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

The Gulen Charter Schools: An Exhaustive Exposé

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2017 //
27

Lawyer Robert Amsterdam was hired by the Republic of Turkey to investigate the Gulen charter school movement in the United States.

The Turkish government is headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is engaged in political struggle with Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a cleric who lives in seclusion in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. The Turkish government is Islamic, and Gulen is an Islamic cleric. I can’t say that I understand the political issues, but I do know that Erdogan is not a democratic leader, and there are no heroes here. After a recent failed coup attempt, Erdogan blamed Gulen and proceeded to repress civil liberties and jail thousands of suspected Gulenists.

Fethullah Gulen remains safely ensconced in his mountain retreat. He controls one of the biggest charter chains in the United States. It was surpassed in numbers recently by KIPP as the largest corporate charter chain.

American film maker Mark Hall recently produced a film about the Gulen schools. It is called “Killing Ed.” He tried to interview Gulen but was not admitted to the compound. He interviewed former Gulen teachers and they told him about kickbacks and other dubious practices that would not be tolerated in public schools.

The New York Times has reported on the Gulen practice of handing out big contracts to Turkish contractors, without choosing the low bidder. Similar practices triggered a state audit in Georgia. The FBI raided Gulen schools in the Midwest as part of an investigation of white-collar crime.

A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by Mr. Amsterdam. He told me he had uncovered gross violations of law and ethics by the Gulen schools. I told him that what bothers me about the Gulen schools is the idea that American public schools are controlled by foreign nationals. One of the central purposes of the American public school is to teach children their rights and responsibilities as citizens. How can that be outsourced to foreign nationals? As a thought experiment, I asked, how would Americans feel about their public schools being taken over by nationals of Russia? Chile? Cambodia? Are Americans so hapless and incompetent that we can’t manage our own public schools and staff them with American teachers? It is perfectly reasonable to hire foreign teachers, especially to teach their own language, but why should an American “public school” be turned over lock, stock, and barrel to a Turkish organization? It is not as if Turkey is one of the best performing nations in the world. It is not.

Amsterdam listened patiently but said his primary concern was massive corruption.

He has just published a very large book called “Empire of Deceit,” documenting the massive misuse of public funds for Gulen schools, the misuse of the H-1B visa program to import Turkish teachers, the practice of tithing to the Gulen organization, and the way that Gulen schools steer contracts to Turkish contractors. He has documented practices that would never be tolerated in public schools.

You can go to his website and find a list of all the Gulen schools in every state.

You can also download the book for free.

All of this is troublesome, but for me the most troublesome aspect is the idea of outsourcing public schools to foreign nationals, no matter which nation they represent. Public schools belong to the public, and they should not be outsourced or given to private corporations.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Citizenship, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

Donald Cohen: Why Is Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital Investing in Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2017 //
35

Donald Cohen, executive director of “In the Public Interest,” an organization that fights privatization of public services, writes about the curious combination of people who poured serious money into the Massachusetts charter school battle last fall.

When the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance forced a pro-charter school political organization to reveal its donors, guess which words jumped off the page? Bain Capital.

Of the more than $15 million Families for Excellent Schools spent pushing last November’s controversial ballot initiative to increase the number of charter schools in Massachusetts, $1.4 million came from Bain investors, including Romney’s fellow cofounder Josh Bekenstein.

The initiative was voted down—parents, teachers, and residents mobilized to protect traditional public schools—but until now we had little proof that a shadowy gang of private investors and billionaires were leading the charge.

Donors included the owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, the billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman, Alice Walton of the Walmart family fame, and even Massachusetts’s current chairman of Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the venture capitalist Paul Sagan.

So why does Bain and a handful of billionaires want more charter schools?

We really don’t know, at least yet. Like everything in finance, the tangled knots and paper trails are seemingly endless.

Maybe they’re just being nice and philanthropic, trying to help, as Romney himself once called them, “inner city kids.” But maybe they’re up to something else.

In our report on California’s charter schools, we dug into the $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars and subsidies spent in the past 15 years to help private groups lease, build, or buy school buildings. Due to a severe lack of regulation, some of this money has ended up in the pockets of investors and executives.

For example, two schools in Stockton, California, are renting space for three and half times the market rate from a company with business ties to the CEO of the charter operator that oversees them.

Los Angeles’s Alliance network of charter schools has received more than $110 million in federal and state taxpayer support for its facilities, which are not owned by the public, but are part of a growing empire of privately owned real estate now worth in excess of $200 million.

The bottom line is, there’s lots of taxpayer money sloshing around in an unregulated market, and few people know where it’s going.

For some well-meaning educators and parents, charter schools are about innovation and alternative learning. But for the investors and billionaires behind the growing charter school industry, they seem to be about something else altogether: private control of taxpayer money.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Eva Moskowitz to Chalkbeat: Buzz Off! We Are a Private Corporation, Not Public!

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2017 //
28

Chalkbeat thought that it would be interesting to gain access to the email correspondence of Success Academy Network to find out how they handled the Dan Loeb crisis. It’s reporter filed a Freedom of Information request. Dan Loeb is the billionaire who is chairman of the SA board who made a racist comment, writing that the leading African American legislator in the State Senate did more damage to black children than the KKK.

The SA Network refused to release any records because they are private, not public. Public records laws don’t apply to them, they said.

Thus, they are public only for getting money, but private when it’s time for accountability and transparency. Accountability and transparency, it turns out, are for the little people.

Chalkbeat writes:

“Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. (SACS) is a private nonprofit organization that provides services to charter schools, but it is not itself a charter school or a government agency under FOIL,” wrote Success Academy lawyer Robert Dunn in response to an appeal of a Chalkbeat request for Moskowitz’s emails under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, which the network had denied. “Thus, it is not in and of itself subject to FOIL or required to have an appeal process.”

“In addition, Success officials said the emails would not need to be released because they qualify as internal communications that are exempt from the public-records law.

“The city’s most prominent charter school networks — including KIPP and Uncommon — have similar CMO structures, which appears to shield their leaders from at least some FOIL requests. While “the KIPP NYC public charter schools themselves are subject to the New York Freedom of Information Law,” KIPP spokesperson Steve Mancini said in an email, the “CMOs are not.”

“But some government-transparency advocates argue that the law is not so clear cut.

“Because CMOs are so heavily involved in the operation of public schools, it could be argued that the vast majority of their records are kept on behalf of public schools and should be public, said Bob Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government and an expert on public-records laws.

“Even though nonprofits aren’t covered by FOIL, he said, “Everything you do for an entity that is subject to FOIL — everything you prepare, transmit, and receive — falls within the scope of FOIL.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Privatization

Ohio: The School That Produces the Most Dropouts Wants to Become a Dropout Recovery Center

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2017 //
9

I know this sounds ridiculous, but remember this is Ohio. In Ohio, the charter industry can get away with almost anything!

Stephen Dyer discovered a study completed in 2013 by researchers at Ohio State University finding that ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) produces more dropouts than any other charter school in the state.

So, naturally, it makes sense (or no sense at all) for ECOT to apply to become a dropout recovery center.

Four years prior to the school’s application to be considered a dropout recovery school this summer, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow — the state’s oldest and largest online school — was found to be Ohio’s leading producer of high school dropouts while only recovering 1.5 percent of those dropouts.

In a 2013 report completed by Ohio State University’s Education Research Center, the authors concluded that between 2006-2010, ECOT produced 13,000 dropouts, or 21.5 percent of all dropouts in Ohio’s charter schools. In 2010 alone, ECOT had 2,908 dropouts — nearly double the number of the Cleveland Municipal School District’s 1,600. At the time, Cleveland had nearly double the students enrolled as ECOT had, according to the report.

Of its nearly 3,000 dropouts, only 75 returned. Quite a record.

And now the state is considering ECOT’s request to become a dropout recovery and prevention center.

What a farce!

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

John Merrow and Mary Levy: Did the Rhee-Henderson Reforms Succeed in the D.C. Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2017 //
14

John Merrow and Mary Levy responded to a laudatory article by Tom Toch about the miraculous transformation of the D.C. Public Schools, under the leadership of Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson. Together, Rhee and Henderson led the district for a decade. Their results should be clear. Toch was impressed. Merrow and Levy were not.

Merrow is the nation’s most distinguished education journalist; Levy is a civil rights lawyer who has documented changes in the D.C. public schools for many years. The article they criticized (“Hot for Teachers”) was written by Tom Toch, whose organization FutureEd is funded by, among others, the Walton Family Foundation (“hot for privatization”), the Bezos Family Foundation (“amazon.com”), the rightwing Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Raikes Foundation (former president of the Gates Foundation). Its aim apparently is to justify the high-pressure, high-stakes

Tom Toch responded to Merrow and Levy, repeating what he said in the original article. You can read his response, which follows the Merrow-Levy article.

Here is a sampling of Merrow and Levy’s commentary:

To remain aloft, a hot air balloon must be fed regular bursts of hot air. Without hot air, the balloon falls to earth. That seems to be the appropriate analogy for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) during the ten-year regime (2007–2016) of Chancellors Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson. Their top-down approach to school reform might not have lasted but for the unstinting praise provided by influential supporters from the center left and right—their hot air. The list includes the editorial page of the Washington Post, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and philanthropist Katherine Bradley. The most recent dose is “Hot for Teachers,” in which Thomas Toch argues that Rhee and Henderson revolutionized the teaching profession in D.C. schools, to the benefit of students. But this cheerleading obscures a harsh truth: on most relevant measures, Washington’s public schools have either regressed or made minimal progress under their leadership. Schools in upper-middle-class neighborhoods seem to be thriving, but outcomes for low-income minority students—the great majority of enrollment—are pitifully low.

Toch is an engaging storyteller, but he exaggerates the importance of positive developments and misrepresents or ignores key negative ones, including dismal academic performance; a swollen central office bureaucracy devoted to monitoring teachers; an exodus of teachers, including midyear resignations; a revolving door for school principals; sluggish enrollment growth; misleading graduation statistics; and widespread cheating by adults.

Academics

When they arrived in 2007, Rhee and her then deputy Henderson promised that test scores would go up and that the huge achievement gaps between minority and white students would go down. Here’s how Toch reported what has happened on their watch: “While Washington’s test scores have traditionally been among the lowest in the nation, the percentage of fourth graders achieving math proficiency has more than doubled on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) over the past decade, as have the percentages of eighth graders proficient in math and fourth graders proficient in reading.”

Those results, however, stop looking so good once we disaggregate data about different groups of students. Despite small overall increases, minority and low-income scores lag far behind the NAEP’s big-city average, and the already huge achievement gaps have actually widened. From 2007 to 2015, the NAEP reading scores of low-income eighth graders increased just 1 point, from 232 to 233, while scores of non-low-income students (called “others” in NAEP-speak) climbed 31 points, from 250 to 281. Over that same time period, the percentage of low-income students scoring at the “proficient” level remained at an embarrassingly low 8 percent, while proficiency among “others” climbed from 22 percent to 53 percent. An analysis of the data by race between 2007 and 2015 is also discouraging: black proficiency increased 3 points, from 8 percent to 11 percent, while Hispanic proficiency actually declined, from 18 percent to 17 percent. In 2007 the white student population was not large enough to be reported, but in 2015 white proficiency was at 75 percent.

The results in fourth grade are also depressing. Low-income students made small gains, while “others” jumped to respectable levels. As a consequence, the fourth-grade proficiency gap between low-income and “other” students has actually increased, from 26 to 62 percentage points, under the Rhee/Henderson reforms.

Results of the Common Core tests known as PARCC, first administered in 2015, are similarly unimpressive. The black/white achievement gap is 59 percentage points. Although DCPS students achieved 25 percent proficiency system-wide, the average proficiency in the forty lowest-performing schools was 7 percent. In ten of the District’s twelve nonselective, open-enrollment high schools, somewhere between zero and four students—individuals, not percentages—performed at the “college and career ready” level in math; only a few more achieved that level in English. This is a catastrophic failure, strong evidence that something is seriously wrong in Washington’s schools.

Remember that these students have spent virtually their entire school lives in a system controlled by Rhee and Henderson. In short, despite promises to the contrary, the achievement gap between well-to-do kids and poor kids as measured by the NAEP has widened under their watch and is now over twice as high in fourth grade and two and a half times as high in eighth as it was a decade ago. White proficiency rates now run 55 to 66 percentage points above black proficiency rates and 42 to 66 percentage points above Hispanic rates…

Toch writes about Washington’s success in recruiting teachers, even poaching them from surrounding districts. He attributes this to higher salaries and increased professional respect and support. And he adds, in a carefully qualified sentence, that “the school system’s strongest teachers are no longer leaving in droves for charter schools.” Well, perhaps they’re not leaving for charter schools, but they sure as heck are leaving—in droves. Toch fails to mention the embarrassingly high annual turnover of 20 percent system-wide and a staggering 33 percent every year over the last five years in the forty lowest-performing schools. This means that in the neediest schools, one out of every three teachers is brand new every year. And all newly hired teachers, whether novices or poached from elsewhere, leave DCPS at the rate of 25 percent annually. In a recent study of sixteen comparable urban districts, the average turnover rate was just 13 percent.

Defenders of the D.C. approach would have you believe that these teachers have failed to increase test scores. While that is true in some cases, other evidence should be considered. Student journalists at Woodrow Wilson High School interviewed this year’s departing teachers, who expressed frustration with “DCPS’s focus on data-driven education reforms” and “lack of respect and appreciation.” Teachers, including those rated “highly effective,” cited the stress of frequent changes in the demands of the IMPACT teacher evaluation system as well as the absence of useful feedback.

Merrow and Levy also cite the large increase in the number of administrators, the high level of principal turnover, and the large number of teacher resignations midyear. They also refer to allegations of widespread cheating, which Toch dismisses. They ask whether the graduation rates can be taken seriously when the test scores are so low.

They conclude:

But, ultimately, Rhee and Henderson lived and died by test scores, and their approach—more money for winners, dismissal for losers, and intense policing of teachers—is wrongheaded and outdated. Their conception of schooling is little changed from an industrial age factory model in which teachers are the workers and capable students (as determined by standardized test scores) are the products. The schools of the twenty-first century must operate on different principles: students are the workers, and their work product is knowledge. This approach seeks to know about each child not “How smart are you?” but, rather, “How are you smart?”

Rhee and Henderson had the kind of control other school superintendents can only dream of: no school board, a supportive mayor, generous funding from government and foundations, a weakened union, and strong public support. Yet, despite carte blanche to do as they pleased, they failed. Without the hot air of public praise, the Rhee-Henderson balloon would have plummeted to earth.

Toch defends the NCLB test-and-punish approach. He thinks that the pressure on teachers was good for the teachers, the principals, and the students. The sorriest part of the NCLB legacy is that so much of it was preserved in the “Every Student Succeeds Act.” If you think about it, is there any difference even rhetorically between saying “no child left behind” and “every student succeeds”? Does anyone seriously believe that any federal law can achieve either result? After nearly 20 years of trying, isn’t it time to ask the question that John Merrow repeatedly asks: Not, how smart are you? But, how are you smart? Isn’t it time to read Pasi Sahlberg’s books and learn about what 21st century education looks like? Isn’t it time to stop Taylorism and abandon the failed ideas of the early 20th century?

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

What Do Failing Charter Schools Do? They Turn into Voucher Schools!

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2017 //
25

Annie Waldman, writing for ProPublica, examines the curious fate of failing charter schools.

Public schools that don’t get higher test scores are closed or turned over to charter operators.

But what happens to failing charter schools?

They turn into voucher schools!

“This past June, Florida’s top education agency delivered a failing grade to the Orange Park Performing Arts Academy in suburban Jacksonville for the second year in a row. It designated the charter school for kindergarten through fifth grade as the worst public school in Clay County, and one of the lowest performing in the state.

“Two-thirds of the academy’s students failed the state exams last year, and only a third of them were making any academic progress at all. The school had had four principals in three years, and teacher turnover was high, too.

“My fourth grader was learning stuff that my second grader was learning — it shouldn’t be that way,” said Tanya Bullard, who moved her three daughters from the arts academy this past summer to a traditional public school. “The school has completely failed me and my children.”

“The district terminated the academy’s charter contract. Surprisingly, Orange Park didn’t shut down — and even found a way to stay on the public dime. It reopened last month as a private school charging $5,000 a year, below the $5,886 maximum that low-income students receive to attend the school of their choice under a state voucher program. Academy officials expect all of its students to pay tuition with the publicly backed coupons.

“Reverend Alesia Ford-Burse, an African Methodist Episcopal pastor who founded the academy, told ProPublica that the school deserves a second chance, because families love its dance and art lessons, which they otherwise couldn’t afford. “Kids are saying, ‘F or not, we’re staying,’” she said.

“While it’s widely known that private schools convert to charter status to take advantage of public dollars, more schools are now heading in the opposite direction. As voucher programs across the country proliferate, shuttered charter schools, like the Orange Park Performing Arts Academy, have begun to privatize in order to stay open with state assistance.”

Why convert from charter school to voucher school?

Voucher schools are less likely to have any state supervision or accountability than charter schools. If the accountability bar is low for charters, it is almost invisible for voucher schools.

“As private schools, the ex-charters are less accountable both to the government and the public. It can be nearly impossible to find out how well some of them are performing. About half of the voucher and voucher-like programs in the country require academic assessments of their students, but few states publish the complete test results, or use that data to hold schools accountable.

“While most states have provisions for closing low-quality charter schools, few, if any, have the power to shut down low-performing voucher schools…

“The type of voucher program that rescues failed charter schools like Orange Park in Florida may soon be replicated nationwide. Visiting a religious school in Miami last April, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos praised the state’s approach as a possible model for a federal initiative.

“Typically, voucher programs are directly funded with taxpayer dollars. Florida’s largest program pursues a different strategy. Its “tax-credit scholarships” are backed by donations from corporations. They contribute to nonprofit organizations, which, in turn, distribute the money to the private schools. In exchange, the donors receive generous dollar-for-dollar tax credits from the state. This subsidy indirectly shifts hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the state’s coffers to private schools. More than 100,000 students whose families meet the income eligibility requirements have received the tax-credit coupons this year.

“Of the nearly 2,900 private schools in Florida, over 1,730 participated in the tax-credit voucher program during 2016-17, according to the most recent state Department of Education data. On average, each school received about $300,000 last year.

“While more than two-thirds of these schools are religious, the roundabout funding approach protects the vouchers against legal challenges that they violate the separation of church and state. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit by the Florida Education Association, a teacher’s union, challenging the constitutionality of the voucher program.

“In an education budget proposal from May, DeVos detailed her voucher plans, pitching a $250 million plan to study and expand individual state initiatives. She has since suggested that the administration may also create a federal tax-credit voucher scheme through an impending tax overhaul.

“School choice advocates like DeVos have long contended that vouchers improve educational opportunities for low-income families. They reason that competition raises school quality, and that parents, given more options, will select the best school for their children.

“A growing body of research, though, casts doubt on this argument. It shows voucher-backed students may not be performing better than their public school counterparts, and may do worse.”

What has become clear is that the privatization movement is not about providing better education. Choice advocates no longer believe that they are saving “poor kids from failing public schools.” Typically the so-called “failing” public school is superior to the voucher school. It is about choice for the sake of choice. It is about distributing money to religious and for-profit groups, which creates a political base to sustain choice. It is about undermining public education.

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

Los Angeles County Investigates Enrollment of Catholic School Students in Online Academy

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2017 //
21

This is a new kind of charter school scandal. A virtual school enrolled students already enrolled in Catholic schools and claimed full state tuition. The virtual school gave the Catholic school cash and laptops. Meanwhile, the parents paid tuition to the Catholic school. In effect, the students attended two schools.

Bizarre new world of profit-taking.

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-lennox-virtual-academy-20170920-story.html

Categories Accountability, Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

Leonie Haimson: Why Eva Moskowitz’s Former Lawyer Should Not Be Allowed to Open Her Own Charter School

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2017 //
6

Leonie Haimson, hardworking CEO of Class Size Matters and New York City’s foremost parent advocate, has written a letter to the SUNY charter committee explaining why Eva Moskowitz’s former chief attorney for the Success Academy charter chain, should NOT be allowed to start her own charter school.

Open the link to read the citations and the letter written by the parent of a student with special needs whose file was made public by Success Academy in retaliation for her appearance on John Merrow’s program about the abusive practices of Success Academy.

To the SUNY Charter committee and Board:

I urge you to reject the proposed authorization of the Zeta charter school, for many of the reasons cited by the Tory Frye of the D6 Community Education Council,[1] but also because Emily Kim, the proposed founder, was the chief attorney for the Success Academy chain while the network proceeded to repeatedly violate state and federal laws and deprive students of their civil rights.

More specifically:

· In October 2015, Success Academy retaliated against a parent of a special needs child who had spoken on a PBS show about his repeated illegal suspensions by Success, by posting her child’s disciplinary file online and sending the link to reporters nationwide. This action was a flagrant violation of his federal privacy rights according to FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. [2]

· Only after the parent, Fatima Geidi, filed a complaint with the US Department of Education, and several months ensued did Success Academy finally take down his file.[3]

· On January 20, 2016, parents of 13 current and former students of Success Academy filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education, accusing the network of discriminating against students with disabilities by denying them their mandated services, repeatedly suspending them without providing alternative instruction, and in some cases pushing them out. This complaint was joined NYC Public Advocate Letitia James; Councilman Daniel Dromm, the chair of the NYC Council Education Committee; Legal Services NYC; the Legal Aid Society; MFY Legal Services; the Partnership for Children’s Rights; and the New York Legal Assistance Group.[4]

· Subsequently, the federal Office of Civil Rights launched an investigation into Success Academy’s discriminatory practices, the results of which have not yet been released.[5]

· SUNY itself was reported to have launched its own investigation into Success Academy’s push-out policies, and more specifically the infamous “Got to Go” list. [6]

· In April 2016, parents at Success Academy Fort Greene launched a new federal lawsuit, alleging “illegal, discriminatory” campaign against children with special needs , including sending their children to emergency rooms without cause, illegally suspending them, and threatening to call the Administration for Children’s Services if they refused to pick their child up early from school These parents are represented by Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Advocates for Justice.[7]

· In addition, the application for this new charter school should be rejected since Ms. Kim is planning to co-locate her school in a district public school building, which would prevent the already-overcrowded schools in the district from having sufficient space to reduce class size, as previously agreed upon by the city in its original Contracts for Excellence plan. [8]

· In July 2017, a legal complaint was filed against DOE with the NY State Education Department for failing to comply with the its state-approved Contracts for Excellence class size reduction plan. [9] This complaint was prepared by the Education Law Center on behalf of Class Size Matters, the Public Advocate, the Alliance for Quality Education and nine NYC public school parents.[10]

Until the results of the investigations by the federal Office of Civil Rights and SUNY are released and these complaints and lawsuits are decided, it would be premature and ill-considered to allow Ms. Kim to open her own charter school, given her history of facilitating and defending repeated violations of children’s civil rights.

Below are additional personal observations by Fatima Geidi of Ms. Kim’s behavior, while her child attended Upper West Success Academy.

Yours sincerely,
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Ben Austin Creates a New Organization After Failure of Parent Revolution

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2017 //
14

You remember Ben Austin? He is the guy in Los Angeles who started an organization called Parent Revolution whose purpose was to organize parents to seize control of their public school and turn it over to a charter operator. This process was made possible by a law passed in 2010 called the Parent Trigger, which says that a majority of parents can sign a petition to grab control of their school and fire the principal, the staff, or give the school to a private charter operator.

A bunch of billionaires, including Eli Broad, gave him millions of dollars to pay organizers to train parents to sign petitions. For a few brief shining moments, the Parent Trigger was the New Coke of education. Rightwing billionaire Philip Anschutz funded a movie to sell the Parent Trigger, but it flopped in the blink of an eye.

Seven years and many millions of dollars later, Parent Revolution can claim the capture of one public school for the charter industry. One. And they got a dedicated Hispanic principal fired. That’s it.

So it’s time for Ben Austin to start a new organization with another pile of money, including billionaire Eli Broad. It is called Kids Coalition. Apparently Austin’s new strategy is to sue and sue until every child has a great education.

That will work about as well as the Parent Trigger, but hey, it’s a living, for as long as the money keeps coming in. Eli has so much. What’s another few million?

The most interesting part of the story is the photograph of Austin. I tried to decipher the books behind him. There is Michelle Rhee’s “Radical.” Steve Brill’s paean of praise to DFER (“Class Warfare”), something by David Brooks. The thinking of a reformer. A real radical. A guy who knows how to start organizations with catchy names. A guy who has his hand on the pulse or purse of very wealthy donors.

http://laschoolreport.com/exclusive-ben-austin-launches-kids-coalition-to-give-la-students-a-legal-right-to-a-high-quality-education/

My favorite quote from the story:

“He also noted that when he drops off his daughters and walks them into their classrooms, the classroom looks, smells, and operates the same way his LA Unified classroom did 40 years ago.”

Maybe he could succeed in changing the smell of the classrooms of L.A. Distribute a spray can to every teacher. That will definitely produce a new smell.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Los Angeles, Parent trigger

Anita Senkowski: Is Your State Superintendent of Education a Weasel? Mine Is.

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2017 //
6

This is a repost, because I forgot to put in the link to the article.

Anita Senkowski is a blogger in northern Michigan who strikes fear in the hearts of frauds and phonies. Her last target, a charter entrepreneur who made off with millions, is in prison.

In this post, she declares the State Superintendent of Public Education in Michigan a weasel. She has a photo of a cute little weasel.

Superintendent Brian Whiston said on a public radio show that school Choice hadn’t worked in Michigan.

“During the segment Whiston drew a hard line in the sand on charter schools — one of Michigan Republicans’ favorite education schemes.

“Asked about the performance thus far of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Whiston said it was too early to make a complete call, but he skewered the idea that “school choice” — i.e. charter schools — were the silver bullet to Michigan’s education woes.

“While I do support choice – and I want to be clear on that – it’s probably taken us backwards overall.”

“School choice is important. I support school choice, but Michigan has proven that school choice isn’t the answer,” he said. “If school choice was the answer, Michigan would be the top performing state because we have more choice than just about any other state.”

After the show, he began backtracking, trying to explain that he didn’t mean what he said, looking over his shoulder at the choice-loving governor and legislature.

Weasel.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »