My mistake: the debate was last night, not tonight.
Julian Vasquez Heilig will debate Christopher Stewart tonight. It will be live-streamed.
The proposition is: “Charters and Vouchers are the Answer.”
I will be rooting for Julian, who knows the research and knows that privatization has never produced better education for the neediest kids.
Julian is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.
ProPublica writes about the abuses that occur in certain for-profit schools designed especially for difficult children. The very concept of a public school that operates for profit is absurd, because every dollar from taxpayers is meant for the children, the teachers, and the schools, not investors. But this article is specifically about a for-profit chain for difficult students.
An alternative school for sixth- through 12th-graders with behavioral or academic problems, Paramount occupied a low-slung, brick and concrete building on a dead-end road in hard-luck Reading, Pennsylvania, a city whose streets are littered with signs advertising bail bondsmen, pay-day lenders, and pawn shops. Camelot Education, the for-profit company that ran Paramount under a contract with the Reading school district, maintained a set of strict protocols: No jewelry, book bags, or using the water fountain or bathroom without permission. Just as it still does at dozens of schools, the company deployed a small platoon of “behavioral specialists” and “team leaders”: typically large men whose job was partly to enforce the rules.
Over six months in 2013 and 2014, about a half-dozen parents, students and community members at Paramount Academy — billed as a “therapeutic” day program — complained of abusive behavior by the school’s staff. One mother heard that staff restrained students by “excessive force” and bruised the arms of a female student, according to email exchanges between Camelot and the district. Another mother, Sharon Pacharis, said she visited the school to complain about manhandling and was told, “That’s just what we do.” Camelot’s own written reports to the district documented one incident in which a teenager was scratched and another in which a bathroom wall was damaged. Both resulted from “holds” — likely a reference to Camelot’s protocol for restraining students during a physical encounter.
Camelot tended to blame the students in its weekly reports to the district, calling them “out of control”; school officials referred several to police. It was, after all, a place partly for students whom the district had deemed too disruptive for a traditional school setting.
But an incident on April 24, 2014, abruptly shifted the focus to Camelot’s staff.
Ismael Seals, a behavioral specialist, walked into a classroom with several loud and boisterous students and commanded them to “shut the fuck up,” decreeing that the next one who talked would get body-slammed through the door, according to a subsequent criminal complaint. Moments later, Seals fulfilled his promise. After 17-year-old Corey Mack asked and received permission from his teacher, Teresa Bivens, to get up to sharpen his pencil, Seals pushed him repeatedly against a door and then shoved him into the hall, where a school surveillance camera recorded most of the rest of the incident. Seals, 6 feet 4 inches tall and 280 pounds, lifted Mack, 5 feet 8 inches tall and about 160 pounds, by his shirt and swung him into the wall headfirst, later pinning him to the ground as other staff members arrived, according to court documents.
Mack later showed a string of bruises and scratches on his back to a program director at a center for children with behavioral and mental health challenges. The program director called a juvenile probation official, who contacted the police.
Reached by telephone last fall, Corey Mack struggled to remember the details of his altercation with Seals, including what he had said just before the behavioral specialist shoved him, and the precise sequence of events. But he was clear on the essential point: “He beat me up,” Mack said.
Is this what taxpayers support? They should not.
DeVos should be challenged. For profit schools should be prohibited, not subsidized by taxpayers.
Mary Gonzalez is a member of the Texas House of Representatives. She is now serving her third term in the House, and she is deeply concerned that the state and the federal government want to destroy public education.
The goal of school choice, she says, is to create a separate and unequal system of schools for the state’s 6 million students.
She writes:
In 2011, the Legislature cut $5.4 billion in public education funding and implemented a testing regime that centered accountability on a dehumanizing, ineffective standardized test.
In short, schools would get a lot less money while facing impossible standards. It was as if schools were intentionally being set up to be labelled as failures. Why do you think campuses are now being labeled A through F?
Creating the perception of failing public schools in the minds of the public was necessary to fuel the “school choice” movement.
Listening to the political rhetoric at the state and national level, this strategy seems to have been effective. Instead of a collective discourse on strengthening and funding our public schools, the conversation centers on supporting charter expansion and vouchers.
The expansion of “school choice” translates into the creation of multiple systems, facilitating a structure of separate and unequal.
Charter school quality, however, is questionable. Research demonstrates that, on average, they don’t outperform traditional public schools.
The real problem with “school choice” is the creation of an unequal, tiered system that allows students to fall through the cracks. These tiers are only created when money and resources are taken away from public schools.
In the long term, this approach is unsustainable for a state serving nearly 6 million students.
The unequal distribution of resources, along with the fact that charter schools do not operate under the same rules as public schools, exacerbates the problem.
Charters claim to be “public”, but are actually run by corporations or nonprofits, rather than locally elected school boards that are accountable to parents and the community.
Charters are not subject to the same regulations as public schools. Those regulations include class size limits, student-teacher ratios, and having school nurses and counselors on site.
Also, charters can control enrollment through admission requirements like geographical location, discipline records, sibling priority, academic ability, and through dismissal and expulsion procedures that differ from those of traditional schools. This allows charters to preferentially select students who are less-expensive to educate.
When we fragment the public school system, we create more opportunity for inequity without making any real gains.
Democracy requires a strong and equitable public school system. Choice will undermine that goal.
Count on Mercedes Schneider to review Trump’s budget proposal.
It is as bad as you heard.
She says, “At least he doesn’t call himself an ‘education president.'”
True, he is the anti-education president.
He is the first who wants to tear down public education, not improve it.
He does not want to invest in our children or our future.
He is an enemy of the people.
The privatization steam roller continues to move through the Republican controlled states.
The Missouri House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to expand the number of charter schools in the state. The bill now moves to the Senate.
After more than five hours of debate Wednesday and more than an hour of debate Thursday, the measure advanced to the Senate on an 83-76 vote.
Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that operate independently from elected school boards. They currently operate in St. Louis and Kansas City only; the plan would allow charter schools in places like Columbia and Springfield.
The sponsor, Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, touted the legislation as a way to provide students and families with more choices. The changes, she said, will bring competition to schools, triggering improvement and innovation in education.
Public education advocates warned that charter schools have not fulfilled their promises of success and innovation, but Republicans were determined to pass the bill anyway.
AASA Executive Director Responds to President Trump’s FY18 Budget Proposal
Alexandria, Va. – March 16, 2017 – Earlier today, President Trump released details for his FY18 budget proposal. It is a “skinny budget,” in that it only covers discretionary funding, and within that, doesn’t fully list the impact on all discretionary programs. The proposal cuts funding to the U.S. Education Department by $9 billion (13 percent). It provides a $1 billion increase for Title I, but the increase is for states and districts to use for portability and choice. This is in addition to a new $250 million school choice/voucher program and a $168 million increase for charters, bringing the total amount of NEW funding in the President’s budget for choice to $1.4 billion. The budget level funds IDEA, eliminates ESSA Title II Part A and eliminates the 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
In response to this budget proposal, AASA Executive Director Daniel A. Domenech released the following statement:
“AASA is deeply concerned that the first budget proposal from the new administration doesn’t prioritize investment in the key federal programs that support our nation’s public schools, which educate more than 90 percent of our nation’s students. While we would normally applaud a proposal that increases funding for Title I by $1 billion, we cannot support a proposal that prioritizes privatization and steers critical federal funding into policies and programs that are ineffective and flawed education policy. The research on vouchers and portability has consistently demonstrated that they do not improve educational opportunity and leave many students, including low-income students, student with disabilities and students in rural communities-underserved. AASA remains opposed to vouchers and will work with the administration and Congress to ensure that all entities receiving federal dollars for education faces the same transparency, reporting and accountability requirements.
“AASA is disappointed at the significant cuts proposed to critical education programs, including the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title II. FY 18 dollars will be used by schools across the nation in just the second year of ESSA implementation, and the idea that this administration thinks that schools can do this work—and the administration claim they support this work—without supporting teachers and teacher leaders, and their professional development, is a deeply disconcerting position.
“As recently as yesterday, Secretary DeVos indicated an interest in supporting state and local education agencies, and ‘to returning power to the states whenever and wherever possible.’ AASA is concerned that while the Department indicates it wants to return power, the proposed funding levels—including continued level funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and cuts to core programs in ESSA—deeply undercut state and local efforts in these areas and expand the reality of federal requirements without commensurate support, further encroaching on state and local dollars. The return of power, however well intended, when systematically and deliberately paired with low funding, translates into unfunded federal requirements.
“AASA remains committed to parity between defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) dollars, and we are deeply opposed to the proposed $54 billion increase in defense discretionary spending being offset by NDD spending cuts. AASA supports robust investment in our nation’s schools and the students they serve, and we support increased investment for both defense and NDD funding by lifting the budget caps, as set forth in the Budget Control Act of 2011, for both. NDD programs are the backbone of critical functions of government and this proposed cut will impact myriad policy areas—including medical and scientific research, job training, infrastructure, public safety and law enforcement, public health and education, among others—and programs that support our children and students.
“Increased investment in education—particularly in formula programs—is a critical step to improving education for all students and bolstering student learning, school performance and college and career readiness among our high school graduates. AASA remains hopeful that our President, who has consistently articulated an interest in growing our economy, growing jobs, and keeping this nation moving forward, will recognize the unparalleled role that education plays in each of these goals and work to improve his FY18 budget to increase investment in the key federal K12 programs that bolster and improve our nation’s public schools, the students they serve and the education to which they aspire.”
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About AASA
AASA, The School Superintendents Association, founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders in the United States and throughout the world. AASA’s mission is to support and develop effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public education for all children. For more information, visit http://www.aasa.org.
Over the vociferous opposition of parents and educators, the Kentucky state senate voted to authorize charters in the state, thus opening it up to exploitation by entrepreneurs, out-of-state corporations, and hucksters.
The threat to public schools could not be clearer, as the state senate voted 23-15 to betray their constituents and go with the big money backing private management of charter schools that have no track record of improving student achievement.
The Republican governor Matt Bevin is a Republican free-markets ideologue, so he will of course sign the legislation.
Parents will have to continue the fight to preserve their communities and public schools from the privatization vultures.
The new charters will be required to have certified teachers, which the so-called reformers said was an intolerable burden that would prevent innovation, like having untrained teachers in the classroom. The reformers’ idea of innovation sounds amazingly like the schools of the 19th century–unregulated schools with no certified teachers.
But reformers got what they wanted: charters and money. They are looking out for adult interests, not for families, kids or communities.
The bill allows for school boards and only the mayors of Louisville and Lexington to approve charter schools in those districts or cities. Earlier in the day, the Senate Education Committee added language saying charter school teachers must be a qualified teacher and that students will not be able to go to a charter school across county lines unless a regional charter is created.
The changes also require mayors to provide written notice saying they want to be an authorizer of charters and clarified that only the mayor of Louisville would be able to authorize charter schools in Jefferson County, as opposed to mayors from the county’s smaller cities.
After passing the full Senate amid criticism from Democrats on how charter schools would be funded, Republican senators fought back and filed an amendment to an unrelated House budget bill — House Bill 471 — which seeks to transfer federal funds and state money to cover the costs of students who move to charter schools.
Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, was furious at the move, saying “this is one of the worst things I have seen happen to public education in my lifetime.”
HB520, the bill that will authorize privately managed charter schools in Kentucky, was approved by the Senate Education Committee and now will go to the full Senate for a vote. The Senate is in Republican hands. The Governor is a Republican.
The politicians in Kentucky seem poised to invite out-of-state corporations to come into Kentucky and take charge of public money and taxpayer dollars.
The governor says in the linked article that the people fighting charters are only out for adult interests. He has it backwards. The people fighting charters are parents and educators. The ones who want charters have dollar signs in their eyes, thinking about how they can get a piece of Kentucky’s public school budget.
Kentucky is one of only 7 states that do not yet have charters, which is the gateway drug to full privatization of public education. Republicans in Kentucky don’t want to be different. They want to be just like everyone else, even though there is no evidence that bringing in entrepreneurs and fast-buck chuck operators will mean better education for the neediest kids. If charters in Kentucky operate the way they do in most states, they will keep out the neediest kids and hang on to the ones that make them look good.
Public school parents: Wake up and vote these guys out of office when they run again. They don’t care about you or your children or your community. They are bowing down to the almighty dollar of the Waltons and the other billionaires who want to wipe out local control and democratically elected school boards.
Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform posted a photograph in which leaders of charter schools met with their new champion: Secretary Betsy DeVos. She was joined by charter leaders from D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and California. The Ohio charter leader didn’t make it because of the snow. There were also leaders from the for-profit sector, including the virtual charter sector.
Betsy DeVos is one of them. Their hero now is in charge of the U.S. Department of Education, and she wants to divert billions of dollars from children in public schools to feed the charter industry. O happy day!
The charter industry and DeVos are on the same page. They hope to make enormous gains during her tenure in office. They see the public schools not as a public good or a civic institution, but as a target, a prize to be conquered, defeated, looted, and depleted. But it’s all for the kids!
Paul Hill is founder of the Center for Reinventing Public Education and a professor at the University of Washington. When I was on the other side of education debates, I served with Paul on the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution. He is one of the nicest people I know but we now disagree about the value of choice as a means of “reinventing” public schools. Paul is the creator of the idea of portfolio school districts, where the school board is supposed to treat schools like a portfolio of stocks, closing “bad” ones and opening new ones to replace them.
In this article, Paul Hill maintains that DeVos will not have the money to achieve her voucher agenda.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58c83826e4b0816ed87b5e43
He says that if she turns the $15 billion in federal money for poor kids, that comes out to only $600 per student, and that is not enough to fund vouchers or to induce people to open new schools to accept voucher students.
He does not deal with the recent spate of reports showing that vouchers don’t have a positive effect on academic outcomes for kids who get them, and in some major studies, have actually been shown to lower the test scores of low-performing students. So he deals not with whether vouchers will help kids but whether the federal funds are sufficient to make them happen.
He writes:
“Betsy DeVos’ most fervent supporters and opponents agree on one thing: that she would like to divert federal funds from existing public schools and cause a mass migration into private schools. But simple arithmetic tells us that these expectations about what she can accomplish—or destroy, depending on your point of view—are wildly inflated.
“The federal government doesn’t spend nearly enough money in education to have such a big effect. Federal Title I funding to local education agencies, the main tool at the Department of Education’s disposal, totals $15 billion. If DeVos were able to turn all that money into private school vouchers for students currently receiving Title I services, each eligible family would get about $600. If the same money were spread among all public school students, a voucher would be worth less than $300.
“That kind of money doesn’t cover private school tuition, which starts at about $10,000 a year. With a $600 voucher, a few families who were on the cusp of affording private education could decide that the little bit of extra money was enough to allow them either to stay in or transfer to private school. Those families might stabilize or even slightly increase enrollment in private schools. It’s unlikely that many families now attending free public schools would decide that a small discount—$600 represents about 6% of average tuition—justifies ponying up the remaining $9,600.
“The Trump administration has floated a fallback proposal, tuition tax credits for anyone who contributes to a voucher program. Donors could reduce their taxes by a dollar for every dollar they give. This approach—correctly called a tax expenditure—would have exactly the same effect on the federal government’s bottom line as a government-operated voucher program would. Readers can judge whether a deficit-conscious Republican Congress is likely to approve a tax credit that adds more than $15 or $20 billion annually to the national debt.
“Vouchers (whether funded directly or via tuition tax credits) could benefit communities that have struggling but high-quality private schools that might be preserved rather than being lost entirely. But whether a modest-sized program can do anything more than help fill up existing private schools depends on the answers to a few questions. Once existing private schools reached their current capacity, would they expand to take more students, or would new private schools emerge? Would entrepreneurs be willing to start schools knowing that even with their vouchers, families would have to pay almost full tuition? Would those schools be good enough to keep the families they attract and to grow to an economically sustainable size?”
I question whether there are a significant number of struggling but high quality private schools to accept voucher students. The good private schools have few, if any, empty seats. Not many want to accept kids with low test-scores, no matter how much voucher money they bring.
I am not as sanguine as he about the poor prospects for vouchers. I agree that the federal money is symbolic but it may be a stimulus to state’s to add their supplement, bringing the voucher up to $5,000 or $7,000. This still is not enough for voucher students to gain entry to good private schools but it might be enough for mediocre religious schools with u certified teachers.
Even if the vouchers don’t make much of a dent, DeVos’s advocacy for charters will stimulate stages to open more of them, despite the dismal record of charters in DeVos’s home state of Michigan. And of course we can count on her to bad-mouthnpublic schools in every public appearance. She will be sly. She will say she favors great schools of every kind, because she is all for the kids. She even likes “great public schools,” but she has never seen one. She will ignore the large body of research about the failure of voucher schools as well as the research showing that charter schools get results no different from public schools, and some are far worse than public schools. She certainly doesn’t care about charters’ high teacher attrition or about their unfortunate practice of excluding children with disabilities.
So while she is unlikely to achieve her lifelong dream of getting rid of public schools, she will have a bully pulpit to bash public schools. This is unjhealthy for our society and our democracy. Friends of public education should not forget that DeVos is a dedicated enemy of public schools. Ignore her honked words. Don’t be deceived. She will not change her views.
