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

Ghost Schools in Ohio=$$$

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2013 //
18

Ohio is the for-profit Capitol of US education. Here is one of the profiteers’ secrets: They collect tax dollars for no-show students.

This is from Bill Phillis of the Ohio coalition for education and adequacy.

Ghost schools

8/30/13

About five years ago, Scripps Howard News Service published, Ghost Schools-A special investigative report by Scripps Howard News Service finds taxpayers paying millions for students who never show up for class. For-profit “ghost schools” collect money even when students are absent.

Although the Scripps Howard investigations of charter schools took place in several states, one of the Ohio for-profit charter school operations is featured in the report. A Salem, MA for-profit company owner is quoted in the report as saying, “Ohio is the profit-making EMO capital of America.”

Investigators learned that during the 2006-2007 school year, Ohio, by extracting money from school districts, paid $29.9 million for absent students who were enrolled in 47 dropout recovery schools. In one such charter school, 64 percent of the enrolled students were not in class on a daily basis during the 2004-2005 school year.

A former principal of a Life Skills Center is quoted in the report as saying “It’s a cash cow. I spend less than $1 million on a $3 million operation. What in the h*&$ are they (executives at his former company) doing with the other $2 million?”

Anyone interested in receiving this Scripps Howard News Service report may contact this office.

When this report was published, those responsible for the documented fraud should have been held accountable. Where was the outrage from the public or education community? At least the state should have followed up on the findings reported. Scripps Howard reporter Thomas Hargrove, a member of the investigative team, indicated in a recent telephone conversation that he was shocked that such fraud in Ohio could exist without somebody going to jail.

Is this type of fraud still practiced in Ohio? Who would know? The charter school lobby is so powerful, primarily due to campaign contributions, that the political environment thwarts any attempt to hold for-profit charter schools accountable. A few years ago the governor attempted to right this wrong but was blocked by powerful political forces.

The money paid for the phantom students comes right out of school districts’ budgets. Hence, educational opportunities for students enrolled in the public common school system are diminished due to that “cash cow” approach that Ohio political leadership has established and maintained.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

This email was sent by ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net |

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio

Cuomo Wants “Death Penalty” for “Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2013 //
86

New York Governor Cuomo wants a “death penalty” for “failing schools,”

He was referring to the public schools of Buffalo, which is one of the state’s poorest districts. He threatened state takeover, mayoral control, or charters.

None of his remedies has ever succeeded. But they will extinguish democracy. Democracy is not the cause of low achievement. If Cuomo ignores poverty and segregation, he will be spinning wheels. Prediction: he will ignore both.

More districts than Buffalo face the death penalty:

” Robert M. Bennett, a member of the state Board of Regents representing Western New York, as well as chancellor emeritus, said he thinks it’s likely that the officials in Albany will discuss “a limited state takeover for certain districts” during the next session of the Legislature. He also cited the possibility of mayoral control for some districts as well as charter takeovers.

“He pointed to Buffalo, Rochester and three districts on Long Island as being in particular need of dramatic change.

“The frustration level is extremely high about what should be done with a school that is persistently failing. It’s a very serious thing when you have so many schools that are on the state’s watch list,” he said. “It’s the right thing to debate how to turn schools around.”

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Education Industry, New York

LA Times: Charter Schools Should Not Hurt Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2013 //
10

The Los Angeles Times has generally been very supportive of
privately managed charter schools, but in an editorial today it
dares to suggest that charter schools should not expand at the
expense of public schools.

In areferendum passed in 2000, intended to make it easier to pass bonds to support public schools,
charter advocates slipped in a little noticed proviso that required
public schools to provide space for charters. As we know, charters
are not governed by the rules and regulations that govern public
schools. But charter schools end up getting more space than public
schools, and causing overcrowding in public schools, where most of
the children are. “That’s because charter schools, which
are often subsidized through foundation grants, tend to have much
smaller class sizes. The charter schools contend that they should
be given a room for each class, even if that class has 15 students
while a classroom of the same size at the traditional public school
might have 30. They also claim that preschool classrooms and parent
centers should be counted in the formula under which charter space
is allocated.”

The Times is quick to note that some
charter schools get high test scores, not noting that the small
class sizes might have something to do with it.

Is it fair to compare a school where classes are 15 to a school where classes are
30?

Is it fair to compare an underfunded public school to a
well-resourced charter school that is backed by billionaires and
their foundations? At some point, even the Los Angeles Times
editorial board will recognize that the billionaires have no
intention of providing equality of educational opportunity for all
the children of Los Angeles. They like having little showcases,
underwritten by the public, pretending to be public schools, but
limited to the children they choose. It is a vanity project, but
its long-term effect will be to damage public education and to harm the great majority of
children, whom the charter advocates don’t want and don’t care
about.

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles

Tennessee Scandal: Worst School in the State Protected by Lobbyists

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2013 //
32

The worst-performing school in Tennessee is K12’s for-profit Virtual Academy.

If it were a public school, it would have been closed by now.

But K-12 is profitable and it hires good lobbyists so there will be no sanctions.

“Students at the Tennessee Virtual Academy, an online school run for profit, learned less than their peers anywhere else in Tennessee last year, data released by the state last week show, but efforts to crack down on the school have been delayed by heavy lobbying on its behalf.

“Results from standardized tests show that students in the Tennessee Virtual Academy made less progress as a group in reading, math, science and social studies than students enrolled in all 1,300 other elementary and middle schools who took the same tests. The school fell far short of state expectations for the second year in a row.

“But the school will remain open this year after an effort by Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration to rein in the school if it failed for a second year was turned back by the school’s owner, Virginia-based K12 Inc. The company, which relies on online learning to educate its students, waged a public relations campaign that involved the school’s teachers, some of its parents and lobbyists.

“Nearly a year after Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman declared the Tennessee Virtual Academy’s results “un­acceptable” and demanded an immediate turnaround, the school stands to collect about $5 million in state funds this school year. Last year, the school took in an estimated $15 million.

“Critics say the results fit a pattern for K12’s schools nationwide. The company has opened online schools across the country, taking advantage of state school-choice and charter school laws.”

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush and ALEC continue to promote online virtual charters as the wave of the future, the very essence of “personalized and customized” learning, and the Obama administration remains silent as these low-quality “schools” proliferate, empowered by campaign contributions and lobbying. (Paid for with your tax dollars.)

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Tennessee

This Is a Great TV Special about Bipartisan Greed in DC

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2013 //
27

I saw Bill Moyers interview Mark Leibovich last night, and I was riveted to the screen.

I began to understand that the privatization of public education is part of a much larger corruption in our politics.

The power of greed is a mighty force. Once let loose on our schools, it will monetize the children.

Please watch this when you have a free hour.

You will be appalled and informed.

And you will be angry.

I just ordered Mark’s book.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

What Is Happening in Muskegon Heights?

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2013 //
11

This reader reports on the for-profit charter chain that took control of the students in Muskegon Height, Michigan:

“I have a close friend who works in this very charter school in Muskegon Heights.

“If Mosaica isn’t the worst charter operation in America, it’s in the top ten.

“A few observations from my friend:

“1. They instituted a homeroom period at the start of the day. Students were ASSIGNED to a classroom and were supposed to show up for assistance / tutoring. My friend said that one student showed up. Administration did nothing to address the fact that kids weren’t coming to school.

“2. His building administrator locked the office doors and told teachers that she would only speak to them via e-mail.

“3. In April of last year, he was told that he must purchase paper because the school would no longer provide any.

“4. When MLIVE (The Grand Rapids Press), reported that nearly a third of the teaching staff had quit halfway through the year, the school responded by calling all the teachers in for a meeting. At the meeting, they had the teachers write down areas of improvement / complaints they had about the way Mosaica was running the school. After collecting all of the complaints, they threw them in the garbage. They then berated the remaining teachers and told them to quit because they have “loads of qualified applicants” dying to teach there.

“I could go on and on and on. This despicable company has stolen millions of dollars from Michigan taxpayers. On top of that, they’ve eliminated 50+ middle class jobs (former public school employees) and have created more paycheck to paycheck, barely getting by jobs. My friend makes $31,000 a year. He is better paid than several other staff members because he had previous years of experience.

“I am a FORMER REPUBLICAN. I voted for GW Bush twice. Knowing what NCLB and Republican efforts have done to public schools and to public education (the narrowing of education, total focus on standardized tests, elimination of liberal arts programs, loss of rigor or accountability for students, destruction of the teaching profession), I have left the party and have helped convince many of my friends to leave as well. I’m also a married white male (the backbone of the GOP). Lose guys like me, and you’re screwed.”

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

Anthony Cody: What Do Prisons, Post Offices, and Schools Have in Common?

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2013 //
14

Anthony Cody explains
here the sustained assault on the commons, the effort to
privatize institutions that were long considered public.

He considers what happens when prisons
are privatized, creating profits by reducing the quality of service
and care. He shows why the post office is being privatized and who stands to gain.

And he summarizes the ongoing effort to privatize public schools and turn them over to corporate control.

He writes:

“It has
been decided in the halls of power, governmental and corporate,
that the way to improve schools is to unleash the power of the
marketplace. We are undergoing a transformation of huge proportions
in order to allow this to occur. Through the Common Core State
(sic) Standards, we are creating a single national marketplace for
tests, technology and curriculum – all three of which are
increasingly intertwined and removed from the control of teachers
and local communities….

“Meanwhile, our leaders
have unleashed “austerity” on the public sector, schools included.
In Chicago, the bulldozers destroyed a community reading center
treasured by local parents, capping off the closing of more than 50
public schools by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In Philadelphia, the mayor
has been working to abandon public schools in favor of charters,
and the underfunding of the city’s schools has clergy there calling
for a student boycott.”

He concludes:

“Our schools are part of a public
heritage passed down to us. They were built in our communities with
a vision of bringing all children under the same roof to learn
together. Privatization replaces this model of the commons with one
ruled by marketplace “choices.” As we know, some people always wind
up with many more choices than others. Interviews with parents
reveal that their first choice is almost always a high quality
local public school for their children. If we shifted our public
policies away from attempting to discredit and replace these
schools, and towards supporting and strengthening them, we would be
far better off.”

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

Obama Proposes NCLB for Higher Education: LINK ADDED

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2013 //
112

President Obama proposed a plan to rate colleges much as
schools are rated now. Their federal assistance would be based on
performance indicators. This is supposed to save money but 75% of
college instructors are already adjuncts, working for peanuts. More
likely, the President loves Big Data and wants metrics. Next step:
technology to replace adjuncts. That will cut costs for sure. The
ideal university: a President overseeing 4,000 computers and an IT
staff to repair them.

For some strange reason, the Obama administration wants to extend federal control over the world’s greatest system of higher education. It is not as if there is evidence for anything they propose. It never occurs to them that they could break the system by Imposing the cost and burden of federal mandates.

Dare I say that I predicted this in January 2012
when speaking to the National Association of Independent
Colleges and Universities? How will they test and measure the value
of art history? Latin? Sociology? Music? Who ARE these
people?

Categories Education Industry, Higher Education, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Are AP Courses Ripping Off Minority Students?

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2013 //
40

Two news stories shine a bright line on the allure and failed promise of AP courses.

Liz Bowie of the Baltimore Sun has an outstanding article about AP courses in Maryland, which has invested heavily on this strategy to lift achievement.

She writes that the expansion of AP courses has not lived up to its claims. “It has not delivered vast numbers of students from low-performing high schools to selective colleges with credits in their pockets, helping to bridge the academic gulf between the nation’s rich and poor. Too often, students who haven’t been prepared in earlier grades flounder in AP classes, or are awarded A’s and B’s in the courses and then fail the AP exams.

“The high grades for course work can lull students into a false sense of security, said Steve Syverson, a board member of the National Association of College Admission Counseling and a former dean of admissions at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. Many students arrive at college with AP courses on their transcripts, but with skills so low they must take remedial classes.

“The kids are … doing what society is telling them to do,” he said. “We just set those kids up for complete failure because they just get hammered when they get to college.”

“A Baltimore Sun analysis of test scores showed a troubling discrepancy between grades for AP course work and scores on the exams. In at least 19 high schools throughout the Baltimore region, more than half of the students who earned an A or B in an AP class failed the exam.

“Failure rates of 75 percent on the exam were common at Woodlawn and other Maryland schools with large numbers of minority and low-income students. For the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent available data, about 40 percent of students who took an AP test in the nation failed. But nearly 75 percent of African-American students nationwide failed, and the pass rates for Latinos and low-income students are far below those for whites and Asians.”

In a related story, Stephanie Simon at politico.com reports that the national picture is troubling:

“Taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to nudge more students into Advanced Placement classes — but a close look at test scores suggests much of the investment has been wasted.

“Expanding participation in AP classes has been a bipartisan goal, promoted by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and by Republican governors including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and John Kasich of Ohio. In the last five years, the federal government has spent $275 million to promote the classes and subsidize exam fees for low-income students; states have spent many millions more.

“Enrollment in AP classes has soared. But data analyzed by POLITICO shows that the number of kids who bomb the AP exams is growing even more rapidly. The class of 2012, for instance, failed nearly 1.3 million AP exams during their high school careers. That’s a lot of time and money down the drain; research shows that students don’t reap any measurable benefit from AP classes unless they do well enough to pass the $89 end-of-course exam.

“In its annual reports, the nonprofit College Board, which runs the Advanced Placement program, emphasizes the positive: The percentage of students who pass at least one AP exam during high school has been rising steadily. Because so many students now take more than one AP class, however, the overall pass rate dropped from 61 percent for the class of 2002 to 57 percent for the class of 2012.”

No matter what happens to the kids, the nonprofit College Board does well indeed.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Students, Testing

Why “Disruption” Is Not Good for Children, Families, Schools, and Communities

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2013 //
17

Earlier today, I published Judith Shulevitz’s brilliant essay on “disruption” as a business strategy.

As we know, mega-corporations believe they must continually reinvent themselves in order to have the latest, best thing and beat their competitors, who are about to overtake them in the market.

They believe in disruption as a fundamental rule of the marketplace.

By some sloppy logic or sleight-of-hand, the financial types and corporate leaders who think they should reform the nation’s schools have concluded that the schools should also be subject to “creative disruption” or just plain “disruption.”

And so we have the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, underwritten by billionaire Eli Broad, sending out superintendents who are determined to “disrupt” schools by closing them and handing them over to private management.

Unfortunately, Secretary Arne Duncan agrees that disruption is wonderful, so he applauds the idea of closing schools, opening new schools, inviting the for-profit sector to compete for scarce funds, and any other scheme that might disrupt schools as we know them.

He does this believing that U.S. education is a failed enterprise and needs a mighty shaking-up.

First, he is wrong to believe that U.S. public education is failing. I document that he is wrong in my new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and The Danger to America’s Public Schools, using graphs from the U.S. Department of Education website.

Second, “disruption” is a disaster for children, families, schools, and communities.

Think of little children. They need continuity and stability, not disruption. They need adults who are a reliable presence in their lives. But, following the logic of the corporate reformers, their teachers are fired, their school is closed, everything must be brand new or the kids won’t learn.  No matter how many parents and children turn out at school board meetings to plead for the life of their neighborhood schools, the hammer falls and it is closed. This is absurd.

Think of adolescents. When they misbehave, we say they are “disruptive.” Now we are supposed that their disruptive behavior represents higher order thinking.

But no one can learn when one student in a class of thirty is disruptive.

Disruptive policies harm families because after the closing of the neighborhood school, they are expected to shop for a school. They are told they have “choice,” but the one choice denied to them is their neighborhood school. Maybe one of their children is accepted as the School of High Aspirations, but the other didn’t get accepted and is enrolled in the School for Future Leaders on the other side of town. That is not good for families.

Disruption is not good for communities. In most communities, the public school is the anchor of community life. It is where parents meet, talk about common problems, work together, and learn the fundamental processes of democratic action.

Disruption destroys local democracy. It atomizes families and communities, destroying their ability to plan and act together on behalf of their community.

By closing their neighborhood school, disruption severs people from the roots of their community. It fragments community.

It kneecaps democracy.

City after city is now suffering a “disruptive” assault on public education. Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed dozens of schools in Chicago; Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed dozens of schools in New York City; public education in Detroit is dying; Philadelphia public schools are on life support, squeezed by harsh budget cuts and corporate faith in disruption and privatization.

But the disruptive strategy won’t be confined to urban districts. As the tests for the new national Common Core standards are introduced in state after state, disruption and havoc will produce what corporate reformers are hoping for: a loss of faith in public education; a conviction that it is broken beyond repair; and a willingness to try anything, even to allow for-profit vendors to take over the responsibilities of the public sector. That is already happening in many states, where hundreds of milllions of dollars are siphoned away from public schools and handed over to disruptive commercial enterprises. It doesn’t produce better education, but it produces profits.

Maybe that is the point of disruption.

Categories Closing schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, For-Profit, New York City, Philadelphia
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »