Archives for category: Education Industry
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I Endorse Andrew Gillum for Governor of Florida

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2018 //
12

Andrew Gillum is an exciting new face in the Democratic party. He has pledged to reverse the damage inflicted on Florida’s infrastructure and education if he is elected Governor.

I am happy to endorse Gillum!

Here are good reasons to change the leadership of the state:

1. The Republican party has inflicted pain on the public school system and its teachers. They have enacted very loose charter laws and voucher laws. Florida has three different voucher programs, despite the fact that vouchers are specifically banned in the State Constitution, and despite the fact that voters rejected an effort to change the State Constitution to allow vouchers in 2012. The legislature and the governor have given away hundreds of millions of dollars to private and religious and charter schools, which have minimal accountability. They have enacted laws to judge teachers by test scores, even though this method has been proven ineffective and harmful in Florida and everywhere else.

2. The Republicans have run the state like their private candy store, bestowing millions on charter chains owned by their family and friends and ignoring rampant corruption via real estate deals in the venal charter industry.

3. The Republican party is the party of climate change denial. The current governor, Rick Scott, now running for the Senate, is a prominent denier of climate change, even though Florida is ecologically fragile. See this article in Politico, which shows the green slime that is infiltrating the state’s waterways. Scott is notorious for ignoring the environmental damage caused by his policies.

Vote for Bill Nelson for Senator and Andrew Gillum for Governor.

Andrew Gillum is a good man with solid experience as Mayor of Tallahassee.

Florida has a chance to start fresh and break free of the grip of the greed hogs now running the state and destroying its education system and its environment.

Vote for Andrew Gillum!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Environment, Florida, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Jack Schneider: The Lies Reformers Tell About Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
9

Jack Schneider is a historian of education at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He is also co-host with Jennifer Berkshire of the podcast series called “Have You Heard?”

If you really want to know about the state of American education, Schneider proves, don’t ask Betsy DeVos or Arne Duncan. Ask a historian.

We have heard the laments since 1983 from the media and politicians and billionaires like Bill Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs.

As Schneider shows here, they are wrong.

He writes:

“So, how are America’s schools doing?

“In most cases, just fine. Better than ever.

“But America’s schools don’t merely reflect our nation’s material prosperity. They also reflect our moral poverty. Our schools are simultaneously an embrace and a refusal, revealing exactly who is included and who isn’t. Most of us can say our children are getting a great education. Yet whose children are “ours”? What do they look like? Where do they rest their heads at night?

“Reform rhetoric about the failures of America’s schools is both overheated and off the mark. Our schools haven’t failed. Most are as good as the schools anyplace else in the world. And in schools where that isn’t the case, the problem isn’t unions or bureaucracies or an absence of choice. The problem is us. The problem is the limit of our embrace.

“Perhaps, then, a reset is in order. Instead of telling a largely untrue story about a system in decline — a story that absolves us of any personal responsibility — we might begin telling a different story: about a system that works. It works to deliver a high-quality education to those we collectively embrace. And it works in a different way for those we have collectively refused. When a school fails, it is because we have failed.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform

Mercedes Schneider Reveals Where Billionaire Alice Walton Is Financing School Choice

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
1

Mercedes Schneider, Teacher-researcher extraordinaire, has dug into state campaign finance files to track the spending of Walmart heiress and billionaire Alice Walton.

The Walton Family is extremely conservative. They despise unions, and they are contemptuous of punlic schools.

They favor charter schools, vouchers, and Teach for America, which provides the low-wage workers for their charter schools. They partner with Betsy DeVos’s voucher-loving American Federation for Children and also “Democrats for Education Reform,” which is charter-happy.

The Walton Family claims credit for financing one of every four charter schools in the nation.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Privatization, Unions, Walton Foundation

Arthur Camins: Education is Everyone’s Business, But Not a Commodity

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
5

Arthur Camins explains why we all have a stake in the success of public schools.

I wish I had a dollar for every parent who has said, “I’d love to sent my child to a public school, but …” The but is invariably related to real and perceived deficiencies in zoned schools and by race and class prejudices insidiously driven and reinforced by persistently unaddressed planned inequity. The sequel to the but is always a justification for opting out of public schools and enrollment in a charter or private education. Some parents add, “I’m the product of public schools. I support public schools, but I’m not going to sacrifice my children.” Such are the inevitable responses to our country’s acceptance of inequality and scarcity as unalterable. The sum of thousands of these personal choices for some children– increasingly supported by tax revenues– undermines the education of all children. The blame is not on parent choices but on the politicians who refuse to address inequity, while funding policies that undermine public education. If we want a different outcome, we need to vote for politicians who represent different values.

Education in the United States is contentious. It always has been because personal and societal decisions are inextricably interwoven. Now, we are at an inflection point in which consequential questions about education are hotly debated. Consider these for the November elections.

Whose business is the education of students in the United States?

Who should get to make decisions about where, what, with whom, and how children learn?

If our nation values democracy and the common good, the answer to both questions is:

Of course, every parent cares about where, what, with whom, and how their children learn. However, decisions about education affect everyone, not just school attendees and their families. Their education is everyone’s business– but not in the mercantile sense of the word. Other people’s children grow up to be our neighbors, co-workers, and citizens (who vote or do not). Their subsequent behaviors and decisions as adults touch us all, whether or not we have school-age children. That is why decisions about education– a common good– should be made democratically on behalf of all children and not just by individual parents.

Unfortunately, the idea that education is a common good, not a commodity, and should be governed democratically is under assault.

Should decisions about education be made by and for all of us through locally elected school boards? Or, by unelected private boards? Is education literally the business of the eight families who have collectively spent over $35.5 million to influence the outcomes of local school board elections? Is it the business of would-be entrepreneurs out to make a buck?

Once again, if our nation values democracy and the common good the answers are clear:

Yes, no, no, and no.

Read on as Camins explains why Education is our responsibility, not to be handed off to the private sector.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Supporting public schools

Delaware: Another Charter School Votes to Join the Union

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
7

Kevin Ohlandt reports that a second charter school in Delaware voted to join the Delaware State Education Association.

This is sure to make the Waltons, Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and Democrats for Edicarion Reform very angry, because part of their motivation for supporting charters is to break trachers’ Unions. More than 90% of charters are non-union, and their billionaire backers want to keep them that way.

Kevin writes:

Odyssey Charter School teachers and staff voted and an overwhelming majority decided to join the Delaware State Education Association. This is the second charter school in Delaware to do so in 2018. Last Spring, the Charter School of Wilmington also voted to join DSEA. In 1997, Positive Outcomes joined DSEA but opted out in 2000. Delaware College Prep joined in 2012 but closed a few years later due to low enrollment.

With 131 for and 16 against, over 89% of the educators in the school decided a teachers union was the best option for them. Prior to 2018, it was virtually unheard of for Delaware charters to unionize. What turned the tide?

For Odyssey, the decision was clear- they did not like decisions the board was making and felt their voices were not being heard. When former leader Nick Manolakos did not have his contract renewed, the school hired two to take his place. But the tipping point was when their former Board President, who had just resigned, became a leading contender for a third highly paid administrator.

Over the summer this led to those teachers and parents questioning the board about decisions that would affect the school. Parents saw fundraiser after fundraiser to get more money for the school but didn’t feel the money was going towards what the school promised. But they had money for all these administrators.

Remember, Delaware is the state that DeVos gave more than $10 million to expand charter schools, even though there is a problem with low enrollments (I.e., not much demand).

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Delaware, Education Industry, Privatization, Teachers, Unions

Ross Barkan: Cuomo Is Back to His Divide-and-Conquer Strategy

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
5

This article by Ross Barkan reminds us of why Andrew Cuomo never won the hearts of progressives and never will. He really is not a progressive, and he has many tricks up his sleeve to prevent unified Democratic control of the Legislature. He is now playing urban Democrats against suburban Democrats. He will pull any trick to foil his arch-enemy Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City. He persuaded suburban Democrats to pledge unity, based on the phony claim that the Big City doesn’t pay its “fair share” of the costs of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As the article shows, NYC does pay a fair share, and Cuomo likes to pretend he is not in charge of the agency, which is currently struggling with an aging infrastructure and poor service. Fixing it is Cuomo’s job, but he is a shirker.

Correction: New York State teachers’ union did not endorse Cuomo or anyone else on the Democratic primary. However, it remains a fact that Cuomo has repeatedly insulted teachers and imposed a draconian (and failed) teacher evaluation plan. Cuomo still loves charter schools because they are the hobby of Wall Street, and their billionaire backers support Cuomo.

He periodically reminds us who he is and what he cares about.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, DFER, Education Industry, New York, New York City, Privatization

Philadelphia: Failing Charter School Fights Closure, Says It Is Better Than Public School ”Cesspools”

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2018 //
9

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission (now the Board of Educatuon) ordered the closure of Eastern Academy Charter School because of its poor academic performance, but the charter has vowed to fight the closure, a process that could drag on for years due to Pennsylvania’s charter-friendly law. The charter school even challenges the school district’s power to hold it accountable. It feels it is entitled to public money without any accountability for academic quality.

“Eastern is appealing on several grounds. For one thing, it contends that the Charter Schools Office unfairly assessed its academic record by including two special admission schools in one comparison group. For another, it says that two Charter Schools Office staffers who participated in the review were inexperienced.

“Susan DeJarnatt, a professor of legal research at Temple University and a critic of the charter school industry, said that Eastern’s arguments essentially object “to any kind of oversight.”

“The heart of the argument seems to be an idea that many charter proponents have advanced recently — that no charter school should be closed so long as any District schools that underperform the charter school in any way are operating, regardless of the charter’s academic performance or compliance with the law…

“In its appeal, Eastern included a speech by its CEO, Omar Barlow, in which he referred to neighborhood schools where many of his students might otherwise attend as “cesspools” to justify his own school remaining open. In the speech, he made no attempt to refute the charter office’s findings of poor academic performance and violations of state and federal laws.

“DeJarnatt said Eastern’s strongest argument is the one that questions the decision of the charter office to include two special admission schools in a group to which Eastern was compared. But she said that the school presented no evidence of how it would have fared if those magnet schools were removed. Still, she doesn’t see that argument as likely to void the SRC’s decision.

“The school was founded in 2009 with support from Eastern University, though the university has not continued to support the school. David Bromley, executive director of Big Picture Philadelphia, was also a member of the founding coalition. Although Eastern’s website contends that it is a Big Picture School, the only Big Picture Schools in Pennsylvania are El Centro and Vaux.

“By any standard, the school’s academic performance has been low. On the latest round of PSSAs, 20 percent of students in the school’s middle grades scored proficient in English and 1 percent were deemed proficient in math. The high school had poor scores in math and science on the Keystone exams. The school serves 349 students in grades 7-12.”

Twenty percent proficient in English! One percent prominent in math!

This is a failing school.

Why is this school still open?

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

New Mexico: Charter Founder Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Stealing Millions

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2018 //
5

Scott Glasrud received a sentence of five years for theft of millions of dollars from his charter chain.

After more than five hours in court Friday morning, a judge has sentenced the founder of Southwest Learning Centers to five years in prison.

Members of the Southwest Learning Center were happy to hear the judge’s sentence Friday.

The president of one of the schools tells News 13 he still does not believe five years is enough for all the damage Scott Glasrud has done.

“After 14 years of doing this, I don’t know if he knows another way of life. Personally, I don’t feel that he’s learned a lesson at all,” says Larry Kennedy, President of SAMS Academy.

Glasrud pled guilty to stealing millions of dollars from the school and state to feed his lavish lifestyle.

He used the money to buy expensive cars like a Maserati, boats and a $10,000 square-foot home.

Last year, he took a plea deal on charges of theft, fraud and lying to investigators that would put him behind bars for four to five years.

During his sentencing Friday morning, no cameras were allowed inside the courtroom, but Glasrud gave a tearful testimony saying he was sorry for what he has done and has no excuse for his behavior, except that he was greedy.

Larry Kennedy, the president of SAMS Academy, says he did not buy Glasrud’s act.

“I felt he was putting on a show. He put on a show for the schools for 14 years. He’s very good at it. I really feel that’s what he did,” says Kennedy.

Categories Accountability, Albuquerque, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, New Mexico, Privatization

John Merrow: What Have Our Test-Centric Policies Produced?

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
36

John Merrow hammers away at the folly of placing standardized testing at the center of all education.

The evidence of this folly, he says, is the latest ACT reports.

What can we learn from them?

Our seniors are not getting smarter as a result of the testing regime imposed on them.

“These seniors have had 12 or 13 years of test-centric education, and the kids coming up behind them have also endured what the ‘school reformers’ designed. How much more evidence do we need of the folly of “No Child Left Behind” and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” before we take back our schools?

“People who have consistently been ‘half right’ have been in charge of public education for too long. Now some are changing their tune (“Perhaps we have been testing too much,” they say) and asking for another chance. Others, however, are doubling down, calling for more charter schools, vouchers and other aid for private schools, and more anti-union initiatives. I say a plague on both their houses.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

ACT: Math Scores Drop to a 20-Year Low

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
58

Now that Common Core or its look-alike math standards have been implemented in almost every state, the signs of failure are ominous.

Math scores on the ACT fell this year.

From Education Week:

The newest batch of ACT scores shows troubling long-term declines in performance, with students’ math achievement reaching a 20-year low, according to results released Wednesday.

The average math score for the graduating class of 2018 was 20.5, marking a steady decline from 20.9 five years ago, and virtually no progress since 1998, when it was 20.6. Each of the four sections of the college-entrance exam is graded on a 36-point scale.

“We’re at a very dangerous point. And if we do nothing, it will keep on declining,” ACT’s chief executive officer, Marten Roorda, said in an interview.

The pattern in math scores is particularly worrisome at a time when strong math skills are important for the science, engineering, and technology jobs that play powerful roles in the U.S. economy, he said.
Matt Larson, the immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said the math scores “are extremely disappointing, but not entirely unexpected.”

Please review the outrageous claims of advocates for the Common Core. It was supposed to raise achievement across the board for all students; it was supposed to close achievement gaps.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Education Reform
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