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Troy LaRaviere: How and Why I Was Removed as a Principal in Chicago

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2016 //
13

A few weeks ago, Troy LaRaviere was removed as principal of Blaine Elementary School by officials at the Chicago Public Schools headquarters. He had previously been warned about his boldness in criticizing the school system and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. LaRaviere openly campaigned for Emanuel’s opponent, Chuy Garcia, and for Bernie Sanders.

 

In this post, LaRaviere explains how and why he was removed from his school.

 

It reads like the latest issue of “True Detective.”

 

It exemplifies the thuggery that is often called “the Chicago Way.”

Categories Chicago, Education Industry, Emanuel, Rahm, Freedom of Speech, Principals, Privatization

Proof: Reformers Never Fail, Even Though Their Policies Do

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2016 //
23

We have observed frequently that reformers almost always have a soft landing in a cushy job, even when their previous endeavor was a dud.

 

Thus Chris Barbic led the Achievement School District in Tennessee, promising to raise the schools in the bottom 5% to the top 25% in five years; it didn’t happen (five of the six schools in the first cohort are still in the bottom 5%, and the sixth is in the bottom 10%). No matter. Barbic now works for the John Arnold Foundation in what must be a less stressful job.

 

John King was a disaster as state commissioner in New York. Now he is Secretary of Education.

 

The eight years of Obama’s education policies were a nightmare for the teaching profession and public schools, with everyone struggling for survival.

 

Arne Duncan now works for Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow. And one of his top deputies, James Shelton, was just hired as advisor to Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Shelton previously worked for the Gates Foundation. Life is good if you are a reformer.

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Nevada: A Field Guide to the Booming, Wasteful Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2016 //
13

Hugh Jackson wrote this disturbing article for Nevada NPR. It demonstrates the extent to which the charter industry is expanding, bringing in lucrative real estate deals, speculation, and for-profit entrepreneurs from out of state. More than 35,000 students have enrolled in charters, at a cost to taxpayers of a quarter billion dollars.

 

He writes:

 

“Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately operated. The result is a charter-school industry, encompassing what can be a dizzying array of arrangements and contracts between the schools, their unelected boards, state agencies, property developers, for-profit management companies, nonprofit arms of private companies, hedge funds and investment firms, and myriad consultants, contractors and education-industry vendors. Virtually every dollar everyone in the charter-school industry makes is provided by the taxpaying public….

 

“Of the quarter-billion dollars Nevada taxpayers provided to charter schools in 2014-15, more than a fifth of it — $54 million, according to state data — went to schools managed by a single for-profit company, a Florida-based firm called Academica. Established in 1996 and boasting close ties to then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Academica has been the center of numerous controversies in that state, particularly after the Miami Herald reported that the firm used public money to lease real estate from development companies owned by the same people who own Academica, brothers Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta. Academica has also come under fire in Florida for, among other things, setting up a separate “college” in one of its charter high schools and charging taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide students with two-year “degrees” of dubious worth.

 

“Academica is not a publicly traded company, and any financial information about the firm is difficult to come by, let alone the type of granular financial reporting that might indicate how much of Academica’s Nevada revenue stays in Nevada, as opposed to flying out of the state as profit.

 

“As a practical matter, Academica is not only relied upon every step of the way, but the instigator. No doubt some charter schools are the result of concerned citizens and parents banding together, from the bottom up, as it were, to fill what they perceive to be a particular educational niche or void. With a new Academica school, the far more likely scenario involves a for-profit company making market-based decisions on location, timing, demographics and such, not unlike Walmart determining where to open a new Sam’s Club. Upon determining that a new project pencils out, Academica finds the statutorily requisite citizen’s charter school board. (The state does not require a charter school board to take competitive bids before selecting a management firm, and such a bidding process would be unthinkable in schools being spearheaded by Academica….).

 

“Enter the investment funds

 

“To be eligible for state funding to build or improve a charter school facility, the school has to have been opened for three years. So it needs financing to bridge the gap between the school’s opening and its eligibility for state facility financing (it’s already receiving operating funds from the state).

 

“The Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund is one of several for-profit investment funds in the nation that have attracted capital from a) foundations, institutional investors and individuals who are “for” education; and b) hedge funds, investment banks and other investors drawn to generous federal tax credits on income earned from the public through charter-school profits.

 

“Started by Southern California financier Bobby Turner in partnership with long-time Las Vegas charter-school champion Andre Agassi, Turner-Agassi has provided bridge financing for at least four Academica building projects in Nevada and is doing the same for most of Academica’s aggressive expansion in the state.

 

“Here’s more or less how it works:

 

“Turner-Agassi puts up money to develop property for a charter school. After three years, during which time the school, which is to say the public, rents the property from the investment fund, the charter is eligible for state financing to buy the property from Turner-Agassi.

 

“The school is purchased from the investment fund with money raised by revenue bonds issued through the state Division of Business and Industry —
public debt. Charter-school bonds in Nevada are so-called limited-obligation bonds, backed by the school’s revenue (which comes from the state education budget), as opposed to general obligation bonds, backed by revenue from a tax increase. Limited obligation bonds typically pay higher interest rates than general obligation bonds, which translates into higher interest payments for the public when it pays off the debt….

 

“Project dates listed on Turner-Agassi’s portfolio online indicate Academica will be eligible for a first batch of state loans to purchase the investment fund’s developments in 2017.

 

“Meanwhile, regardless of who owns the property the charter school is in, the management company is charging the school, which is to say the public, for management/professional fees on top of salaries, insurance, energy and other operating costs. Those fees can be spread through various categories of school balance sheets provided to the state, but those reports show that in Academica’s case, management fees totaled, at the very least, $3 million in the 2014-15 school year.

 

“The arrangement between Turner-Agassi and Academica is only one model that might be used to finance construction in the charter-school industry.

 

“For instance, a few years ago, Imagine Schools, one of the nation’s largest charter firms, made national headlines at its 100 Academy of Excellence in North Las Vegas when 40 percent of the school’s state-provided revenue was spent on lease payments to a real-estate investment trust. As a Nevada Education Department official told the New York Times in 2010, “After paying for real estate and management, 100 Academy has very little left over for education.”

 

“Shenanigans and accountability

 

“Academica is the undisputed heavyweight of Nevada’s charter-school industry and has the most aggressive expansion plans in the state. But practices at other charter operations have been attracting more — or at least more critical — official scrutiny.

 

“The state of Nevada provided Silver State High School in Carson City nearly $5 million in the 2014-15 school year. Along with all the ways a school might spend the public’s money, Silver State decided one of them was investing in the Wall Street derivatives market. When a member of the school’s board brought the investment to the attention of the State Public School Charter Authority (SPSCA), the authority ruled the investment a no-no and ordered the school closed at the end of the current school year.

 

“Quest Academy, with four campuses in Southern Nevada, received more than $10 million from the state in 2014-15. In October the SPSCA documented how members of the school’s board had hired family members in violation of nepotism regulations. The SPSCA has subsequently dissolved the board, appointed a receiver to oversee school finances, and the SPSCA could ultimately revoke or refuse to renew the school’s charter. This comes three years after the SPSCA forced Quest to restructure its board and fire a principal upon discovering staff was paid thousands of dollars in unauthorized bonuses, and the principal was spending a bunch of unauthorized money on travel and shopping.

 

“As for charter schools being the cradle of innovation, the pedagogical emphasis for which charters are perhaps most renowened is “teaching to the test” even more intensely than testing-obsessed public schools.

 
“And then there are the cyber schools. Yes, in Nevada, online schools are charter schools, too. The largest, Nevada Virtual Academy, operated by the corporate giant K12 Inc., received nearly $30 million in public funds in 2014-15 to provide online education to 2,600 students, a per-student cost of $11,500. Per-student spending at Academica schools averaged, by contrast, less than $8,000.

 

“Higher per-student spending at an online school seems counterintuitive. After all, there is no property to develop, no classrooms or desks. But as cyber schools have emerged as one of the largest segments of the charter-school industry, they’ve become renowned not only for poor performance, but also for frenetic enrollment churn. Online schools market heavily to attract students, but online learning isn’t for everyone, and many students withdraw to return to brick-and-mortar schools. That churn could manifest itself as higher costs in lots of ways. The state can be charged for students who are no longer in the schools (as was found in a Colorado audit of K12 a few years ago). Or the state gets saddled for up-front student costs even if those students leave later. Or in K12’s case, maybe the company just isn’t very good at holding down costs: Nevada Virtual Academy spent more than $2 million for textbooks last year. Academica, with nearly three times as many students, spent $219,000. State data indicates K12’s management fees, at least $4 million, were also larger than Academica’s.

 

“Proposed rules would effectively give the SPCSA additional authority to force a charter school to fire its management organization and make it easier for the authority to deny a charter school’s renewal.

 

“The most adamant objections to those rules have been filed by Nevada Virtual Academy and the state’s second largest cyber charter school, Nevada Connections, owned by the international corporate education giant Pearson Inc.

 

“The cases of Silver State and Quest, as well as the proposed regulations, appear to reflect a commitment of the SPCSA and its executive director, Patrick Gavin, to try to hold charter schools accountable.

 

“It might be a tall order. Although Nevada’s charter-accountability regulations were hailed as improved in a recent national report, that report noted that the SPSCA does not have the requisite staff to conduct consistent monitoring crucial to effective regulation. The standard recommended staff is roughly one monitor for every 1,000 charter-school students. In Nevada, Gavin estimates it is closer to one for every 5,000. The SPSCA is funded by fees charged to authority-sponsored schools, currently about one percent of a school’s operating budget. Boosting those fees will be a top SPCSA priority when the Legislature meets next year.

 

“Why are we doing this, anyway?

 
“Everyone is in favor of choice in education,” Ryan Reeves, director of Academica’s Nevada operations, told the Review-Journal in 2014.

 

“It’s a seductive argument in an era when identity and self-worth are often shaped by where one shops.

 

“And charters are breaking down barriers erected by decades of entrenched education bureaucracy, thus reinvigorating education with a spirit and dedication that just can’t be found in tired public schools lumbering along under the weight of oppressive administrative bloat. Indeed, charter schools are the heart of education innovation.

 

“Or so the argument goes.

 

“Independent analysis suggests otherwise. Assessments conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University are frequently cited by the media and charter-school supporters. Yet even the results of CREDO’s most recent national study were mixed at best, finding charter schools performing slightly, if at all, better than traditional schools at reading, and performing, if anything, worse than traditional schools in math. Critics charge that even CREDO’s modest findings overstate the performance of charter schools.

 

“As for charter schools being the cradle of innovation, the pedagogical emphasis for which charters are perhaps most renowned is “teaching to the test” even more intensely than testing-obsessed public schools — test scores being the key, if not the only, means of assessing educational outcomes in a publicly funded but privately run school….

 

“A good portion of the public acceptance of charters is attributed to what is sometimes called “sector agnosticism” — the view that how a school is managed, or who makes money from it, is irrelevant so long as the results are good.

 

“But charter companies and pro-charter politicians and advocates are anything but agnostic. The rapid growth of the charter-school industry has been accompanied by relentless and disingenuous attacks on public schools and the people who work in them. The interest groups, ideologues and politicians who most zealously promote “school choice” are often the most eager to malign public institutions.

 

“Charter schools emerged on the scene more than a quarter century ago as laboratories where public-school systems could test methods, and the most promising results could be implemented elsewhere in public schools. Some charter supporters, parents and charter-industry executives and investors obviously mean well and still view charters as an overall benefit to the public good.

 

“But today’s charter industry, much like Nevada’s voucher plan, reflects a chronic civic defeatism. Echoing the perverse social Darwinism of more than a century ago, faith in free-market education is a surrender to pessimism. Society really isn’t incapable of providing a fair educational opportunity to every citizen. Some people are doomed to fail, that’s just the way it is, so best to segregate those with promise, the achievers, in separate schools. As for everyone else, well, too bad for them.

 

“In the meantime, capitalizing on politically correct disdain for public institutions and a consumer culture’s visceral embrace of “choice,” and truly impressed by the steady flow of public money through the public-education revenue stream, the private sector is working feverishly … maybe to create quality schools, but definitely to drain more and more money from that stream.”

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Nevada

Stuart Egan: How the North Carolina Legislature and Governor Are Destroying Public Schools and the Teaching Profession

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2016 //
10

Stuart Egan is a National Board Certified teacher of high school English in North Carolina. I have published his posts before. I met Stuart at the Network for Public Education annual conference in Raleigh a few weeks ago and invited him to write a post that would sum up the damage that the Tea Party government has done to teachers and schools in the past five years. He agreed to do so. His perspective is especially valuable because he is in the classroom.

 

 

Stuart Egan writes:

 

 

When the GOP won control of both houses in the North Carolina General Assembly in the elections of 2010, it was the first time that the Republicans had that sort of power since 1896. Add to that the election of Pat McCrory as governor in 2012, and the GOP has been able to run through multiple pieces of legislation that have literally changed a once progressive state into one of regression. From the Voter ID law to HB2 to fast tracking fracking to neglecting coal ash pools, the powers that-now-be have furthered an agenda that has simply been exclusionary, discriminatory, and narrow-minded.

 

And nowhere is that more evident than the treatment of public education.

 

Make no mistake. The GOP-led General Assembly has been using a deliberate playbook that other states have seen implemented in various ways. Look at Ohio and New Orleans and their for-profit charter school implementation. Look at New York State and the Opt-Out Movement against standardized testing. Look at Florida and its Jeb Bush school grading system. In fact, look anywhere in the country and you will see a variety of “reform” movements that are not really meant to “reform” public schools, but rather re-form public schools in an image of a profit making enterprise that excludes the very students, teachers, and communities that rely on the public schools to help as the Rev. William Barber would say “create the public.”

 

North Carolina’s situation may be no different than what other states are experiencing, but how our politicians have proceeded in their attempt to dismantle public education is worth exploring.

 

Specifically, the last five year period in North Carolina has been a calculated attempt at undermining public schools with over twenty different actions that have been deliberately crafted and executed along three different fronts: actions against teachers, actions against public schools, and actions to deceive the public.

 

 

Actions Against Teachers

  1. Teacher Pay – A recent WRAL report and documentary highlighted that in NC, teacher pay has dropped 13% in the past 15 years when adjusted for inflation (http://www.wral.com/after-inflation-nc-teacher-pay-has-dropped-13-in-past-15-years/15624302/). That is astounding when one considers that we are supposedly rebounding from the Great Recession. Yes, this 15 year period started with democrats in place, but it has been exacerbated by GOP control. Salary schedules were frozen and then revamped to isolate raises to increments of five+ years. As surrounding states have continued to increase pay for teachers, NC has stagnated into the bottom tier in regards to teacher pay.
  2. Removal of due-process rights – One of the first items that the GOP controlled General Assembly attempted to pass was the removal of due-process right for all teachers. Thanks to NCAE, the courts decided that it would be a breach of contract for veteran teachers who had already obtained career-status. But that did not cover newer teachers who will not have the chance to gain career status and receive due process rights.

 

What gets lost in the conversation with the public is that due-process rights are a protective measure for students and schools. Teachers need to know that they can speak up against harsh conditions or bad policies without repercussions. Teachers who are not protected by due-process will not be as willing to speak out because of fear.

 

  1. Graduate Degree Pay Bumps Removed – Because advanced degree pay is abolished, many potential teachers will never enter the field because that is the only way to receive a sizable salary increase to help raise a family or afford to stay in the profession. It also cripples graduate programs in the state university system because obtaining a graduate degree for new teachers would place not only more debt on teachers, but there is no monetary reward to actually getting it.
  2. The Top 25% to receive bonus – One measure that was eventually taken off the table was that each district was to choose 25% of its teachers to be eligible to receive a bonus if they were willing to give up their career status which is commonly known as tenure. Simply put, it was hush money to keep veteran teachers from speaking out when schools and students needed it. To remove “tenure” is to remove the ability for a teacher to fight wrongful termination. In a Right-To-Work state, due process rights are the only protection against wrongful termination when teachers advocate for schools, like the teacher who is writing this very piece.
  3. Standard 6 – In North Carolina, we have a teacher evaluation system that has an unproven record of accurately measuring a teacher’s effectiveness. The amorphous Standard 6 for many teachers includes a VAM called Assessment of Student Work.

 

I personally teach multiple sections of AP English Language and Composition and am subject to the Assessment of Student Work (ASW). I go through a process in which I submit student samples that must prove whether those students are showing ample growth.

 

In June of 2015, I uploaded my documents in the state’s system and had to wait until November to get results. The less than specific comments from the unknown assessor(s) were contradictory at best. They included:

 

Alignment

Al 1 The evidence does not align to the chosen objective.

Al 4 All of the Timelapse Artifacts in this Evidence Collection align to the chosen objectives.

 

Growth

Gr 1 Student growth is apparent in all Timelapse Artifacts.

Gr 2 Student growth is apparent between two points in time.

Gr 3 Student growth is not apparent between two points in time.

Gr 4 Student growth samples show achievement but not growth.

Gr 9 Evidence is clear/easily accessible

Gr 10 Evidence is not clear/not easily accessible

 

Narrative Context

NC 1 Narrative Context addresses all of the key questions and supports understanding of the evidence.

NC 4 Narrative Context does not address one or more of the key questions.

 

 

And these comments did not correspond to any specific part of my submission. In fact, I am more confused about the process than ever before. It took over five months for someone who may not have one-fifth of my experience in the classroom to communicate this to me. If this is supposed to supply me with the tools to help guide my future teaching, then I would have to say that this would be highly insufficient, maybe even “unbest.”

 

  1. Push for Merit Pay – The bottom line is that merit pay destroys collaboration and promotes competition. That is antithetical to the premise of public education. Not only does it force teachers to work against each other, it fosters an atmosphere of exclusivity and disrespect. What could be more detrimental to our students?

 

Those legislators who push for merit pay do not see effective public schools as collaborative communities, but as buildings full of contractors who are determined to outperform others for the sake of money. And when teachers are forced to focus on the results of test scores, teaching ceases from being a dynamic relationship between student and teacher, but becomes a transaction driven by a carrot on an extended stick.

 

  1. “Average” Raises – In the long session of 2014, the NC General Assembly raised salaries for teachers in certain experience brackets that allowed them to say that an “average” salary for teachers was increased by over 7%. They called it a “historic raise.” However, if you divided the amount of money used in these “historic” raises by the number of teachers who “received” them, it would probably amount to about $270 per teacher.

 

That historic raise was funded in part by eliminating teachers’ longevity pay. Similar to an annual bonus, this is something that all state employees in North Carolina — except, now, for teachers — gain as a reward for continued service. The budget rolled that money into teachers’ salaries and labeled it as a raise. That’s like me stealing money out of your wallet and then presenting it to you as a gift.

 

  1. Health Insurance and Benefits – Simply put, health benefits are requiring more out-of-pocket expenditures, higher deductibles, and fewer benefits. There is also talk of pushing legislation that will take away retirement health benefits for those who enter the profession now.
  1. Attacks on Teacher Advocacy Groups (NCAE) – Seen as a union and therefore must be destroyed, the North Carolina Association of Educators has been incredibly instrumental in bringing unconstitutional legislation to light and carrying out legal battles to help public schools. In the last few years, the automatic deduction of paychecks to pay dues to NCAE was disallowed by the General Assembly, creating a logistical hurdle for people and the NCAE to properly transfer funds for membership
  2. Revolving Door of Standardized Tests – Like other states, we have too many. In my years as a North Carolina teacher (1997-1999, 2005-2015), I have endured the Standard Course of Study, the NC ABC’s, AYP’s, and Common Core. Each initiative has been replaced by a supposedly better curricular path that allegedly makes all previous curriculum standards inferior and obsolete. And with each of these initiatives comes new tests that are graded differently than previous ones and are “converted” into data points to rank student achievement and teacher effectiveness. Such a revolving door makes the ability to measure data historically absolutely ridiculous.

 

Actions Against Schools

 

 

  1. Less Money Spent per Pupil – The argument that Gov. McCrory and the GOP-led General Assembly have made repeatedly is that they are spending more on public education now than ever before. And they are correct. We do spend more total money now than before the recession hit. But that is a simplified and spun claim because North Carolina has had a tremendous population increase and the need to educate more students.

Let me use an analogy. Say in 2008, a school district had 1000 students in its school system and spent 10 million dollars in its budget to educate them. That’s a 10,000 per pupil expenditure. Now in 2015, that same district has 1500 students and the school system is spending 11.5 million to educate them. According to Raleigh’s claims, that district is spending more total dollars now than in 2008 on education, but the per-pupil expenditure has gone down significantly to over 2300 dollars per student or 23percent.

  1. Remove Caps on Class Sizes – There is a suggested formula in allotting teachers to schools based on the number of students per class, but that cap was removed. House Bill 112 allowed the state to remove class size requirements while still allowing monies from the state to be allocated based on the suggested formula.

Some districts have taken to move away from the 6/7 period day to block scheduling. Take my own district for example, the Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools. When I started ten years ago, I taught five classes with a cap of 30 students. With the block system in place, I now teach six classes in a school year with no cap. The math is simple: more students per teacher.

  1. Amorphous Terms – North Carolina uses a lot of amorphous terms like “student test scores”, “student achievement”, and “graduation rates,” all of which are among the most nebulous terms in public education today.

 

 

When speaking of “test scores”, we need to agree about which test scores we are referring to and if they have relevance to the actual curriculum. Since the early 2000’s we have endured No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top initiatives that have flooded our public schools with mandatory testing that never really precisely showed how “students achieved.” It almost boggles the mind to see how much instructional time is lost just administering local tests to see how students may perform on state tests that may be declared invalid with new education initiatives. Even as I write, most states are debating on how they may or may not leave behind the Common Core Standards and replace them with their own. Know what that means? Yep. More tests.

 

 

“Graduation rate” might be one of the most constantly redefined terms in public schools. Does it mean how many students graduate in four years? Five years? At least finish a GED program or a diploma in a community college? Actually, it depends on whom you ask and when you ask. But with the NC State Board of Education’s decision to go to a ten-point grading scale in all high schools instead of the seven-point scale used in many districts, the odds of students passing courses dramatically increased because the bar to pass was set lower.

 

 

  1. Jeb Bush School Grading System – This letter grading system used by the state literally shows how poverty in our state affects student achievement. What the state proved with this grading system is that it is ignoring the very students who need the most help — not just in the classroom, but with basic needs such as early childhood programs and health-care accessibility. These performance grades also show that schools with smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction are more successful, a fact that lawmakers willfully ignore when it comes to funding our schools to avoid overcrowding.
  2. Cutting Teacher Assistants – Sen. Tom Apodaca said when this legislation was introduced, “We always believe that having a classroom teacher in a classroom is the most important thing we can do. Reducing class sizes, we feel, will give us better results for the students.” The irony in this statement is glaring. Fewer teacher assistants for early grades especially limit what can be accomplished when teachers are facing more cuts in resources and more students in each classroom.

 

Actions To Deceive The Public

 

 

  1. Opportunity Grants – Opportunity Grant legislation is like the trophy in the case for the GOP establishment in Raleigh. It is a symbol of “their” commitment to school choice for low-income families. But that claim is nothing but a red-herring.

Simply put, it is a voucher system that actually leaves low-income families without many choices because most private schools which have good track records have too-high tuition rates and do not bus students. Furthermore, the number of private schools receiving monies from the Opportunity Grants who identify themselves as religiously affiliated is well over 80 percent according to the NC State Educational Assistance Authority. Those religious schools are not tested the way public schools are and do not have the oversight that public schools have. Furthermore, it allows tax dollars to go to entities that already receive monetary benefits because they are tax free churches.

 

 

  1. Charter Schools – Charter school growth in North Carolina has been aided by the fact that many of the legislators who have created a favorable environment for charter benefit somehow, someway from them. Many charters abuse the lack of oversight and financial cloudiness and simply do not benefit students.

 

Especially in rural areas, uncontrolled charter school growth has been detrimental to local public schools. When small school districts lose numbers of students to charter schools, they also lose the ability to petition for adequate funds in the system that NC uses to finance schools ; the financial impact can be overwhelming. In Haywood County, Central Elementary School was closed because of enrollment loss to a charter school that is now on a list to be recommended for closing.

 

 

  1. Virtual Schools – There are two virtual academies in NC. Both are run by for-profit entities based out of state. While this approach may work for some students who need such avenues, the withdrawal rates of students in privately-run virtual schools in NC are staggering according to the Department of Public Instruction.

 

  1. Achievement School Districts – Teach For America Alumnus Rep. Rob Bryan has crafted a piece of legislation that has been rammed through the General Assembly which will create ASD’s in NC. Most egregious is that it was crafted secretly. Rather than having a public debate about how to best help our “failing” schools with our own proven resources, Rep. Bryan chose to surreptitiously strategize and plan a takeover of schools. ASD’s have not worked in Tennessee. They will not work in North Carolina except for those who make money from them.

 

  1. Reduction of Teacher Candidates in Colleges – At last report, teaching candidate percentages in undergraduate programs in the UNC system has fallen by over 30% in the last five years. This is just an indication of the damage done to secure a future generation of teachers here in North Carolina.

 

  1. Elimination of Teaching Fellows Program – Once regarded as a model to recruit the best and brightest to become teachers and stay in North Carolina was abolished because of “cost”.

 

 

Overall, this has been North Carolina’s playbook. And those in power in Raleigh have used it effectively. However, there are some outcomes that do bode well for public school advocates for now and the future.

 

  • Teachers are beginning to “stay and fight” rather than find other employment.
  • NCAE has been able to win many decisions in the court system.
  • North Carolina is in the middle of a huge election year and teachers as well as public school advocates will surely vote.
  • The national spotlight placed on North Carolina in response to the voter-ID laws and HB2 are only adding pressure to the powers that be to reconsider what they have done.
  • Veteran teachers who still have due-process rights are using them to advocate for schools.

 

I only hope that the game changes so that a playbook for returning our public schools back to the public will be implemented.

 

Stuart Egan, NBCT
West Forsyth High School

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Tenure, Teachers, Testing, Vouchers

Boston: Can Parents and Students Save the Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2016 //
6

Our reader Christine Langhoff writes about the current crisis in public education in Boston:

To use the common idiom, Boston is “woke”!

Parents, teachers and allies of public education protested on a frigid January night outside the mayor’s State of the City address. A few days earlier, 350 teachers, parents and students attended an informational town hall during the evening, as the issues of the hidden McKinsey report were publicly aired. There was another rally on February 17, during school vacation week.

Some 3400 students walked out of their classes on March 7 and went to City Hall and the State House to demonstrate after rallying on Boston Common. Some of them testified at the State House against the lifting of the charter cap. This was a student led and organized protest, which the mayor tried to dismiss with the classic “outside agitators” line. On March 17th, a group of parents, following the students’ lead, demonstrated outside City Hall, demanding the release of the report.

There have been a series of public hearings on the city’s budget, all of which are very well attended. A coalition of parents, educators and students are all on the same side of this argument, and though progress has been slow, we are not discouraged. Up next is walk-in day on May 7.

Much of this is organized on social media. In addition to the parents’ group QUEST, BEJA, Boston Education Justice Alliance http://bostonedjustice.org and the student groups YOUNG and BSAC http://www.youthonboard.org as well as Citizens for Public Schools are working together to keep our schools. The Boston Teachers Union has taken a page from our fellow unionists at the Chicago Teachers Union, allying with and supporting all these groups.

The question that has not been answered is why cuts to the budget, decreasing services to our SWD, and diminishment of offerings for students (closing high school libraries!) is necessary. Boston is in the midst of an unprecedented building and real estate boom; tax receipts are up by $95 million this year alone. (Massachusetts weathered the 2008 catastrophe pretty well.) We’re ranked number one (for what it’s worth) in urban school systems. What pretext is there for closing 30-50 schools? None.

But here’s the scenario we’re up against:

No elected school board, appointed by the mayor (since 1993)

The mayor founded a charter school

The superintendent is a Broadie

More parasites from TFA, TNTP, StudentsFirst are being hired at the school department

86% of our students aren’t white; most of them are poor and nearly half have English as a second language.

The governor wants more charters

The state board of ed is appointed by the governor

The state board is a cabal of privatizers from HGSE, the Pioneer Institute, New Schools Venture Fund

The former PARCC chairman is the state Commissioner

Walton is pouring money into the city

DFER sponsored successful candidates in the most recent election

Boston is a signatory to the Gates CRPE contract

The mayor and superintendent want One Enrollment

It’s an uphill battle and we can’t afford to lose.

Categories Boston, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Equity, Funding, Parents, Privatization, Students

Peter Greene on McKinsey Plan to Close Public Schools in Boston

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2016 //
17

Listen up, friends! Your own school district might hire McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group, and you need to know that they have a template for “right-sizing” the district. The template has nothing to do with improving education. It is all about cutting costs.

 

Fortunately for us, Peter Greene has read the 200-page document prepared for the Boston Oublic School district by McKinsey. Here are the highlights:

 

Close 30-40 public schools.

 

Cut back or eliminate special education by putting more (all?) students in inclusion classes.

 

Save on transportation costs by having children walk greater distances to catch a bus.

 

Increase revenues by having more students eat school food.

 

Centralize school lunches so everything is cooked in one place and delivered to schools.

 

Slash central office staff.

 

Outsource as many functions as possible. (This usually causes costs to rise, since private companies that win contracts have to show a profit.)

 

Here’s a thought. How about if a committee of educators get a $1 million contract to study the operations of McKinsey and suggest ways to save money. No more expense accounts.cNo more private offices. Share secretaries. Cut salaries to match teacher salaries. There must be many more ways to economize at McKinsey.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Boston, Boston Consulting Group, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, Education Reform

Richard Phelps: The Education Writers Association is Biased re Common Core

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2016 //
23

[Note from Diane: Since I forgot to add the link to the article, I am reposting this now.]

 

 

Richard Phelps is a testing expert who is skeptical about the Common Core standards. He thinks that policymakers swallowed the sales pitch without asking for evidence. As he explains in this article, what rankles him is that the Education Writers Association has become part of the campaign to promote the Common Core. Instead of providing unbiased information, the EWA offers a platform for CC advocates, many of them paid to be advocates.

 

EWA will meet in Boston this weekend. The keynote speaker is Secretary of Education John King, a strong supporter of CC. As usual, the panels will consist of CC advocates, with very few critics.

 

Phelps writes:

 

“Too many of our country’s most influential journalists accept and repeat verbatim the advertising slogans and talking points of Common Core promoters. Too many of their stories source information from only one side of the issue. Most annoying, for those of us eager for some journalistic balance, has been some journalists’ tendency to rely on Common Core promoters to identify the characteristics and explain the motives of Common Core opponents.

 

“An organization claiming to represent and support all US education journalists sets up shop in Boston next week for its annual “National Seminar”. The Education Writers Association’s (EWA’s) national seminars introduce thousands of journalists to sources of information and expertise. Many sessions feature journalists talking with other journalists. Some sessions host teachers, students, or administrators in “reports from the front lines” type panel discussions. But, the remaining and most ballyhooed sessions feature non-journalist experts on education policy fronting panels with, typically, a journalist or two hosting. Allegedly, these sessions interpret “all the research”, and deliver truth, from the smartest, most enlightened on earth.

 

“Given its central role, and the profession it represents, one would expect diligence from EWA in representing all sides and evidence. Indeed, EWA claims a central purpose “to help journalists get the story right.”

 

“Rummaging around EWA’s web site can be revealing. I located the website material classified under their “Common Core” heading: 192 entries overall, including 6 EWA Radio broadcast transcripts, links to 19 research or policy reports, 69 posts in the “Educated Reporter” Blog, 1 “Story Lab”, 8 descriptions of and links to organizations useful for reporters to know, 5 seminar and 3 webinar agendas, 11 links to reporters’ stories, and 42 links to relevant multimedia presentations.

 

“I was interested to learn the who, what, where, and how of EWA sourcing of education research and policy expertise. In reviewing the mass of material the EWA classifies under Common Core, then, I removed that which was provided by reporters and ignored that which was obviously purely informational, provided it was unbiased (e.g., non-interpretive reporting of poll results, thorough listing of relevant legislative actions). What remains is a formidable mass of material—in the form of reports, testimonies, interviews, essays, seminar and webinar transcripts, and so on.

 

“So, whom does the EWA rely on for education policy expertise “to help journalists get the story right”? Which experts do they invite to their seminars and webinars? Whose reports and essays do they link to? Whose interviews do they link to or post? Remember, journalists are trained to represent all sides to each story, to summarize all the evidence available to the public.

 

“That’s not how it works at the Education Writers Association, however. Over the past several years, EWA has provided speaking and writing platforms for 102 avowed Common Core advocates, 7 avowed Common Core opponents, 12 who are mostly in favor, and one who is mostly opposed.[i] Randomly select an EWA Common Core “expert” from the EWA website, and the odds exceed ten to one the person will be an advocate and, more than likely, a paid promoter.

 

“Included among the 102 Common Core advocates for whom the EWA provided a platform to speak or write, are officials from the “core” Common Core organizations, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the National Governors Association (NGA), the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), and the Smarter-Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). Also included are representatives from research and advocacy organizations paid by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other funding sources to promote the Common Core Standards and tests: the Thomas P. Fordham Institute, the New America Foundation, the Center for American Progress, the Center on Education Policy, and the Business Roundtable. Moreover, one finds ample representation in EWA venues of organizations directly profiting from PARCC and SBAC test development activity, such as the Center for Assessment, WestEd, the Rand Corporation, and professors from the Universities of North Carolina and Illinois, Harvard and Stanford Universities, UCLA, Michigan State, and Southern Cal (USC).

 

“Most of the small contingent of Common Core opponents does not oppose the Common Core initiative, standards, or tests per se but rather tests in general, or the current quantity of tests. Among the seven attributions to avowed opponents, three are to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (a.k.a., FairTest), an organization that opposes all meaningful standards and assessments, not just Common Core.

 

“The seven opponents comprise one extreme advocacy group, a lieutenant governor, one local education administrator, an education graduate student, and another advocacy group called Defending the Early years, which argues that the grades K–2 Common Core Standards are age-inappropriate (i.e., too difficult). No think tank analysts. No professors. No celebrities.

 

“Presumably, this configuration of evidence and points of view represents reality as the leaders of EWA see it (or choose to see it):

 

“102 in favor and 7 opposed; several dozen PhDs from the nation’s most prestigious universities and think tanks in favor and 7 fringe elements opposed. Accept this as reality and pro-CCI propaganda characterizations of their opponents might seem reasonable. Those in favor of CCI are prestigious, knowledgeable, trustworthy authorities. Those opposed are narrow minded, self-interested, uninformed, inexpert, or afraid of “higher, deeper, tougher, more rigorous” standards and tests. Those in favor of CCI want progress; those opposed do not.

 

“In a dedicated website section, EWA describes and links to eight organizations purported to be good sources for stories on the Common Core. Among them are the core CCI organizations Achieve, CCSSO, NGA, PARCC, and SBAC; and the paid CC promoters, the Fordham Institute. The only opposing organization suggested? — FairTest.

 

“There remain two of the EWA’s favorite information sources, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) that I have categorized as mostly pro-CCI. Both received funding from the Gates Foundation early on to promote the Initiative. When the tide of public opinion began to turn against the Common Core, however, both organizations began shuffling their stance and straddling their initial positions. Each has since adopted the “Common Core is a great idea, but it has been poorly implemented” theme.

 

“So, what of the great multitude who desire genuinely higher standards and consequential tests and recognize that CCI brings neither? …who believe Common Core was never a good idea, never made any sense, and should be completely dismantled? Across several years, categories and types of EWA coverage, one finds barely a trace of representation.

 

“The representation of research and policy expertise at EWA national seminars reflects that at its website. Keynote speakers include major CCI advocates College Board President David Coleman (twice), US Education Secretary Arne Duncan (twice), Secretary John King, Governor Bill Haslam, and “mostly pro” AFT President Randi Weingarten, along with the unsure Governor Charlie Baker. No CCI opponents.

 

“Among other speakers presented as experts in CCI related sessions at the Nashville Seminar two years ago were 14 avowed CCI advocates[ii], one of the “mostly pro” variety, and one critic, local education administrator Carol Burris. At least ten of the 14 pro-CCI experts have worked directly in CCI-funded endeavors. Last year’s Chicago Seminar featured nine CCI advocates[iii] and one opponent, Robert Schaeffer of FairTest. Five of the nine advocates have worked directly in CCI-funded endeavors.

 

“In addition to Secretary John King’s keynote, this year’s Boston Seminar features a whopping 16 avowed CCI proponents, two of the “mostly pro” persuasion, and one opponent, Linda Hanson, a local area educator and union rep. At least ten of the 16 proponents have worked in CCI-funded activities.”

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Media

Why Outsource Neighborhood Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2016 //
8

One of the disturbing aspects of the charter industry is the proliferation of corporate charter chains. Like Walmart, the corporate charters are not part of the local community. They do not answer to an elected board. “Ownership” is far away. If the corporation is dissatisfied with results, it will shut down and move elsewhere.

 

This article is not about schools per se, but it speaks to the same issues.

 

 

DAILY SLANT: Let’s support “locally grown” social services

 

By Nancy Wackstein

 

 

There is no trend more significant in today’s food and restaurant culture than “local.” There is a growing consensus that being a “locavore” and eating food grown, raised or produced locally – usually within 100 miles of the point of consumption – is good for local economies, good for health and good for the environment by reducing fuel consumption associated with transportation.

 

I would argue that it’s time to reorient New York City social services delivery back toward a locavore model as well: locally delivered, locally staffed, locally supported when possible – maybe even produced within one mile of the consumer! As with the food supply, there was a time not long ago when residents of a particular neighborhood knew their local social service agency and community center, whether a settlement house, a Y or a storefront information center. People looking for assistance did not have to travel out of their neighborhoods to get the help they needed, or to socialize, learn or simply have fun together. Nor did they want to.

 

Clearly, social services were locally sourced! And here, too, the benefits were obvious: familiarity and comfort, proximity and reduced travel time and continuity, sometimes over
generations.

 

A report released in 2015 by United Neighborhood Houses reinforced the importance of this local approach. The 3,000 settlement house participants who were surveyed reported a greater sense of “belonging” and “embeddedness” through participation at their local agency. In a huge impersonal city like New York, can anything be more important than creating and nourishing a sense of belonging? Through their local organizations, these participants also learned more about their own neighborhoods and how to help improve their communities by working together with neighbors they met there … “building community.”

 

However, as with the food industry, over the last few decades, “progress” and “modernity” overtook the social services sector. Nonprofit agencies were exhorted to model themselves on corporations: the only path to sustainability was through growth, and more growth. And a prevailing ideology emerged: scale automatically equals efficiency.

 

Agencies were urged to consolidate and merge so more people could be served and larger catchment areas covered, sometimes even borough-wide and citywide. Underpinning the growth and consolidation trend was often the belief that there just were just too many nonprofit providers resulting in redundant programming and overlapping areas of service – inefficiencies.

 

Trends in city government funding embraced and supported this ideology. Contracts for services began to privilege larger and larger social service providers in the name of efficiency.

 
Requests for proposals were designed to identify agencies that could serve larger geographic areas containing larger numbers of people. Why contract with 90 different smaller nonprofits when you could contract with five larger ones?

 

Wouldn’t doing so save the the taxpayers money?

 

“Progress” has brought us to 2016 New York, where ever-larger nonprofits dominate the landscape of social services delivery. Such agencies typically are the only ones who can produce the scale that government contracts increasingly require: the number of
individuals served, the geographic areas covered, the outcome data. And larger agencies typically are the only ones who can negotiate successfully with third-party payers like managed care companies for Medicaid funded services, signifying their ability to survive in the new reimbursement environment.

 

Have we created our own agribusiness right here in New York City that will inevitably drive out the family farms? And if so, what has been lost if we have? Will it even matter to consumers?

 

What is lost is that many local organizations with deep ties to their communities have been left out of the picture, denied the opportunity to compete for city and state contracts because they are too small or serve a particular niche population. Many newer organizations focused on a particular neighborhood or population simply can’t compete for contracts when these are conceptualized and structured by government agencies to serve vast citywide populations and areas. I believe this will matter tremendously to consumers because if these organizations fail to thrive, the people in those neighborhoods, and the communities themselves will be depleted.

 

In the food industry, when the niche producers began to disappear, our food became generic, homogenized and even flavorless. (Ever tasted those winter tomatoes?) The “local” movement then developed as a response to over-centralization, outsized scale and sameness.

 

If we don’t want local organizations with unique competencies and strong neighborhood ties to go the way of family farms, I believe it’s time to rethink service delivery. Yes, New
York City is huge, but it also is a city of unique neighborhoods that should and could be enriched by locally based and locally determined services.

 

Let’s not lose the niche, targeted services that respond to local needs. Let’s not lose the programs that grew up in neighborhoods because that’s what the neighbors said they wanted.
Let’s not make residents have to leave their neighborhoods to get help. Let’s invest in the “place-based” services that we know have always worked. By doing so, we will strengthen both individuals and communities.

 

I’ll eat to that!

 

Nancy Wackstein is the director of community engagement and partnerships at Fordham University and the former executive director of United Neighborhood Houses. This article was originally published by New York Nonprofit Media.

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

Rutgers Has an Answer to Harvard: Scholars, Not Politicians, Speak about School Reform

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2016 //
29

I earlier posted about a reformy conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education where corporate reformers have the platform to themselves, to praise the measure-and-punish-and-privatize strategies that have failed for more than a decade.

 

Here is good news if you are in the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania area. Rutgers University is sponsoring a conference on May 20 to take a close look at what is being done in the name of “reform” and what should be done instead. The panels are the polar opposite of the workshops at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

 

Here is a thumbnail sketch:

 

Session 1
There will be two concurrent sessions. Click a paper to see abstracts.
Session 1.1: Choice, Charters and Segregation

The Effect of Charter Schools on Neighborhood and School Segregation: Evidence from New York City (Sarah A. Cordes, Temple University, and Augustina Laurito, NYU)
The Untold Story of the Morris School District and the Quest for Educational Diversity (Paul Tractenberg, Rutgers -Newark Law School)
Evaluation of Charter School Impacts: The Cases of Newark and Trenton (Maia de la Calle, Rutgers University)
Charter School Effectiveness Research: Do We Really Know if “Successful” Charters are, in Fact, Successful (Mark Weber, Rutgers University)
Do No-Excuses Disciplinary Practices Promote Success? (Joanna Golann, Princeton University, and Chris Torres, Montclair State University)
Charting School Discipline (Susan DeJarnatt, Temple University, and Kerrin Wolf, Stockton University)

Session 1.2: Standards and Assessment

Misinformation and Misconceptions about PARCC, College Readiness and Mathematics Education (Eric Milou, Rowan University)
More [Time] is Better or Less is More (Allison Roda, Rutgers University-Newark)
What Happens to Students When Corporate Reform Fails?: Oklahoma City as a Case Study of the Test and Sort School Reform Experiment (John Thompson)
Problems with High Stakes Testing: Exploring the Gap Between Citizen Concerns and Government Recommendations (Sue Altman)
Hacking Away at Pearson & the Corporate Octopus (Alan Singer, Hofstra University)

 
Session 2

Session 2.1: Finance, Private Investment and the State

The Business of Charter Schooling: Understanding the Policies that Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit (Bruce Baker, Rutgers University, and Gary Miron, Western Michigan University)
The Impact of Charter Schools on Suburban Districts: The Case of Red Bank, NJ (Julia Sass Rubin, Rutgers University)
Planning School Improvement Districts (Ken Steif, University of Pennsylvania)
TFA’s Leadership Model and Neoliberal Education Reform (Leah Z. Owens, Rutgers University – Newark)
Poverty, Student Achievement and Union-Management Collaboration in Public School Reform (Saul A. Rubinstein, Rutgers University)

Session 2.2: Schools and Neighborhoods

Making the Public Choice: How Parents in Philadelphia’s Gentrifying (and Gentrified) Neighborhoods are Choosing Neighborhood Schools (Katharine Nelson, Rutgers University)
Altering the Relationship between Neighborhood and School to Improve Life Chances (Ryan Coughlan, Rutgers-Newark)
A Community Good? Developers, New Schools and Gentrification (Molly Vollman Makris, Guttman Community College/City University of New York, and Elizabeth Brown, William Paterson University)
The School Choice Decision for 70 Families with Diverse Backgrounds in Oakland (Carrie Makarewicz, University of Colorado Denver)
School Choice and Latina/o Students: Misappropriating the Notion of Diversity (Michael Scott, University of Texas at Austin)
“Opt-Out” as Democratic Civic Engagement (Monica Clark, Temple University)

 

Session 3.1: Democracy and Education

A Tale of Two Cities: Education in Global Chicago (Constance A. Mixon, Elmhurst College)
Democracy and National Education Standards (Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University)
The Renaissance will be Technocratic: Contrasting Community Voice with Educational Leaders in Camden, NJ (Stephen Danley, Rutgers University – Camden)
Fighting Against Their Just Prescriptions and Fighting for Our Visions for Educational Justice (Liza Pappas and Zakiyah Ansari, Alliance for Quality Education)
Better for Whom? Community Perspectives on State-Mandated Charters (Keith Benson, Rutgers University – Camden)

Session 3.2: Closing Schools

Using National Data to Understand School Closures (Megan Gallagher, Rolf Pendall, Sierra Latham, and Tanaya Srini, The Urban Institute)
Constructing Students as Targets: Racial Differences in Attitudes Towards Public School Closure (Sally Nuama, Northwestern University)
Injustice and School Closure (Jacob Fay, Harvard University)
Neighborhoods, Schools and Economic Landscapes: Rooting Schools in Place in Philadelphia’s School Closure Debate (Ryan Good, Rutgers University)
A City Reimagined: Baltimore’ s School Closings (Jessica Shiller, Towson University)
Branding Against Closure: Philadelphia Neighborhood Schools and the Management of Risky Futures (Julia McWilliams, University of Pennsylvania)

 

An interesting contrast: The Harvard Graduate School of Education conference is peppered with politicians and media celebrities.

 

The Rutgers conference features scholars who have actually studied the subjects they are writing and speaking about.

 

Isn’t that amazing?

 

 

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

Leonie Haimson Holds the de Blasio Administration Accountable for Reckless Spending

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2016 //
2

Leonie Haimson is the watchdog of New York City public education. She is the founder of Class Size Matters (I am a member of her six-person board), which operates on a shoestring. She is unpaid, yet she is tireless in her determination to police the awarding of contracts, as well as the administration’s attention to class size. She also is deeply involved in protecting student privacy. She and Rachel Strickland in Colorado brought down Bill Gates’ effort to data-mine American students, a project called inBloom, to which he contributed $100 million. In the face of parent criticism, inBloom folded.

 

Leonie reads every contract that the New York City Department approves. She did the same during the Bloomberg years, when she was also the mayor’s most persistent critic.

 

Here is her scathing report on the failure of the administration to perform due diligence before it awards contracts, in this case, for special education services, for Amazon, and for new technology. Once again, as under Bloomberg, the city’s Panel on Educational Policy (actually know in the law as the New York City Board of Education) mutely acquiesces and approves whatever the administration asks for, without debate or discussion.

 

This is a good reason to oppose mayoral control, state control, and any other undermining of democracy.

Categories Accountability, Bill de Blasio, Education Industry, New York City, Technology
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