Archives for category: Education Industry
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Thrive Charter Schools in San Diego: Where the Founders Thrive, But Not Students

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2018 //
9

Tom Ultican has written several articles about the Destroy Public Education Movement; this installment examines a failing charter chain in San Diego that continues to rake in big bucks.

The Thrive charter chain, he says, is a masterpiece of marketing, but a failure at education.

When the chain was launched, the San Diego Unified School District staff said it was not ready to open; the founders appealed and were rejected by the staff of the County Board of Education. The founders appealed to the State Board of Education, where its defective application was rubberstamped by Governor Jerry Brown’s pro-Charter State Board.

Ultican says that charter schools are supposed to perform at least as well as similar public schools or show improvement over time.

Thrive charter schools did not meet either benchmark. But that did not deter funders or founders.

They were shameless and kept growing their failing charter chain. And the money kept rolling in, to expand the failure to more children.

“Once she obtained the charter authorization from the SBE, money came. The known list of 2014 donations: Buzz Woolley’s Girard Foundation granted her $108,000; Gate’s Educause sent $254,500; Charter School Growth Fund kicked in $175,000 and the Broad Foundation delivered $150,000 for a total of $688,000. The next year, Broad gave another $50,000 and the New Schools Venture Fund pitched in $100,000. There is another $144,000 promised from Educause.

“Destroy public education (DPE) careers pay well. Tax records reveal that Nicole’s start up “non-profit” has been lucrative. Her pay: year one $122,301; year two $133,747 and year three $142,541. Her husband holds a senior management position at the CCSA which means DPE money flows his way as well.”

In 2017, the charter chain added another school, this one paid for by taxpayers, but with this addendum. The property belongs not to taxpayer who paid for it, but TO THE CHARTER OWNERS! How cool is that!

You will not be surprised to learn that the pro-privatization website “The 74,” is wild about Thrive. Nor will you be be surprised to discover that Thrive loves putting kids on computers and that one of its cheerleaders is Tom Vanderbilt Ark, a leading salesman for edtech.

Ultican reminds us that the Thrive charter chain calls itself “public schools,” but it is a private contractor that runs lucrative but failing schools. All that keeps them going is this formula:

“Bad schools like TPS survive because they are good at marketing; have deep pocketed benefactors and political allies.”

Thrive is not thriving.

Ultican says Thrive is evidence that California needs a moratorium on charter schools until lawmakers systematically root out fraud, self-dealing, waste, and abuse. That’ll be the day.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Privatization, San Diego

Arizona: Online Charter Operator Pays Himself Another $1.3 Million, Gives Teachers a 1% Raise

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
8

The Primavera online charter school in Arizona is rewarding himself handsomely with taxpayers’ money. Will Governor Doug Ducey or the legislature care or will regulate this self-dealing?

The CEO of Primavera, whose multimillion-dollar payments to himself spurred calls for more oversight of Arizona charter schools, received another $1.3 million from the online charter this past school year, records show.

Damian Creamer, the sole owner of the for-profit Primavera, also paid $27.6 million from the school’s state education funding to another company he owns, Strongmind. The payment was for curriculum, enrollment, technical support and other services.

Meanwhile, the school, which reported it had the third-worst dropout rate in Arizona, gave its 95 teachers a 1 percent pay raise last school year.

Primavera disclosed its spending for the period from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, in an independent audit required by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.

Creamer did not respond to requests for comment.

The audits provide a snapshot of how lightly regulated charter operators use tax dollars. Charter schools are not subject to the same financial or governance oversight as traditional district public schools, and The Republic has found that some operators, like Creamer, have become charter school millionaires by operating the public schools.

After The Republic reported this year that Creamer had paid himself $8.8 million despite operating a school with the state’s third-highest dropout rate, Attorney General Mark Brnovich called for the law to be changed to allow his office to investigate charter schools more broadly.

Creamer has said the $8.8 million payment was for tax purposes but has not provided documents to support that claim.

“When you see public money go to line the pockets of someone who is supposed to help students become a millionaire, I can’t believe it’s not a crime,” Brnovich said at the time.

Since then, a Republican state senator and Gov. Doug Ducey have said they, too, will push to overhaul Arizona’s charter-school laws to require more transparency and compliance with the same procurement and conflict-of-interest laws that govern district schools.

Brnovich has criticized Creamer because the online charter school owner uses education funds to buy services from related businesses he owns or controls. A related-party transaction or self-dealing is illegal for school districts but common among Arizona charter schools.

Basis Charter Schools Inc., for example, pays about $10 million as an annual, no-bid management fee to a company controlled by its founders. American Leadership Academy founder Glenn Way made at least $18.4 million building schools for ALA through no-bid contracts. And state lawmaker Eddie Farnsworth is poised to make at least $11 million by selling his Benjamin Franklin schools to a non-profit company he created.

Brnovich’s office recently obtained a fraud conviction against Daniel K. Hughes, president and CEO of Discovery Creemos Academy in Goodyear, after he abruptly shuttered his charter school in January and defrauding taxpayers of at least $2.5 million by inflating the school’s enrollment.

Primavera still amassing cash

Primavera has accumulated so much money that it has set aside $8.5 million for Creamer in stockholder’s equity, records show. Creamer can take the money anytime.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Jake Jacobs: Voters in New York Oust Charter Supporters from State Senate

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
8

Jake Jacobs describes the dramatic ouster of fake Democrats from the State Senate and a changed landscape in New York.

Until the last election, Governor Andrew Cuomo worked closely with an odd coalition of Tepublicans and fake Democrats in the State Senate to give charter schools whatever they wanted. Cuomo collected millions of dollars from hedge fund managers and Wall Street who love charter schools.

The so-called Independent Democratic Conference caucused with Republicans to assure Republican Control of the State Senate.

The new State Senators are anti-charter and anti-standardized testing.

Perhaps just as significant as the Ocasio-Cortez “earthquake” was the September 13th aftershock, where six other insurgent, grassroots-backed New York candidates won primaries in State Senate races against members of the former Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a controversial group of eight breakaway lawmakers who shared power, perks—and donors—with senate Republicans for over seven years.

All six “No IDC” challengers handily beat their Republican opponents in the general election November 6, including Alessandra Biaggi, a former legal counsel in the Governor Andrew Cuomo administration who ran on the promise to “stop siphoning money to privately run charter schools” and a call to prevent charters from expanding in New York.

Despite being outspent, Biaggi defeated Jeff Klein, the ringleader of the IDC, who funneled upwards of $700,000 in charter industry PAC money to IDC members. Working with Republicans, Klein repeatedly blocked funding for needy public schools while dramatically increasing per-pupil spending for charters. A thirteen year incumbent, Klein lost 54-46 percent, out-hustled by Biaggi who attended public schools in Pelham before hitting the Ivy league, and at thirty-two years old still owes over $180,000 in student debt.

Defeating another IDC member awash in charter PAC money was progressive Robert Jackson, a longtime New York City Councilman who was an original lead plaintiff in the original 1993 Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit seeking increased funding for impoverished schools.

A fierce critic of school privatization, Jackson is eager to take on “groups such as StudentsFirst who push a non-transparent, corporate agenda that makes money off of children’s backs, strips schools and districts of resources, and undermines public education,” his chief of staff Johanna Garcia tells me in an email. In 2011, Jackson sued the city to stop charter school co-locations, or the takeover of space in public school buildings. He has also been a staunch supporter of the opt-out movement, championing legislation in the New York City Council to reduce standardized testing.

Likely to have a profound impact in Albany, Senator-elect Jackson’s position on standardized testing is resolute: “The sooner and farther away we move from standardized testing, the quicker we can focus on supporting learning environments that are responsive and include teaching critical thinking skills, small class sizes, arts and science programs, recess, and funding for resources, social services and enrichment opportunities.”

In Queens, another progressive Democrat to unseat a pro-charter IDC member is Jessica Ramos, a former aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio with a background as a labor organizer and immigration activist. Also a public school product, Ramos is a mom of two who “cannot wait to opt-out” when her oldest son enters third grade next year. Seeing the stress and waste of the testing regime, she “absolutely” backs legislation to eliminate state testing mandates.

Ramos opposes diverting funding from public schools to charters who she sees pushing out high need students in order to preserve their “brand.” Like Robert Jackson, Ramos supports the NAACP moratorium on new charter schools as well as the longtime fight for equitable public school funding.

Also in Queens, former New York City Comptroller John Liu defeated former IDC state senator Tony Avella, who in 2009, claimed to be adamantly anti-charter. But in 2014, Avella joined the IDC and voted for budgets that increased funding for charter co-locations and school choice. Senator-elect Liu wants to prevent the growth of charters and make them pay rent to the city, while also reducing the emphasis on standardized testing.

Cuomo won’t be able to squash progressive legislation anymore. There’s a new posse in Albany.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York, Privatization, Standardized Testing

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2018 //
18

John Thompson here writes about his reaction to the annual conference of the Network for Public Education, where the implicit theme was that David is beating Goliath, but Goliath just keeps stumbling forward, crushing public schools and advancing privatization, with no evidence of success. I argued, in the opening address of the conference, that the Reformers are akin to Goliath, and that Goliath has failed and failed again but is so powerful that he continues to wreak destruction on communities. He is among the Walking Dead. He is, in fact, a zombie.

Thompson was a teacher in Oklahoma; he recently retired. He lives in the belly of the beast, a state where Goliathians control the legislature and the governorship. At least they don’t pretend to be “progressives.” They are DeVos-Trump extremists, with links to ALEC and the Koch brothers.

Thompson admits that he was slow in realizing that the Reformers are intent on undermining public schools and that they were acting in concert. But he is convinced now, not only that they are doing so, but that their promises have not been kept and that, in fact, they have failed wherever they set their sights.

He ends with this:

Knowing that Indianapolis is at the heart of the dying, but still dangerous corporate reform movement, I expected that Chalkbeat would choose its words carefully and make sure that its reporting didn’t threaten its donations from Goliath. Chalkbeat Indianapolis didn’t cover the NPE conference but Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat New York has been covering Indiana’s Mind Trust and its successor, the City Fund. (Chalkbeat Indiana has since linked to WFYI Indianapolis’s report on one of the city’s 20 “innovation schools” which is receiving $1.3 million in management fees.)

This leads to the biggest question that I brought to the NPE. We Oklahomans have failed to communicate with our state’s edu-philanthropists on how their science-based, holistic early education and trauma-informed instruction programs and the Indianapolis Goliath are inherently incompatible. We know that the City Fund seems to have its eye on Deborah Gist’s Tulsa Public schools. We could use some help from NPE conference participants in explaining to Tulsa philanthropists why their “portfolio model” is likely to undermine their contributions to high quality pre-k, just like it did in New Orleans.

As a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood and a board member for the ACLU/OK, I developed great respect for the Kaiser and Schusterman foundations and other Tulsa philanthropists. I still struggle to understand how those leaders could not see how their humane, evidence-based programs are threatened by Goliath’s data-driven, reward and punish corporate reforms. But one of the first people I saw in Indianapolis was Tom Ultican, and he gave me information on the $200,000 Schusterman donated to California privatizers such as Antonio Villaraigosa and Marshall Tuck. If nothing else, I would like to explain to the philanthropists why educators can’t lower our guard and stop defending ourselves against their scorched earth tactics. I’d appreciate any help the NPE can provide in explaining why we will fight Goliath to the end.

Imagine that. Chalkbeat has an outpost in Indianapolis, but did not think it was worth its time to send a reporter to cover a conference of 500 educators from across the country that took place in Indianapolis! Is that media bias? Would their funders (Walton, Gates, etc.) have objected if they sent a reporter to write about a major event in their city?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Indianapolis, Lies, Privatization

D.C.: Parents Fight Bureaucracy to Try to Get a Public School in Their Neighborhood

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2018 //
16

Just in case you thought that Eve Ewing was writing about a one-off event in Chicago, when Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked board closed 50 public schools in one day, ignoring the pleas of parents, think again.

A similar battle is going on in the District of Columbia, where parents are pleading with the D.C. school officials to open a public school (doors open to all) where they closed a public school.

Valerie Jablow, a D.C. parent, writes about this struggle and pins down the shifty tactics of school officials, who offer dodges, double-talk, and shifting explanations to parents who want a public school.

The outcome, she suspects, is pre-determined.

The District of Columbia is still locked into the Michelle Rhee mindset and remains committed to replacing public schools with charter schools. After all, they have received millions from the Walton Foundation and other malanthropists NOT to change course and listen to residents.

This is what democracy does not look like, she writes, as officialdom finds myriad ways to evade public testimony by parents.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Parents, Privatization, Walton Foundation

New Orleans: Five Charters Closed, Other Charters Approved, Parents Outraged

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2018 //
7

If you should read Eve Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard, you will have the context for understanding the incessant disruption imposed on the students and parents of New Orleans. Parents were fearful that the superintendent planned to close schools and scatter their children.
At a recent meeting, the superintendent announced that he was closing five low-performing charter schools and approving a new group of charters. The superintendent, Henderson Lewis Jr., stressed how difficult these decisions were.

“This month has been a test for myself, my staff, this board and our system as a whole,” Lewis said. “It tested our courage, our consistency, and it tested humility.”

Parents were furious. They did not praise the superintendent and his staff for their courage and humility.

Because these were action items, the public was finally allowed to speak, and the meeting became heated at times. However, when speakers veered off topic — to school closures, for example — they were asked to leave the podium.

At one point, as the board asked a woman to stop talking the crowd reacted in a chant: “Let her talk! Let her talk! Let her talk!”

At another moment, organizer Ashana Bigard spoke from the audience.

“You represent us, when did you ask us?” Bigard asked. “Did anybody sit in a meeting where we discussed these changes?”

A collective “no” was the response.

Several speakers and people in the audience called for the district to directly run its schools.

One woman specifically criticized the nearly all-charter district. “Y’all are passing out charters like you’re Oprah or something. You get a charter. You get a charter. You get a charter.”

Another speaker pleaded with the board: “After tonight, please don’t close or charter any other school. If you’ve got a problem with administration, run the school don’t close the school.”

After the meeting, Bigard said she planned to help parents organize.

“We are organizing parents that want to come together to get real democracy and real choice,” she said. “We’re going to start our recall campaign tomorrow.”

She said she was particularly concerned with the trauma students experience when they’re moved from school to school.

“They’re picking on special needs children and black and brown children,” she said. “They get the least when they’re supposed to get the most.”

Forty percent of the charter schools in New Orleans are rated D or F. All of them are overwhelmingly black.

The superintendent thinks that he can make all of them excellent schools if he keeps closing those with low grades.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, New Orleans, Parents, Privatization

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider on School Closings in Boston

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2018 //
8

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider talk here about school closings in Boston. Berkshire recently read sociologist Eve Ewing’s phenomenal book about school closings in Chicago, so the podcast approaches the Boston events from the perspective of the victims. If, like me, you seldom listen to podcasts, here is the transcript.

It is simply a matter of fact that corporate reformers never close schools in white communities, only in communities where parents are apparently powerless. The school closings serve the purposes of gentrification. The excuse is always “test scores,” but the effect is replacement of one group of people by another, more affluent group. It happened in Chicago, it will happen in Boston.

Boston plans to close schools serving some of the city’s most vulnerable students, so they can be redistributed to other schools. As the exchanges in the program show, these students will suffer from the changes and the displacement.

I urge you to listen or read this segment

Categories Accountability, Boston, Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Utah: Why the Secrecy Around This Lucrative Charter Chain?

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2018 //
8

The largest charter chain in Utah is American Prepartory Academy. It is operated by a for-profit entity. The schools are very profitable. The owners keep their operations secret, as they probably assume that the public would not be happy to learn how much tax dollars go into their bank accounts, not the schools.

One of its founders and its Executive Director, Carolyn Sharette, is also the registered agent of a for-profit management company, American Preparatory Schools, Inc., which will charge the school $5,805,200 for the 2018-2019 school year. That’s a bump up from the $4.6 million the company got last year.

Where’s the money going?

State funding, your taxpayer dollars, comprise 88 percent of American Prep’s budget. But what do the students get with that money?

Sharette isn’t telling – and she doesn’t have to. The State Charter School Board does not demand accountability from contracted companies working for the school.
The Board told KUTV’s Beyond the Books that it monitors a charter school’s student performance and adherence to its charter and state and federal rules. But Sharette’s for-profit company is beyond its reach.

It’s also a family affair. Two of Sharette’s siblings, brother Howard Headlee and sister Laura Campbell, are co-founders of American Prep.

Sharette and Campbell sit on its executive board. Headlee registered three 501(c)3 companies that own the school’s property and buildings and lease them back to the schools. And at least two of Sharette’s children have been employed by the for-profit management company, American Preparatory Schools, Inc.

Where’s your tax money going, Utah citizens?

None of your business!

Once it goes to this charter chain, there is no accountability.

Satisfied?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Angie Sullivan: Stop the For-Profit Charter Scam in Nevada

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2018 //
9

Angie Sullivan teaches young children in a Title 1 school in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. She writes an email blast to every legislator in the state.

Angie writes:

Folks in other states are banning for-profit charter management corporations.

With good reason.

Whole campaigns are built on banning for-profit scams in other states. We need folks in Nevada to notice this mess.

http://m.wtol.com/toledonewsnow/db_347256/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=yQmm1LBE

Attendance should match testing.

In Nevada we have for-profits corporations claiming they have thousands enrolled but only a few test?

We cannot afford to give $18 Million to a corporation if they are only providing $1 million in educational type services. Note: I did not state learning – because providing a type of service is NOT learning if students do not graduate.

Meanwhile, we elect lawmakers who sit on for-profit charter boards, manage a for-profit branch, or work at a for-profit charter. They will sit in legislative session next year and have their hands on bills to line pockets. Note: I did not say teach kids, because that is NOT the bottom line or mission of a corporation. No wonder no one graduates.

Let’s not repeat mistakes of other states which expanded charters at an alarming rate and now the tax payer suffers. Nevada has a big enough mess already.

Nevada Charters are definitely not a remedy or an example. It is a travesty that a real public school in CCSD is threatened with being turned into a charter. Scary.

It is not fiscally responsible to allow Academica, Gulen Corals, or On-lines to run rampant without the same transparency and accountability required by all public schools.

Time for a for-profit charter moratorium and to clean up this $350 million mess.

CCSD Parents need to be demanding expansion of CCSD Magnets – which are the top schools in the nation – instead of these scammers. And we need funding to maintain quality in Magnets. That is what works. People need to demand what works.

The Teacher,
Angie

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Funding, Privatization

Indianapolis: The Resistance Pushes Back Against Corporate Reformers

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2018 //
8

Indianapolis has been a major target for the privatization movement. A group called The Mind Trust, funded by billionaire foundations, has led the effort to destroy public education, while presenting its motives as benign and admirable.

The corporate reform attack on Indianapolis was described vividly in this post by Jim Scheurich and Gayle Crosby.

Tom Ultican wrote about the destructive role of The Mind Trust in Indianapolis, which claims to be allied with the Democratic Party.

Locals, lacking the resources of the privatizes, have fought to save their public schools.

Here is a report on the recent elections from Dountonia Batts, an active member of the Network for Public Education:

Sending a clear message that the community is fed up with corporate reform, voters in Indianapolis ousted two incumbents on the Indianapolis Public School (IPS) Board, replacing them with opponents of the district’s corporate reform agenda.

First-time candidates Taria Slack and Susan Collins were backed by the IPS Community Coalition (the Indianapolis AROS Chapter) and the local teachers union and ran against incumbents backed by Stand for Children and the Mind Trust, a corporate reform institute. Slack and Collins are vowing to pressure the IPS administration to improve transparency, genuine community collaboration and engagement, and hold the administration accountable.

Indianapolis schools have been under persistent attack by corporate reformers over the past decade, with increasing numbers of charters and public school closings. The district—under the tutelage of the Mind Trust—has also created so-called “Innovation Schools,” which are IPS schools that are handed over to a charter management organization. Innovation Schools have complete autonomy, a school board that is not elected by the public, and receive public funds. Additionally, this structure allows charters under the IPS umbrella to take advantage of district-provided services such as transportation and special education services at no cost. This victory is proof that ordinary citizens can defeat big money. People power trumps money power. IPS Community Coalition is organized, prepared, and ready to reclaim our schools

Sincerely,

Dountonia S. Batts, J.D., M.B.A., N.S.A.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Indianapolis, Privatization, Resistance
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »