Archives for category: Education Industry
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XPRIZE: $10 Million Prize for Teaching Without Teachers!

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2019 //
33

You knew this was coming, didn’t you?

The XPRIZE awarded $10 million in awards to programs that teach children basic skills without a human teacher! One of the funders of the award was our very own Betsy DeVos, who loves teachers so much that she wants to get rid of them. They cost too much, and they tend to want unions. They even think for themselves, which is dangerous.

The XPRIZE Foundation has announced KitKit School and onebillion as the winners of the $10 million Global Learning XPRIZE.

Launched in 2014 with support from the Merkin Family, Dick & Betsy DeVos Family, and Tony Robbins foundations, Elon Musk, and other funders, the Global Learning XPRIZE challenged innovators to develop scalable solutions that enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing, and math skills within fifteen months. Each of the five finalists received $1 million to field test their solutions in Tanzania, where three thousand children learned on tablets donated by Google that were preloaded with one of the five solutions. The two winning organizations will share the $10 million grand prize for enabling the greatest proficiency gains in reading, writing, and math. 

According to XPRIZE, two hundred million children globally cannot read or write, while one in five school-age children are not in school. Based in Seoul, South Korea, and Berkeley, California, KitKit School developed a program featuring a game-based core and flexible learning architecture designed to help children learn independently, irrespective of their knowledge, skill, or environment. London- and Nairobi-based onebillion’s software solution merged numeracy content with literacy material to offer directed learning and creative activities alongside continuous monitoring that enables the software to respond to children’s individual needs. 

Selected from among nearly two hundred teams from forty countries, the other three finalists were CCI (United States), Chimple (India), and RoboTutor (U.S.). All five finalists’ solutions are open source and available in both Swahili and English on GitHub. XPRIZE will work to deliver tablets preloaded with localized versions of the finalists’ software. 

The really cool thing about the scripted curriculum is that the designer can not only program skillsbut control content and determine what children learn.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Teachers

Journey For Justice Had a Busy Day

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
18

Don’t believe the right wingers who claim that  charter schools are supported by Black and Brown people.

Not only did the NAACP, the nation’s most venerable civil rights group, call for a moratorium on charter schools but so did Black Lives Matter.

The Journey for Justice Alliance is a true grassroots civil rights organization. It led demonstrations across the nation today. One of its demands: No more public funds for charter schools, which are a tool of gentrification. J4J knows what matters most: full funding of Title 1 and special education, not privatization and charter schools.

 

May 22 PRESS RELEASE FOR NATIONAL ACTIONS:
We Choose Equity So Fund Our Future! National Day of Action
May 22, 2019

Thousands rally nationwide for education justice on May 22, 2019!

On May 22nd coalitions from 20 cities are uniting forces to hold 11 powerful actions to demand equity and end racial injustice in schools nationwide. As we commemorate the landmark Brown V. Board Decision we will renew our call for an end to the egregious disparities in resources allocated schools serving Black and Brown youth. We will also demand for full funding of Title I and IDEA. The Journey for Justice Alliance will also hold Equity Bus Tours and Forums throughout the country. Many city and statewide coalitions are organizing large rallies with bold actions connected to their local demands for fair funding, sustainable community schools and progressive revenue. Our May 22nd Day of Action will galvanize our communities as we create the momentum to make education a pivotal issue in the 2020 Presidential elections.

May 22nd Calendar

WASHINGTON DC Coalitions: Journey for Justice Alliance (New York, Baltimore, Newark, Camden, Patterson and Pittsburgh), the Alliance for Educational Justice, and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools

• Actions:

1) Rally at Supreme Court with parents and youth from 6 cities, President Randi Weingarten (AFT) and Sen Chris Van Hollen to commemorate Brown V. Board and a renewed demand for equity
2) Equity Bus Tour in DC’s Wards 7 and 8 to highlight resource disparities in local schools
3) Press Conference at Hart Middle School with US Rep. Susie Lee, Liz Davis and President of the Washington Teachers Union

BIRMINGHAM. Coalition/Organization Name: Citizens for Better Schools and Sustainable Communities
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

CINCINNATI. Coalition: Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition
• Action: Protest/Rally in front of campus of new charter school “Regeneration Schools” set to open in August, 2019 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Demand: No more public $$ to charter schools. Demand for equity in school funding, including local campaign demands for tax abatement policy changes. ( The proposed charter school is pushed by local deep pockets organized as the Cincinnati Accelerator started as an offshoot of MindTrust in Indianapolis. These people talk about high-quality seats–a dead give away thet the are using test scores and the absurd Ohio report card as a reason to push for a charter. Key players here are a retired banker and the family that owns CINTAS.)

CHICAGO. Coalition: The Grassroots Education Movement and Chicago Teachers Union
• Action: Fair Contract Rally–Keep the Promise: Equity & Funding for our Schools, Students & Community Thompson Center (110 W. Randolph, downtown Chicago)
• Demand: Call for new mayor to agree to a fair contract that improves educator pay & benefits, reduces class sizes and increasing critical staffing needs (ELL and SPED teachers, paraprofessionals, librarians, nurses, counselors, social workers, restorative justice coordinators) Demands include expanding sustainable community schools and increasing affordable housing.

DENVER. Coalition/Organization Name: Breaking Our Chains
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

DALLAS. Coalition/Organization Name: Texas Organizing Project
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

BATON ROUGE. Coalition/Organization Name: Step Up Louisiana, LAE
• Action: Rally and Press Conference regarding harm done by charters and their lack of accountability (due to ‘autonomy’ given by state laws)
• Demands: Stop the proliferation of charters and a fair plan to address budget deficit

HOUSTON. Coalition/Organization Name: Save Our School Houston and Texas Organizing Project
• Action: Rally and Protest
• Demand: End Punitive dress code policies that police parents of color and prevent their engagement in school activities

JACKSON. Coalition/Organization Name: IDEA and One Voice
• Action: Forum on School to Prison Pipeline and Education Equity
• Demand: End Punitive tactics to police our children

PEORIA. Coalition: Peoria’s People Project
• Action: Organizing for Racial Equity in Education Training co-sponsored by the NAACP
• Demand: Full funding of Title I and IDEA

SACRAMENTO + (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento) Coalitions: Oakland Public Education Network, Reclaim Our Schools LA, Close the Gap, Oakland Education Association, UTLA, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Families Union, Coleman Advocates, California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour & Coalitions will unite at a rally of 1,000 people in Sacramento (Rotunda of State Capitol)
• Demand: The statewide coalition is calling on legislators to support legislation for fair school funding and bills aimed at ending school privatization. They are also demanding full funding of Title I and IDEA and the fulfillment of the mandate to honor Brown V. Board decision.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Resistance

Los Angeles: At First Meeting, Jackie Goldberg Changes Board Dynamics by Challenging Co-Location of Charters

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
16

 

Jackie Goldberg was sworn in to her new office as representative for District 5 on the Los Angeles school board, and she hit the ground running. 

She criticized co-locations, when charters take space in an existing public school, especially when charters are given preferential treatment.

Goldberg’s concerns arose minutes after the board began moving through its agenda. The item was $16 million to prepare space for charters operating on up to 79 district campuses. In all, about 11% of campuses host charters, according to the California Charter Schools Assn. Charters enroll nearly one in five district students.

Goldberg noticed that some of the money would pay for computers and wanted to know if the host school would have comparable technology.

“I have a school that lost its computer lab and the charter school went in there and put in a computer lab,” which it used to recruit students, Goldberg said during the meeting. “That’s crazy.”

Goldberg declined to name the school.

Another board member, George McKenna, raised similar points. And board member Richard Vladovic asserted that this sharing of campuses is “real bad for kids.”

More surprising were comments from two board members elected with substantial support from charter backers.

Nick Melvoin said it was difficult for staff and families at a district-run school to see a charter move in with fresh paint and new furniture on only the charter portion of the campus. He suggested that both parts of the campus should get upgrades…

Goldberg also raised questions about district bond funds being used to help build new facilities for charter schools when declining enrollment was already resulting in empty seats at both traditional and charter schools…

Even before Goldberg could get to it, staff withdrew a third charter school grant from consideration — at least for Tuesday.

Her supporters were thrilled.

“OMG,” texted parent activist Sara Roos. “It’s electric in here.”

The public schools, which enroll 80% of the district’s children, have a forceful advocate on the board.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization

Los Angeles: Charter Chain Founder and Executive Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
6

 

Vielka McFarlane, founder of the Celerity charter chain in Los Angeles, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for misappropriation of $3.2 million from the schools’ accounts. 

In January, Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle funds for personal use. McFarlane, 56, had for years used her charter schools’ credit card and spent taxpayer money on expensive clothing, luxury hotel stays and first-class flights. The bulk of the money spent was for the purchase and renovation of an office building in Columbus, Ohio, where McFarlane intended to open another charter school.

McFarlane was also ordered to pay restitution of $225,138.15 within 60 days.

The case dates to 2012. A routine request for Celerity’s financial records from L.A. Unified’s charter schools division revealed credit card statements of lavish purchases beginning in 2009 — five years after McFarlane had founded the first charter school. The school district’s inspector general opened an investigation and eventually, the federal government got involved.

Her conviction and sentencing raise the question of why Ben Chavis, founder and operator of the American Indian Model Charter Schools in Oakland, had all charges dismissed a few weeks ago after a state audit found that he had redirected $3.8 million of the schools’ funds to his personal accounts and that he used federal charter funds to pay the lease for the charters, which were located in buildings he owned. Are there any investigative reporters tracking this story?

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization

Rob Levine: How Charters Kill Public Schools, the Example of Minneapolis

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
52

Rob Levine, a critic of Ed Deform, created a website called edhivemn.com that tracks funding of education reform orgs in MN –  and it has a feature called Charter School Scandals of the Day

Levine created a graphic to demonstrate the damage that charters do to public schools. He focuses on the charter schools in Minneapolis, which are well funded and highly segregated. Defenders of charters in Minneapolis actually think that racial and ethnic segregation is a good thing. They think that as long as families choose segregation, it is okay. George Wallace would have agreed with them.

The cycle of destruction begins as the districts loses students and money to charters. The district must cut programs and increase class sizes. When they cut programs and class sizes grow, they lose more students to charters. The cycle continues until the district shrivels to insignificance or disappears.

Rob writes:

Though specifics vary, across the nation charter schools are draining the students and finances of public school districts, creating distress in many. In Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Foundation is trying this very strategy with its created entity, Minnesota Comeback, whose goal is 30,000 new charter seats in the city.

Does the Minneapolis Foundation want to destroy public schools in Minneapolis? Look at its partners: all the same “reform” groups that are working with DeVos, the Waltons, and the Koch brothers.

Rob’s graphic shows that tens of millions spent by “Reformers” to disrupt and destroy public schools in Minneapolis.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Privatization, Teach for America

Congressional Leaders Take DeVos to Task and Demand Answers

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
25

A group of leaders in Congress wrote to Betsy DeVos to complain about her Department’s failure to demand accountability from the Charter Schools that win federal funding. She has $440 million to hand out to charters, and she has chosen to shower millions on corporate charter chains like IDEA, KIPP, and Success Academy. All of these chains are super rich. They don’t need federal aid.

The charter industry is angry because the House Appropriations Committee cut Betsy DeVos’s request from $500 million to $400 million. Tough. She uses the Charter School Program as her personal slush fund.

The fact is that the charter industry wants to play a game of pretending to be progressive while sleeping with Trump and DeVos. Sorry, that doesn’t make sense. You can’t be funded by rightwing ideologues and still be “liberal.” You can’t take Walton money and pretend to be progressive. You can’t be anti-union, pro-segregation and claim to be progressive. Nope.

As the charter industry grows more defensive, watch them cry  “racism.” Please note that many of the signatories of this letter are Black and Hispanic. Note that one of them is Jahana Hayes, the Connecticut Teacher of the Year who was elected in 2018.

The letter can be found here.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Bad News for the Sackler Family

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
26

The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures and markets (ed) OxyContin, a highly addictive opioid. More than 200,000 people have died of opioid addiction.

The Sackler family is listed by Forbes as one of the richest families in America with a net worth of $14 billion.

The Sackler name is engraved on museums, libraries, and universities. Some of those institutions have removed the Sackler name or said they do not welcome future donations.

The Sacklers are major supporters of charter schools. Jonathan Sackler funded ConnCAN  and 50CAN. His daughter Madeline made a movie glorifying Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain, called “The Lottery.”

 

WASHINGTON, May 21 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led a bicameral group of lawmakers in introducing the Opioid Crisis Accountability and Results Act, as Vermont Attorney General T. J. Donovan announced a lawsuit today against former Purdue Pharma CEO Richard Sackler and seven family members who served on Purdue’s Board of Directors for deliberately misrepresenting the risks of the drug OxyContin.

The Opioid Crisis Accountability and Results Act, introduced with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Representatives Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), prohibits illegal marketing and distribution of opioids; creates criminal liability for top company executives; penalizes drug manufacturers who illegally advertise, market or distribute an opioid product; and requires drug makers to reimburse the country for the negative economic impact of their products.

The opioid epidemic is estimated to cost the United States over $78 billion per year. In 2016 alone, over 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses. From 1999 to 2016, the number of opioid overdose deaths more than tripled, and U.S. life expectancy as a whole fell for the third year in a row in 2017, due in part to the increase in opioid-related deaths.

“We know that pharmaceutical companies lied about the addictive impacts of opioids they manufactured. They knew how dangerous these products were, but refused to tell doctors and patients. While some of these companies have made billions each year in profits, not one of them has been held fully accountable for its role in an epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year,” Sanders said. “At a time when local, state and federal governments are spending many billions of dollars a year dealing with the impact of the opioid epidemic, we must hold the pharmaceutical companies and executives that created the crisis accountable.”

“Communities across the country are being ripped apart by the opioid epidemic. Multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and their executives reaped large profits for years while their questionable marketing and distribution practices precipitated a devastating public health crisis,” Bennet said. “It is far past time for Congress to ensure opioid manufacturers, distributors, and executives fund our response to the crisis they created. Our bill will support programs that combat the opioid crisis and ensure we hold companies and their executives accountable for any future misconduct.”

“When I visit the communities that have been ravaged by the opioid epidemic, I see the victims of unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies that have put profits over the patients they were intended to serve,” said Khanna. “This bill holds opioid manufacturers and their executives accountable for decades of dishonest sales practices and malicious drug distribution. Over the past 20 years, more than 400,000 people have died of opioid overdoses, and millions more have been stricken by addiction. Their loved ones deserve justice.”

“Opioid companies have lied, cheated, and profited from the addiction and death left in the wake of the crisis they helped create. The criminal nature of these companies’ actions have destroyed families as well as strained the criminal justice and public health systems,” said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “This bill would create tools to hold companies and executives accountable for preying on patients using deceptive marketing tactics, as they proliferated these highly-addictive and destructive drugs on our streets.”

Any company found in violation of the Opioid Crisis Accountability and Results Act would be fined 25 percent of the profits from their opioid products. Drug manufacturers who illegally advertise, market or distribute an opioid product would also be stripped of any remaining period of market exclusivity for that opioid product, and would lose half of the remaining exclusivity period on other opioid products they have on the market. The legislation would also fine any company found liable for contributing to the opioid epidemic $7.8 billion—10 percent of the annual cost of the opioid crisis.

Organizations endorsing the legislation include Public Citizen, CREDO, American Medical Student Association (AMSA), National Collaborative for Health Equity and Prescription Justice.

Sanders contact: Keane_Bhatt@sanders.senate.gov
Bennet contact: Courtney_Gidner@bennet.senate.gov
Khanna contact: Heather.Purcell@mail.house.gov
Gabbard contact: Haig.Hovsepian@mail.house.gov 

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

URGENT: Contact Your Senators and Urge Them to Fund Public Schools, NOT the Charter Slush Fund!

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
10

Please open and read this action alert from NPE Action. 

We urge all concerned citizens, parents, and educators to contact your Senators and encourage them to cut the budget of the federal Charter Schools Program (“charter slush fund”) and use the $440 million currently budgeted for Title 1 and the nation’s neediest children.

NPE wrote a report on the federal Charter Schools Program and documented that one-third of the charter schools it funded between 2006-2014 either never opened or closed right after opening. The percentage of failed charters was even higher in states such as California and Louisiana. The CSP is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. The failed federally-funded charters wasted nearly $1 billion over a six-year period studied.

Charter advocates attacked the report but no one has pointed out a single error of fact. They don’t like it because it shows in accurate detail that the federal Charter Schools Program is awash in waste, fraud and abuse.

Some of the most prominent members of the House of Representatives signed a letter criticizing the Department of Education’s failure to exercise oversight of the CSP and calling on Betsy DeVos to provide oversight of the program and to update the CSP database, which has not been updated since 2015.

The CSP currently is funded at $440 million. DeVos asked to raise it to $500 million. The Appropriations committee of the House of Representatives proposed a cut of $40 million, reducing it to $400 million.

Make no mistake. This is Betsy DeVos’s charter slush fund. This year, she gave $89 million to the richly-funded KIPP, and $116 million to IDEA, which plans to open 20 charter schools in El Paso, which will swamp the local public schools. She also gave nearly $10 million to Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy chain, which is swimming in hedge fund money. The CSP is play money for DeVos. The whole program should be canceled. Charter schools are not needy. They do not need or deserve federal aid. Let the Waltons and Charles Koch and Bill Gates and Eli Broad and Reed Hastings and Michael Bloomberg pay for them.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization

Texas: GOOD NEWS! Texas House Rejects Bill to Ban Lobbying for Public Schools, But Allow It for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
10

Charles Foster Johnson, leader of Pastors for Texas Children, describes an effort to censor and silence those who advocate on behalf of public schools:

Texas Senate Bill 29 was roundly defeated late yesterday afternoon in
the Texas House on an 85-58 vote. The bill would have prohibited local
school districts and other local government authorities such as
counties from taxpayer-supported advocacy in the Legislature. It is a
policy designed for one purpose: to silence those defending and
protecting public education and the public good and to enable those who advocate for privatization
and for personal financial profit.

Dirty little secret? The bill exempted charter schools. The bill would
have empowered them to lobby for even more public funding– without
being hassled by traditional public school advocates.

It failed miserably. The House of Representatives is generally
pro-public education here in Texas. They have held the line against
sweeping privatization efforts. We have repudiated vouchers multiple
times over the past couple of decades, and will never have them,
precisely because these conservative public officials hold to the
principle of local control and accountability that public schools so
beautifully incarnate.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was behind the entire push, is livid.
His project to dismantle public education and the public good in Texas
is now exposed, and is losing. He lost his cool about it at the Senate
chair last night. He is coming unraveled and his chamber is
desperately broken. Unfortunately, our Governor Greg Abbott supported
the bill also. His only concern is not allowing Patrick to
“out-rightwing” him, so his political obsession is to stake out
whatever non-existent sliver of territory there is to the right of
Patrick.

Of course, this ill-fated bill serves the opposite purpose. Pro-public
education advocates will dramatically increase next legislative
session. Our pastors are in the Capitol every day. Next session we
will have a platoon of them daily instead of two or three. We are
grateful to NPE for joining us in our fight through the perfectly
timed action alert yesterday! Legislative offices were FLOODED with
calls opposing this ridiculous bill. Our strong solidarity together got the job
done!

Pastors for Texas Children and many other groups supporting public schools joined to defeat this proposal. NPE Action contacted its allies across the state of Texas, who joined with many thousands of parents, educators and citizens to defeat this effort to censor advocates for public schools.

Categories Accountability, Bias, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Texas

Watch My Interview with Lauren Steiner, Taped Yesterday

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
14

 

Lauren Steiner is an activist who is actively engaged in fighting privatization in California. She has a regular program on Facebook, where she interviews people like me.

She interviewed me yesterday about charters, billionaires, neoliberalism, and other issues. The California Legislature is deciding right now about bills to regulate charters and make them accountable.

I reactivated my FB account for this interview. You don’t have to be on FB to watch as it is posted on YouTube and easily available. 

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