Archives for category: Education Industry
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Larry Miller Reviews Kristen Buras’ Book on New Orleans Reforms

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
6

Larry Miller, an elected member of the Milwaukee school board and a member of the editorial board of Rethinking Schools, has written an excellent review and summary of Kristen Buras’ book–Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space— about the privatization of public education in New Orleans. New Orleans has gotten an undeserved national reputation as “the answer” to struggling school districts. The establishment in many other urban districts are looking at New Orleans as a model, but it is a model of what NOT to do. As Buras tells it, the reforms in New Orleans dispossessed the black citizens of New Orleans and created great possibilities for white entrepreneurs. A teaching force that was 75% black was dismissed and replaced largely by white Teach for America recruits.

 

Milwaukee is one of the urban districts where the civic and business leadership is looking longingly at New Orleans. Perhaps Larry Miller can share Buras’ book with them.

 

Miller writes: “A major theme to her research is that the New Orleans RSD is a Southern strategy to use market-based reforms to give control of public schools, attended by Black children in Black communities and often taught by Black teachers, over to well funded white entrepreneurs.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Privatization

Ohio: Will Charter Titans Permit Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2015 //
9

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy notes that Governor John Kasich has promised to pass legislation requiring accountability and transparency from charters. But will the big campaign contributors who make millions from charters allow any regulation of their profitable enterprises?

Phillis writes:

“Governor: “We are going to fix the lack of regulation on charter schools” – but will ECOT, White Hat Management, K-12 Inc. and other big campaign funders allow it to happen?

“2014 has been the year of exposure of far-reaching financial fraud and educational malfeasance in the charter industry. To cap off the year, reports of two studies commissioned by the pro-charter Fordham Institute were made public. These reports “revealed” what was already known: charters are neither accountable nor transparent and their students lag significantly behind traditional schools in state academic measures.

“What else could the Governor say about charters but that additional regulations are needed? The real test, and the one the public education community should keep on the radar screen, will be the scope and depth of anticipated legislation on charter reform.

“Consider that, of the $57 million increase in charter funding over 2011-2012, the largest increase goes to William Lager’s ECOT and the largest per pupil increase for a charter group goes to David Brennan’s White Hat charters. Brennan and William Lager are among the largest political contributors in Ohio. Will they allow charter reform in Ohio? Charter reform that protects taxpayers and students would put them out of business. What do you think?

“Realistically, don’t expect genuine reform in accountability and transparency in charterland….unless the taxpayers of Ohio demand it. Right now the contest is between campaign contributions and sound public policy.”

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

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

Jeb Bush Resigns from All Boards, Including For-Profit Online Firm

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2015 //
30

Preparing to run for the Republican nomination for President in 2016, Jeb Bush resigned from all the corporate and nonprofit boards he belongs to. One of them is a for-profit firm that sells online courses to university students.

 

He also resigned as a paid adviser to a for-profit education company that sells online courses to public university students in exchange for a share of their tuition payments….

 

Bush’s financial stake in Academic Partnerships, the online education firm, has been relatively small for a millionaire — a $60,000-a-year fee and ownership of a small amount of stock, said Randy Best, the company’s founder and chief executive. Even so, Bush’s affiliation with the firm — which has contracts with schools in a half-dozen states and several foreign countries and has annual sales of $100 million — could complicate his effort to promote his record as an education reformer

 

The company receives up to 70 percent of the tuition some students pay to public universities, and some faculty members say it siphons money from the schools while asserting too much control over academic decisions.

 

Best, a Texas entrepreneur and major political donor, said his firm has increased professors’ access to online students and helped schools attract additional revenue, while Bush aides say the former governor does not have business interests related to K-12 education, which has been his policy focus.

 

Randy Best is a friend of the Bush family who founded a reading program called Voyager Learning, a phonics-based program that benefited handsomely from the Reading First portion of No Child Left Behind. Best eventually sold Voyager for $360 million. For more about Voyager and Reading First, read here and here. The Washington Post wrote in 2006:

 

Five years later, an accumulating mound of evidence from reports, interviews and program documents suggests that Reading First has had little to do with science or rigor. Instead, the billions have gone to what is effectively a pilot project for untested programs with friends in high places.

 

Department officials and a small group of influential contractors have strong-armed states and local districts into adopting a small group of unproved textbooks and reading programs with almost no peer-reviewed research behind them. The commercial interests behind those textbooks and programs have paid royalties and consulting fees to the key Reading First contractors, who also served as consultants for states seeking grants and chaired the panels approving the grants. Both the architect of Reading First and former education secretary Roderick R. Paige have gone to work for the owner of one of those programs, who is also a top Bush fundraiser.

 

 

The $60,000-a-year that Bush received from Best’s company was chicken-feed compared to the $1 million+ a year he received from Barclay’s bank.

 

No question, however, that Jeb Bush has a strong interest in digital education. In Florida, and in some other states that have heeded his advice, students must take online courses as a graduation requirement. Bush’s efforts to push digital learning in Maine were the subject of a prize-winning article for investigative journalism by Colin Woodard, called “The Profit Motive Behind Virtual Schools in Maine.”

 

In my book Reign of Error, I described a report produced by Jeb Bush and former Governor Bob Wise called “Digital Learning NOW!” The report, which was sponsored by major technology corporations, claimed that digital learning was key to closing the achievement gap and that it would produce greater learning and almost every good thing that could be imagined. There was no evidence for these claims. The report recommended deregulation of digital learning so that a corporation could sell its services without having to hire certified teachers or even to have a physical location in the state where they were selling their services.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform

The Ultimate Reform Method, Guaranteed to Produce 100% Proficiency

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2014 //
22

For the past 14 years, policymakers have sought the answer to a complex question: How can we make sure that every single child–regardless of race, gender, disability, poverty, or language–will achieve proficiency on standardized tests?

We tried No Child Left Behind, and that didn’t work. We tried Race to the Top, and that did’t work. We tried the Marzano method and the Danielson rubric, and still we struggle. We tried bonus pay and threats of firing staffs and closing school, and that did not suffice.

But now we know there is a sure-fire method. It comes from Tennessee, and it’s called “the ear-bud method.” Tennessee is a fertile place for reform: not only was it the state where Value-added Modeling was birthed nearly 30 years ago, but it was one of the first states to win a Race to the Top award.

It works for 100% of children. No one fails. It is, in fact, a silver bullet–or a magic earbud.

Merry Christmas!

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Beware the Language of “Reform” That Isn’t About Reform

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2014 //
30

We have all wrestled at one time or another with the deceptive rhetoric of “reformers.” They seem to have a common phrase book, written by PR whizzes, in which they have co-opted terms like “reform,” “great teachers,” “innovation,” “personalized,” and to have created terms like “a child’s zip code should not be his/her destiny,” a sentiment with which no one can disagree. Their solutions, typically, consist of privatizing public schools by handing public dollars over to private corporations to do the work of government, and dismantling the teaching profession by lowering standards for entry to young people without any professional preparation, eliminating due process, eliminating extra pay for additional degrees, and seeking to eliminate extra pay for experience. No reform movement in the past ever had this agenda. Reformers in the past wanted public schools to get better, not to replace them with privately managed schools or schools operated for profit. Reformers in the past wanted teachers to have better preparation, not to take away certification requirements. Reformers were not union-busters.

 

Education writer Steve Hinnefeld, on his blog, writes about the way the so-called reformers have corrupted the English language. I agree with him, and we see it all the time, such as when a pro-charter group calls itself “Save Our Public Schools” and circulates a petition to replace public schools with privately managed charters. However, I disagree with Steve on two of his definitions. I can’t think of a better term than corporate reformers, to demonstrate that their assumptions come from the corporate world, such as their belief in data, data-driven decision-making, standardization, incentives, and sanctions. Other people use terms like “deformers,” but that is more of an insult than a label. If Steve has a better term than “corporate reform,” I want to hear it.

 

I also challenge the claim–perhaps he does as well–that charter schools are public schools. They get public money, but that does not make them public schools. Lockheed gets public money. So does almost every private university. Charters have sued in different states to prevent public audits, on the grounds that they are private corporations, not subject to public audit. They have been taken to court by workers for violating state labor laws; they said they were private corporations, not public schools. When you hear this defense again and again, it is persuasive. I am persuaded.

 

Meanwhile, I welcome any suggestions from Steve or others to create a name for those who are leading the charge for more charters and vouchers and who are eager to strip teachers of due process, collective bargaining, and reduce their benefits.

 

I would also welcome suggestions for the name of “our side.” We do not “defend the status quo.” The status quo is headed by Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family, Jeb Bush, Andrew Cuomo, and ALEC; it consists of high-stakes testing, privatization, and hostility to the teaching profession. We don’t like the status quo. We want better schooling for all children. We want the arts and history and physical education; we want experienced teachers; we want librarians, school nurses, guidance counselors, social workers, psychologists and after-school programs. Are we “the real reformers”? We fight for better education, for better schools, for high standards for entry into teaching, for respect for teachers and parents, and for kindness for children. What should we call ourselves?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Standardized Testing

EduShyster: Salem, Massachusetts, Is Bewitched by Data, Jargon, and Entrepreneurs

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2014 //
2

EduShyster pays a visit to Salem, Massachusetts, where “school choice” has enabled the affluent families to go to some highly-resourced schools, while the less-affluent go to less-resourced schools.

 

If you want to see how bizarre and brain-dead “reform” is, look no farther than Salem. There, the town has fallen in love with jargon and data, and looks to edupreneurs to solve all problems by supplying edumanure.

 

She writes:

 

“At the center of the Open System beats an edupreneurial heart, one belonging to Empower Schools, founded by edupreneur Chris Gabrieli, whose list of political connections is as long as an extended school day, and Bret Alessi, former Education Pioneer and current Mass 2020 visionary. What precisely Empower Schools does, other than BELIEVE IN OPEN SYSTEMS…and produce case studies like this one, remains a bit vague-ish. What I can tell you is that Empower has quickly one over powerful friends aka *aligned leaders,* like Massachusetts Commissioner of College and Career Readiness, Mitchell D. Chester, who recently sang Empower’s praises to the Boston Globe in a story on how school partnerships with edupreneurial groups like Empower are failing to produce results…..Everybody who is anybody
But I digress. The important thing is that the Salem schools bus is hurtling towards a new system, an Open System, and that everyone who is anyone appears to be on board, from the city’s politically ambitious mayor, to the members of the Salem Partnership, to the members of the Community Advisory Board of the Salem Partnership, to the members of the Salem Education Foundation. In other words, everybody who is anybody in the city is *highly aligned,* jargonically speaking, behind a vision of what the city’s students need to succeed. A *laser-like focus on instruction* and *frequent assessments.* The Open System comes with transportation — and to quote district leaders, *data drives the bus.* And that teachers don’t just want to teach, they want to Teach Plus co-captain the data bus.”

 

But what happens when one family says “No, we don’t want our child to take the tests?” Shockingly, the family won the right to opt out. They have been joined by five other families. Hopefully there will be more. How will the “data bus” function if there is no data? Stay tuned. Will the data bus veer out of control? Or will it continue to drive right over the cliff with the children of Salem?

 

 

Categories Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Testing

Readers React to York City Takeover and Likely Handover to For-Profit Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2014 //
16

Earlier today, I posted about the decision by a judge in Pennsylvania to declare the York City School District to be in “receivership,” meaning that it will now be controlled by the state. The district is being punished because its board refused to follow the receiver’s orders. Parents and educators fought the decision, but their voices did not count.

 

 

Here is a comment from one reader (Chiara), who also noted that Vice President Joe Biden’s brother, Frank, came to testify on behalf of the for-profit charter takeover (he works for a for-profit charter in Florida called Mavericks):

 

 

York isn’t the first public school district that was completely privatized by a politically connected for-profit charter management company.

 

Muskegon Heights MI was the first.

 

It was privatized but it’s never mentioned by ed reformers (unlike say, New Orleans) because the charter management company pulled out and left town when they determined they couldn’t turn a profit. Muskegon Heights doesn’t fit the ed reform narrative so it simply isn’t discussed.

 

“MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI — Mosaica Education Inc. will no longer manage the Muskegon Heights charter school district, and plans will begin immediately to seek a replacement company.
Muskegon Heights Public Schools Emergency Manager Gregory Weatherspoon said the separation came down to an issue of finances. Mosaica, a for-profit company, was running a deficit budget and not making a profit.”

 

I think they dump the for-profit charter chains in states where there’s no regulation, lawmakers are completely captured and there’s no national media focus – states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida.

 

OH, MI, PA and FL get all the ed reform garbage. It washes up here.

 

OH, MI, PA and FL should serve as a warning to other states not to lift charter caps and deregulate further, but it won’t. They’ll all end up like the least regulated states. It’s a race to the bottom.

 

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/04/mosaica_out_as_manager_of_musk.html

 

 

Another, 2old2teach, wrote this pointed question:

 

 

It really makes you wonder how these folks dare to appear in public. How do they teach democracy in York, now?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

York City, Pennsylvania, Outrage!

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2014 //
27

Last Friday, a judge cleared the way to put the York City schools into receivership, meaning under state control. The Pennsylvania Department of Education previously announced its intention to hand over the entire school district to the for-profit charter chain Charter Schools of America.

Be it noted that today’s education “reformers” don’t much care for democracy. They would rather turn public schools over to a for-profit corporation that siphons off 20% in management fees and pays itself outlandish rental fees rather than trust parents and local citizens to do what’s best for their children.

Choice? There will be no “choice” for the families of York City. Their children will have to attend a charter school whose headquarters are in Florida. Yes, it is the death of local control and democracy in York City.

The news story says:

“State officials have said they would, if approved for a receivership, bring in Charter Schools USA to operate the district.

“So this means York likely will be the first city in the Commonwealth – and only one in the nation – where public education is provided exclusively by a private company.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association plans to appeal, according to a statement released by the statewide teachers union immediately after the ruling Friday morning.

“York’s citizens don’t want this, the elected school board doesn’t want this, and parents and educators don’t want this,” said PSEA President Michael Crossey.

“Citing the district’s financial problems, PDE declared York schools in recovery status and appointed David Meckley chief recovery officer, or CRO, in late 2012.

“State law triggers a receivership petition if officials in a recovery school district act against the wishes of the CRO or in violation of their approved recovery plan, which is supposed to be collaboratively developed.

“In this case, one action was the board’s refusal to vote on a charter school operator contract until the company provided more information.

“The other was its vote on a teachers and staff union contract that didn’t cut as much as set out in the recovery plan.”

This is what we would expect from the outgoing Corbett administration, which actively promoted privatization.

What will the new Tom Wolf administration do?

Here are some thoughts from Mark Miller, a local school board member in Pennsylvania and an officer of the Pennsylvania School Boards Assiciation:

“PSBA was disqualified as a party of interest in the case despite the fact we are a state chartered agency with a membership of 4,500 elected officials sworn to uphold the constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which guarantees a free and appropriate public education to all children. On that count alone, how can the court force any child to attend a charter school?

“Linebaugh also disqualified NAACP, PASA and twenty-two parents of children with special needs who combined their money to retain special education counsel. Commonwealth Court upheld the ruling on NAACP, PSBA, PASA and parents did not appeal as we were saving our war chest for this new fight.

“There was never any question in my mind that Linebaugh was going to hand the district over to privateers. Governor Elect Wolf is a resident of York County and a political ally of the Receiver (David Meckley). While he did ask for the courts to leave this matter wait until his term of office begins, he has been absolutely silent on his position in this matter.

“Wolf’s wife Frances resigned from the Board of York Academy Charter School two months before he declared for office. some observers think that CSUSA will sub-contract to York Academy and CSMI (Charter School Management Inc is Vahan Gureghian’s company) as CSUSA does not have the resources at hand to run these schools.

“York Academy and CSMI have been silent and CSUSA non committal http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_27186647/charter-schools-usa-mum-york-city-schools-special (Although Vahan Guerghian is building a $28MM mansion within a 45 minute drive to CSUSA headquarters in Florida.

“Obviously, we are going to file an appeal of the ruling handed down today.”

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

How Charter Operators Get Rich

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
25

Charter Schools USA is a very successful for-profit business. It is very profitable. Its CEO Jonathan Hage is an entrepreneur, not an educator. The company’s headquarters are in Florida but it operates 70 charter schools in seven states. It hopes to take over the entire York, Pennsylvania, school district. The money to operate the charter schools come out of money that would otherwise go to district public schools.

How does Hage and the corporation make big money? It is not the management fee of 5%. It’s the rent.

As Channel 10 learned in its investigation, charters profit handsomely by paying outsize rent to themselves.

“When the company helps open a new school, its development arm, Red Apple Development, acquires land and constructs a school. Then, CUSA charges the school high rent.

“For example, Winthrop Charter in Riverview may struggle to balance its budget this year thanks to a $2 million rent payment to CUSA/Red Apple Development. The payment will equate to approximately 23% of its budget, even though CUSA CEO Jon Hage has been quoted as saying charter school rent should not exceed 20%.”

The corporation says that as long as test scores are high and parents are happy, the profits are no problem.

“But among CUSA’s critics is the League of Women Voters, which recently released a study suggesting a troubling lack of separation between a charter school’s advisory board and for-profit management companies. It also indicates charter school teachers aren’t often paid as well and profits all-too-often play a role in educational decisions.

“That means that children aren’t getting what they’re owed by the public funding,” said Pat Hall, a retired Jefferson High department head and Hillsborough County’s education chair for the League of Women Voters.

“The study also revealed school choice creates a higher risk of disruption to a child’s education, as “statewide closure rate of charters is 20%” and “Charters are 50% of all F-rated schools in 2011.” In the last week, last-minute problems displaced a hundreds of charter school students from St. Petersburg to Delray Beach.

“Hall acknowledges many charter schools are teaching children in unique and successful ways, but says Charter Schools USA isn’t offering students anything that’s not available in public schools. She adds that the schools are so focused on FCAT fundamentals, they forego many traditional aspects of the school experience.”

CUSA schools often don’t have a library or cafeteria, but school officials tout the superiority of eating in the classroom and having a classroom library.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit

EduShyster Presents: Thunderdome in Tennessee

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2014 //
4

EduShyster’s guest columnist is Andy Spears, who writes regularly about school politics in Tennessee. In this post, he describes the barbaric choices forced on public schools, as they compete for survival. One will be turned into a charter school, regardless of the wishes of the parents, students, and local community, and the other will remain a public school, at least until next year, when the same game will be played again.

 

Spears explains the “Thunderdome” concept:

 

Education reformers everywhere are looking to Tennessee for the newest way to blow up the system and disrupt the status quo. The new approach comes via Nashville, where both the local school system and the state’s Achievement School District are busy handing over *priority schools* to charter operators. The new twist is that two schools compete to determine which will be converted to a charter. Think the education reform equivalent of Thunderdome: two schools enter, only one leaves.

Two schools enter, one school leaves
Tennesee’s version of Thunderdome kicked off when Metro Nashville Director of Schools, Jesse Register, suggested that KIPP be given an elementary school in East Nashville. When parents at Inglewood Elementary resisted the KIPPing of their school, Register introduced the Thunderdome concept. KIPP would get a school, but it would be EITHER Inglewood or Kirkpatrick Elementary.

 

A deadline was set, and with no clear criteria for deciding which school would survive, parents were left to determine on their own what tactics might help their school escape KIPP’s clutches. Inglewood parents entered Thunderdome in full force, aligning with a new parent-led movement, East Nashville United, to resist plans to turn all of East Nashville into an *all-choice* school zone. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia even stopped by, telling those gathered at Inglewood that she was on their side.

 

So, who won round one? Well, KIPP, of course. They got a school! And, since it was Kirkpatrick, Inglewood parents can take a break from worrying about next year and start worrying about the year after that. Because the game must be played again and Inglewood may yet again find itself in the education reform equivalent of a fight to the death.

 

Spears describes how parents in both Memphis and Nashville have tried to fight back. But who cares what they think?

 

He also drops the hint that Chris Barbic, who runs the so-called Achievement School District (which has promised to turn the state’s lowest-performing schools into the top 25% of the state’s schools through the miracle of chartering), has been rumored to be a successor to the leader of the Metro Nashville public schools, which would give him a free hand to turn all the schools in the system over to private charter operators. Or possibly, Spears says, he might be a successor to John King as state commissioner in New York. If he moves on, would the ASD still have to meet its five-year target? Or would it just become an unstoppable machine for chartering all the urban public schools in Tennessee?

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Tennessee
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