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Larry Cuban: What Has Done More to Improve Living Standards: Indoor Toilets, Air-Conditioning, or Smartphones?

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2016 //
39

Larry Cuban writes on his blog about the most important inventions that have raised our nation’s standard of living. He poses the question that is the title of this post. He supposes that most people would respond “the smartphone,” but they would be wrong. His post is an intriguing review of a book by economic historian Robert Gordon, who contends that the century from 1870-1970 experienced greater growth and innovation than the past half century.

Cuban summarizes Gordon’s central argument:

Thus, an unheralded, stunning century of innovation and economic growth produced the telegraph, phone, television, house lighting, automobile, airplane travel, and, yes, indoor plumbing. These inventions networked the home and workplace in ways that raised living standards and increased workplace productivity considerably. It was in that same century that medical advances reduced infant mortality and lengthened life of Americans dramatically.

The half-century since 1970 has surely seen innovations that have enhanced these earlier inventions but the template for economic growth was laid down for that fruitful hundred-year period. In past decades, new technologies have clearly expanded communication and entertainment, making life far more instantaneous, convenient and pleasurable. But social media, immediate communication, and constant access to photos, video clips, and films have not increased the standard of living as had the decades between 1870-1970.

Cuban then segues to a discussion of the current reform movement in education, which traces its roots to the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk.” That report was “driven by an economic rationale–the human capital argument–for improving U.S. schools” and embraced by policymakers, business leaders, and foundations. If we didn’t improve education dramatically, we would lose our competitive edge in the world economy. And thus was born the “reform movement,” in which governors and “reformers” sought to raise curriculum and performance standards for both students and teachers, increase testing, and create accountability frameworks that included rewards and penalties in subsequent decades….

The current reforms in education and the pressure to raise test scores on international tests have not increased economic growth, stimulated productivity, or reduced inequality, writes Cuban.

In other words, reforms aimed at getting U.S. students to perform better on international tests for the past three decades–think No Child Left Behind, expanded parental choice in schools, more computers in schools, and Common Core state standards–was of little influence on growing a strong economy, raising median income, or lessening inequality, according to Gordon. These reforms, while aiding low-income minorities in many instances, overall, contributed little to improving productivity or raising standards of living

Gordon’s book concludes, writes Cuban, with a list of ten interventions that could raise the standard of living, like raising the minimum wage. Of his ten interventions three have to do with education. They are:

“…investing in preschools, state and federal school financing rather than local taxes, and reducing student indebtedness in higher education. Not a word about the dominant school reforms in 2016–Common Core standards, standardized testing, technologies in schools, charter schools, accountability.

In questioning the dominant beliefs in current school reform as essential to economic growth, Gordon’s argument and evidence are useful to those politically active decision-makers, teachers, parents, and researchers who know that a democracy needs schools that do more than prepare children and youth for the workplace.

The paradox, as Cuban suggests, is that the more we focus on test scores and workplace readiness, the more we sacrifice civic values that may be of greater importance in a democracy.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

California Legislators and Governor Brown: No Accountability for Charters

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2016 //
32

Jessica Calefati of the San Jose Mercury-News wrote a shocking series about the online charter schools of K12 Inc., which have the lowest graduation rate in the state, and which counts students “present” if they log on for only one minute.

Millions of public dollars fund the California Virtual Academies (CAVA), which operates for profit and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, founded by Michael and Lowell Milken, delivers a substandard education. It should be closely supervised or shut down.

Unfortunately, as Calefati discovered, the legislature is moving at a snail’s pace to authorize an audit of CAVA. Nothing seems to be happening. Much clucking of tongues, but no action.

CAVA is the lowest performing school in the state. Why hasn’t it been shut down long ago? If you recall, K12’s online charter in Tennessee was the lowest performing school in the state, and not even the State Commissioner Kevin Huffman was able to get it closed. Why?

Governor Brown likes charters. When he was mayor of Oakland, he opened two charters. The legislature has been unwilling to stand up to the rich and powerful California Charter Schools Association. CCSA should be demanding close scrutiny of CAVA, whose tactics embarrasses all charter schools. Their silence is deafening.

When the legislature dared to pass a bill banning for-profit charters, Governor Brown vetoed it. He also vetoed a bill to require charter schools to ban conflicts of interest.

So California has a greedy, rapacious charter industry, whose growth will continue unchecked until public schools enroll only students the charters don’t want. Fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter industry will grow without oversight. Conflicts of interest and nepotism will proliferate. Charters will continue to be run by entrepreneurs and speculators.

Does anyone think these developments are “reform”? From a distance, they look like graft and corruption.

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

Peter Greene: Why the Free Market Fails in Education

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2016 //
44

Peter Greene read about a charter school in Philadelphia that was closing, leaving its students and teachers in the lurch. At first glance, this might seem surprising, but it is actually a feature of the free market in education, not a bug.

 

 

Charters close because charter schools are businesses, and businesses close when it is not financially viable for them to stay open.

 

The free market will never work for a national education system. Never. Never ever.

 

A business operating in a free market will only stay in business as long as it is economically viable to do so. And it will never be economically viable to provide a service to every single customer in the country.
All business models, either explicitly or implicitly, include decisions about which customers will not be served, which customers will be rejected, because in that model, those customers will be detrimental to the economic viability of the business. McDonald’s could decide to court people who like upscale filet mignons, but the kitchen equipment and training would cost a whole bunch of money that would not bring a corresponding increase in revenue, so they don’t do it.

 

Apparently some 2,500 charters had closed by 2013. Obviously there have been numerous closings since then, although the U.S. Department of Education won’t release data on how may of the charters it funded have closed.

 

This is business. Where is Eastern Airlines, Pan American Airlines, Braniff? Where are the small stores that disappeared when Walmart opened? Google the term “brands that disappeared” and you will find dozens of familiar, once iconic brands that no longer exist. Kodak. Woolworth. Tab. Chiclets. All gone.

 

Public schools are not supposed to open and close in the twinkling of an eye. They are not supposed to compete for survival. They are public services, designed to serve every child in the community who wants to enroll. There is no lottery to enter.

 

Peter Greene writes:

 

The first question of the public education system has to be, “How can we get a great education for every single child in this country?” The first question for a business has to be, “What model can we use that will keep this business economically viable?’ And the answer to that question will never, ever be, “By providing an education to every child in this country.” There will always be students who live in the economic cracks, niche customers that no business wants because there will never be money in them. Some charter fans suggest, either explicitly or implicitly, that educating those students will be the job of public education. But that represents a dramatic and complete re-imagining of the purpose of public education, and to repurpose an entire public sector without a public discussion is irresponsible and undemocratic.

 

In the meantime, charter schools will continue to close when it makes business sense to do so, no matter what sorts of promises they made to the families of their students. Charter schools think like businesses, not like schools, because charter schools are businesses. We cannot be surprised when they act like businesses, and we cannot keep hiding from a discussion about the implications of turning that business mindset on a public good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform

Los Angeles Times to Bill Gates: Stop Trying to Run the Nation’s Schools!

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2016 //
65

This is a remarkable editorial that appears in the Los Angeles Times, of all places. The headline tells a story we did not expect to read on this newspaper’s editorial page:

Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn’t be setting America’s public school agenda

Read that again. Slowly.

The editorial recaps the serial failures of the Gates Foundation in education: Small high schools (abandoned); evaluating teachers by test scores (not yet abandoned but clearly a failure, as witnessed by the disasterous, costly experience in Hillsborough County, Florida); Common Core (not abandoned, but facing a massive public rejection).

But it’s not all bad, says the editorial:

It was a remarkable admission for a foundation that had often acted as though it did have all the answers. Today, the Gates Foundation is clearly rethinking its bust-the-walls-down strategy on education — as it should. And so should the politicians and policymakers, from the federal level to the local, who have given the educational wishes of Bill and Melinda Gates and other well-meaning philanthropists and foundations too much sway in recent years over how schools are run.

That’s not to say wealthy reformers have nothing to offer public schools. They’ve funded some outstanding charter schools for low-income students. They’ve helped bring healthcare to schools. They’ve funded arts programs.

This is not the whole story, of course. They have funded a movement to privatize public education, which drains resources and the students the charters want from public schools, leaving them in worse shape for the vast majority of students. And they have insisted on high-stakes testing, thus leading schools to eliminate or curtail their arts programs. As for healthcare in the schools, there should be more of it, but it should not depend on philanthropic largesse. Two children in the Philadelphia public schools died because the school nurses were cut back to only two days a week, and there were no philanthropists filling the gap.

Knowing how destructive the venture philanthropists have been–not only Gates, but also Eli Broad and the Walton Family, and a dozen or two other big philanthropies–one could wish that they would fund healthcare and arts programs, and perhaps experimental schools that demonstrated what public schools with ample resources could accomplish.

Still we must be grateful when the Los Angeles Times writes words like these:

Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.

Allowing Bill Gates or Eli Broad or the Walton Family to set the nation’s education is not only unwise, it is undemocratic. The schools belong to the public, not to the 1%.

Since the editorial mentioned Bill Gates’ devout belief that teachers could be evaluated by the test scores of their students, it is appropriate to recall that the Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper in the nation to publish ratings for teachers based on test scores; it even had hopes of winning a Pulitzer Prize for this ugly intervention by non-educators who thought that teaching could be reduced to a number and splashed in headlines. Let us never forget Rigoberto Ruelas, a fifth-grade teacher who committed suicide shortly after the evaluations were published by the Los Angeles Times, and he was declared by the Times to be among the “least effective” teachers. There followed a heated debate about the methodology used by the Times to rate teachers. That was before the American Statistical Association warned against using test scores to evaluate individual teachers. But the Los Angeles Times was taking Gates’ lead and running with it. It was not worth the life of this good man.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Testing, Walton Foundation

California: State Superintendent Orders Audit of Low-Performing K12 Virtual Charter School

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2016 //
9

Jessica Calefati wrote a blistering series about Michael Milken’s K12 Inc. virtual charter school in California (called California Virtual Academy or CAVA) a few weeks ago. The series caused enough of a stir to persuade State Superintendent Tom Torklakson to order a state audit of CAVA.

Calefati reported that less than half the students at CAVA graduate, and none is qualified to attend a California public university.

The virtual charter industry is noted for high profits and poor performance. Student attrition is high, test scores and graduation rates are low. But profits are excellent, because the “school” receives full state tuition but has none of the expenses of a brick and mortar school. No grounds, no transportation, no custodian, no food services, no library, no support staff, no athletics. And classes that range from 40-more than 100 in number. As Calefati reported in the original series, students may get credit for attendance if they are online only one minute a day. The latest CREDO study found that for every 180 days enrolled in a virtual charter, students lose 180 days of instruction in math and 72 in reading. This is a lose-lose.

It is heartening to see state officials taking action to curb the fraud that runs rampant through its charter industry, unsupervised, unregulated, and unchecked.

Calefati writes:

In a rare move, California’s top education official has enlisted the state’s highest-ranking accountant to conduct a sweeping audit of California Virtual Academies, a profitable but low-performing network of online charter schools that enrolls about 15,000 students across the state.

The audit is the first that Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has asked the state controller’s Office to conduct since he took office in 2011. The request comes two months after this newspaper published an investigative series on K12 Inc., the publicly traded Virginia firm that operates the schools and reaps tens of millions of dollars annually in state funding.

In a statement Thursday, Torlakson said he has a duty to ensure that public money isn’t being squandered and sought the probe into the California Virtual Academies because of “serious questions raised about a number of their practices.” He said the audit would examine the relationship between the schools and the company and the “validity” of attendance, enrollment, dropout and graduation rates reported by the academies to the state.

This isn’t the first time the company has come under fire in recent weeks.

Torlakson’s request follows lawmakers’ calls last month for the state auditor to examine for-profit charter schools operations and Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla’s introduction earlier this month of legislation that would prohibit online charters from hiring for-profit companies like K12 for management or instructional services. The company is also being probed by Attorney General Kamala Harris, who launched an investigation of online charter schools last fall.

If Controller Betty Yee finds evidence of gross financial mismanagement, illegal or improper use of public money, a disregard for sound educational practices or repeated failure to improve student test scores the state Board of Education, may — based on a recommendation from Torlakson — vote to revoke the schools’ charters.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, K12 Inc., Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio Editorial: No More Excuses for Failing Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2016 //
7

The mainstream press in Ohio has turned critical of the low-performing, profitable, politically connected charter industry. Just read this blistering editorial in The Columbus Dispatch.

 

 
“If a charter school can’t perform better than a conventional public school, there is no point in having the charter school.

 

 

“After all, Ohio embarked on the charter-school experiment to see if there is a way to improve on the dismal results being achieved in many urban and poor school districts, not simply to replicate their failure. The idea was that if student outcomes improved in charter schools, then the schools would continue. But if charters failed to improve on the performance of conventional schools, they would be closed.

 

 

“Now, years after the experiment began, some schools are persistent failures, but instead of being shut down, they want to change the performance measuring stick so that they can remain in business.

 

 

“Defenders of conventional public schools long have maintained that failure isn’t the fault of the schools, but is the result of the socioeconomic circumstances of their students: Students who come from poverty, broken homes and associated forms of instability, are harder to teach.

 

 

“Now, some charter schools, which were created expressly to find ways to overcome these disadvantages, want to be excused for failure on the same grounds — saying their students are harder to teach. But if they’re doing no better than conventional public schools — and in some cases doing worse — there is no reason for the public to continue to fund them.

 

“But the straightforward experiment went off the rails when some clever operators figured out how to get rich by sponsoring charter schools. And to keep the gravy flowing, they began making major political contributions to the lawmakers who control the gravy.

 

 

“And that is why rumors have been flying around the Statehouse about proposals to weaken accountability standards for charter schools so that they can continue to receive millions of taxpayer dollars even as the students they are supposed to educate continue to fall behind. In many cases, particularly with online charter schools, it appears that many students don’t even participate in learning, but the school’s operators continue to be paid by the state as if these students are receiving an education.

 

 

“Charter-school lobbyists are waving their checkbooks and urging lawmakers to ease attendance-reporting rules and to continue to pay the schools even if students don’t log in to learn. They also want to absolve charter-school sponsors of responsibility for the performance of their schools, even though this is a key part of their role as sponsors. Lobbyists also want schools to be measured not by how much progress a student makes each year, but by whether the school performs more or less like other schools with similar student demographics. In other words, if a poorly performing school is doing no worse than other poorly performing, then it should get a pass. This is called the “similar students” measure.

 

 

“It is less than a year since the legislature passed House Bill 2, hailed as a giant step forward in holding charter schools accountable for their performance. Part of that bill called for the Ohio Department of education to analyze the “similar students” measure, with a report due by Dec. 1. Now some lawmakers are proposing to pass legislation adopting this approach before the education department has even issued its report. So much for sound public policy.

 

 

“Because of such nonsense, it’s important to remember why charters were instituted in the first place. It wasn’t to replicate failure and make excuses. And it wasn’t to make a handful of charter sponsors rich. It was to make students successful.”

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Ohio

California: The Charter Game is Rigged

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2016 //
63

This article provides an inside view of the charter racket in California.

 

If local districts oppose charter schools, it doesn’t matter. No matter what they say or how well the community organizes, the die is cast. State officials will approve the charter application, regardless of its flaws.

 

Rocketship charter chain wanted to move into the Mt. Diablo district. It had a federal grant to expand, and the chain wouldn’t let community opposition stand in its way. The district did not want Rocketship’s computer-based approach. It did not want a corporate chain whose headquarters was sixty miles away. Neither did the county board of education, which rejected Rocketship.

 

“This is the opposite of local control,” said Nellie Meyer, the superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, who called the proposal deeply flawed and was followed by MDUSD’s general counsel, Deborah Cooksey, who said Rocketship had collected its petition signatures “under false pretenses,” by telling people—including parents who were non-English speakers—their kids could get kicked out of school if they didn’t sign.

 

“This is going to be something that will divide our community,” said Gloria Rios, who has lived in the Monument Corridor near the northeastern Bay Area city of Concord for 20 years and has three children in the district’s public schools. “Our children will suffer the consequences, and these funds can be used for the schools we already have.”

 

Rejected by the local community and the county board of education, Rocketship went to the State Board of Education.

 

Slam dunk.

 

“The first indication that the proceedings were tilted to Rocketship came when Cindy Chan, who oversees the California Education Department’s charter school program, summarized Rocketship’s petition and, using the same legal terms that the Mt. Diablo and Contra Costa County Boards used to reject Rocketship, concluded the opposite. Rocketship’s prograns were “sound” and they “will implement it,” she said.

 

“Rocketship’s Cheye Calvo, its chief growth and county engagement officer, then led the board through a powerpoint presentation filled with all the buzzwords of the charter school movement. He talked of closing the “achievement gap.” He said that most “Rocketeers” learn more than one year’s worth of studies every school year. He said the school collected 1,100 petition signatures from district residents. He said the computer labs were “personalized learning,” saying they were “no substitute” for instruction. He called their teachers “purposeful, focused.” He said they rely on data to “assess students” and focus on the “whole child.” He acknowledged that Rocketship has high turnover—losing 20 percent of its faculty annually, but said their “teachers are performance-driven professionals who strive to achieve gap-closing” results. Finally, he put up graphs that compared the test scores from Rocketship’s San Jose schools with students in the Mt. Diablo district, saying they can do better than the traditional public schools.

 

“The opponents, led by the Mt. Diablo School District superintendent and local school board president, said Rocketship’s persistence was an affront to local control. They recounted the major flaws in its curriculum, especially its shallow approach to teaching English to students who did not speak it at home or as a first language. The district’s programs, especially in the Monument Corridor, were appropriately bilingual and award-winning, they said, adding their approach was seen by Rocketship as a liability. They said that Rocketship was not invited by parents to come into the community, but was lured by local real estate developers.

 

“But mostly, the critique was aimed at Rocketship’s overreliance on its test-centered curriculum and its lack of attention to the needs of what was working in a low-income, bilingual community, and one where special education also was a challenge.

 

“We are outraged at Rocketship’s lack of information on special education,” said Cheryl Hansen, president of the Mt. Diablo School District Board. “This is not Rocketship’s first school. Rocketship has not been able to answer special education questions at the school board and county board level.” And returning to their English language instruction, Hansen said, “More than 75 percent of their charter schools show declining achievement in the last four years.”

 

Nothing the district said mattered. Diablo will get a Rocketship charter, despite its poor performance elsewhere, despite its rejection by the local community.

 

This process is a rejection of local control and a rejection of democracy. It serves corporate interests, not children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform

Ohio: State Investigates Online Charter Schools: Better Late than Never

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2016 //
9

The Ohio Department of Education under John Kasich has not been known for vigilance when it comes to the virtual charter school industry. However, increased media attention to Ohio’s pockmarked charter sector has caused the state to look into its underperforming and highly profitable virtual charters.

 

What they discovered was ugly. Inflated enrollments. Lack of evidence that students participate in instruction for the required 5 hours a day. An industry that profits while students fail.

 

The investigation focused on the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), owned by one of the state’s major contributors to Republican campaigns. William Lager has received nearly $1 billion in public funds since 2002. The money to pay for a failing online school was taken from Ohio’s public schools.

 

The New York Times wrote about ECOT a few days ago and pointed out that the online school has the largest proportion of students who fail to graduate of any high school in the nation. Only 20% finish on time.

 

Actually, it is worse than it appears. Stephen Dyer noted that ECOT accounts for 5% of the graduates in the state, but it accounts for more of the students who fail to graduate from high school than all the state’s districts combined!

 

This is a failing school! It should be closed.

 

The state may revise a regulation or two. Don’t expect anything dramatic, like shutting down the state’s lowest performing school, or basing pay on performance. That’s for public schools, not Ponzi schemes that contribute to Kasich and friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, High School Graduation, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Jeannie Kaplan: Don’t Fall for the Hoax about Reform “Success” in Denver!

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2016 //
13

Jeannie Kaplan was twice elected to the Denver Board of Education and is well qualified to review the claims made about that city’s schools. Due to an infusion of reformer cash from across the nation starting in 2009, Denver’s elected school board is now completely dominated by supporters of choice and high-stakes testing (i.e. corporate reformers). These “reformers” have a 7-0 grip on the city’s schools and its publicity machine, thanks to national corporate reform-minded groups like Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Their claims are repeated in the reformer media, including at Gates-funded and rightwing think tanks and publications. Jeannie is a very kind and compassionate person, and she is tired of having to refute the claims, again and again. But she comes once more to the front, to explain why Denver is a hoax, not a model.

 

In this post, she reviews the latest phony claims about “reform” in Denver.

 

She writes:

 

 

Let’s do a quick refresher course before we delve into this faux success story.

 

 

The main goals of “education reform” are:

 

Expanding charter schools, which as the state of Washington has determined are not common (public) schools;
Improving graduation rates. The most recent DPS strategic plan, Denver Plan 2020, calls for graduation rates for African American and Latino students of 89% by 2020, 90% for students who start in DPS in ninth grade;
Reducing or eliminating the achievement gap, that is, the gap between children living in poverty and those not. Another goal of Denver Plan 2020.
Eliminating the union protected workers in the public school system which can be exacerbated by closing “failing” schools and replacing them with either charter schools or innovation schools both of which are for the most part non-union;
Evaluating teachers based on test scores with all the concomitant issues around high stakes testing.

 

 

Reformers try to reach these results through something called a portfolio strategy, a business model used by Wall Street that simply put is predicated on constant churn. As Osborne writes, a portfolio strategy works “to replicate successful schools and replace failing ones.” The problem with such a strategy is students and teachers and parents and communities are neither commodities to be bought and sold nor should they be characterized as winners and losers. Denver has seen up close and personal how the chaos and churn this model brings.

 

 

Kaplan devotes the bulk of her post to debunking false claims of Denver’s success made in an article by David Osborne in the Hoover Institution-sponsored publication Education Next. EdNext cheerleads for charters, vouchers, and all forms of school choice. Osborne reliably concludes that “reform” has been a great success in Denver and that the day is in sight when most families will choose charters or other choice schools, thus obliterating neighborhood schools. Kaplan goes point by point through his article to correct him, though she notes that he provides no documentation for his statements.

 

She shows that at the present rate of change, Denver has no chance of reaching its “reform” goals by 2020. It is always dangerous for reformers to set concrete dates as predictions of their total success. This was done in Tennessee by Chris Barbic and the Achievement School District. He predicted in 2012 that the schools in the bottom 5% statewide would reach the top 25% in only five years. None of them has even managed to exceed the bottom 10% thus far and most remain in the bottom 5%.

 

Probably reformers should promise to reach their ambitious goals by 2050, a date so far removed that they won’t be held accountable in the meanwhile.

 

Kaplan concludes:

 

Denver has become a national leader for its implementation of “education reform.” This has been relatively easy to accomplish with the help of the national media who continuously bolster the “education reform” agenda of chaos and churn. “Education reformers” in Denver have all the elements in place to continue to push a failing education model. Be afraid, Denver. Be very afraid.

 

Why the hatred of neighborhood public schools? I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

News: Ohio Wasted Millions in Federal Funding on Charters that Never Opened and on Very Low-Performing Charters

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2016 //
26

A new study based on publicly available data on the state’s website finds that the state has wasted millions of federal dollars designated for charter schools. Of the state’s federally funded charter schools, 37% either never opened or were among the state’s lowest performing schools. Only recently, the U.S. Department of Education decided to award another $71 million to expand the charter industry in Ohio, but the new funding has been delayed because of outrage over scandals in the state’s charters. The study was conducted by the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project.

 

 
New Study Shows Millions Intended for High-Performing Charter Schools
Went to Some of Ohio’s Worst – and Others That Never Even Opened

 

 

For Immediate Release: May 26, 2106

 

 

COLUMBUS – The federal government has sent more money to Ohio to expand “high-performing” charter schools than all but two other states, but Ohio spent millions on some of the lowest-performing schools. And nearly $4 million went to schools that never opened, according to a new analysis.

 

 

The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project did the analysis to determine how a state with so many of America’s worst-performing charter schools could be in line for so much federal money intended to help the best ones.

 

 

Ohio ranks third nationally in total money received during the program’s 21-year history. During that time, the U.S. Department of Education did just one assessment of the grants’ success in Ohio. Although it raised serious questions about the Ohio Department of Education’s ability to properly distribute the money, nothing appears to have changed as a result.

 

 

“As Ohio takes steps to make charter school sponsors more accountable under the reform law passed last year, it’s important that policy makers understand the past,” said OEA President Becky Higgins. “Together with our colleagues at Innovation Ohio and ProgressOhio, we examined how these Charter School Program (CSP) grants have been awarded, and tried to identify the shortfalls along the way. Ohio cannot afford to waste money on failing charter schools. It needs to invest in the good ones.’’

 

 

The new analysis, Belly Up: A Review of Federal Charter School Grants, shows how state and federal education departments ignored warning signs, systemically wasted tax dollars and made learning more difficult for many Ohio students.

 

 

Among the main findings:

 

 

· Of the 292 Ohio charter schools that have received federal CSP funding since 2006, 108 (37 percent) have closed or never opened, totaling nearly $30 million. Meanwhile, barely 2 percent of all companies nationwide that have received any federal grants or incentives since 2000 have failed.

 

 

· The Ohio tally includes 26 charter schools that received nearly $4 million in CSP funding but never opened. There are no records to indicate whether any of these public funds was returned.

 

 

· Ohio charters that received past CSP funding and State Report Card grades in the 2014-2015 school year had a median Performance Index score that was lower than all but 15 of Ohio’s 613 school districts.

 

 

· Since the federal grant program began 21 years ago, its lone assessment – conducted by WestEd – identified material weaknesses that appear to have been ignored by federal grant makers. In one instance, a potential grant reviewer even told the Ohio Department of Education that she was unqualified for the job and asked to be excluded from its reviewers’ list. Instead, the department thanked her for “agreeing to participate as a community school grant reader.”

 

 

· Paolo DeMaria, recently appointed Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction, was Associate Superintendent of Finance and School Options at the time WestEd raised concerns about Ohio’s processes for distributing the federal money to charter schools.

 

 

Of the 44 Ohio charter schools where State Auditor David Yost conducted surprise attendance audits recently, 17 had received federal CSP funding. One of them – the London Academy – only had 10 of the 270 students ODE thought it had in attendance the day Yost’s investigators showed up. All told, these audited schools received about $6.6 million in federal funding.
Last September, federal officials stunned education experts by announcing that Ohio would receive $71 million in CSP grants – more than any other state. Ohio’s large award came in spite of its reputation as one the worst charter states in the country, according to national charter advocates. The swift and severe criticism that followed prompted USDOE to put Ohio’s award on hold.

 

 

“We urge federal regulators to revamp the way in which it makes grants so that the money goes to the best performing charter schools,” said Innovation Ohio President Keary McCarthy. “The mistakes of the past should not be repeated in the awarding of future grants.”

 

 

Those mistakes include giving millions to the state’s most notorious charter school scofflaws, including:

 

 

· Horizon Science Academies and Noble Academies: Total CSP Grants: 7.6 million

 

 

Linked to a Muslim cleric exiled in Pennsylvania, the chain is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, and WikiLeaks revealed cables showing the U.S. State Department notified the CIA about suspicious visas for teachers and administrators. In June 2014, 19 of its schools were raided by the FBI, including four in Ohio. The Ohio schools also have been dogged by allegations of test-tampering, teachers using racial slurs in the classroom, unqualified teachers, sexual misconduct in the classroom. ODE investigated allegations raised by teachers who witnessed the problems but found no wrongdoing.

 

 

· Imagine Schools: Total CSP Grants: $5.9 million

 

 

The chain has been under fire nationally for saddling schools with exorbitant leases paid to its subsidiary, SchoolHouse Finance. Imagine recently lost lawsuits in Indiana and Missouri over the same type of abusive leases seen in Ohio. A federal judge in Missouri ordered Imagine to pay $1 million and called the lease arrangement “self-dealing.’’ One of the chain’s worst-performing Ohio schools, Romig Road in Akron, is among the charters that closed – but received federal grant money. All of Imagine’s Ohio schools received a D or F on the most recent state report cards.

 

 

· White Hat Management: Total CSP Grants: $1.4 million
Owner David Brennan has been the most powerful and influential of Ohio’s charter school operators since state money started flowing to them. Brennan’s schools also are routinely among the lowest performing. While Ohio’s historically lax regulations make it difficult to close even the worst schools, several of Brennan’s schools have been shut down for academic reasons or contractual non-compliance. Staffers for GOP state Auditor David Yost made surprise visits to charters to see if they are padding attendance records and concluded that White Hat’s dropout recovery schools were among the worst.

 

 

It’s been well documented that ODE’s grant application for the $71 million was inaccurate and misleading, prompting state officials to revise the number of poor-performing charter schools in Ohio from six on its initial application to 57 – a tenfold increase. The author of the application, David Hansen, was forced to resign as head of ODE’s office of school choice and community schools after getting caught illegally cooking the state’s accountability system to benefit Ohio’s politically connected eSchool operators.

 

 

It is unclear when or if federal regulators will release the $71 million.

 

 

The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project is a joint venture of the Ohio Education Association, Innovation Ohio and ProgressOhio. OEA and IO host the website, knowyourcharter.com, which provides data from the Ohio Department of Education on how the state’s charter schools are faring compared to local public schools.

 

 

For More Information, contact:

 

 

Stephen Dyer, Innovation Ohio Education Fellow, 330-338-1486
Keary McCarthy, Innovation Ohio President, 614-425-9163

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education
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