires who have been working for years to impose privately-operated charter schools on the entire country (e.g., Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation).

Go figure. Pennsylvania charter law is notoriously weak. It encourages the growth of low-performing charters. More students are enrolling in inferior online charters, where their learning is likely to be stunted.

What kind of future does the Pennsylvania Legislature envision for the State with its ongoing war against education?

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