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Wisconsin: School Choice is Causing Ruinous Damage to Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2020 //
2

Two Wisconsin legislators published an opinion piece about the harm that school choice is doing to the state’s public schools.

Jon Erpenbach and Sondy Pope object to the way that vouchers have taken money away from public schools without the compose top of the governed.

It hasn’t been long since many Wisconsinites have had to vote on referendums to keep their public school doors open, and now in this new year, our schools continue to be underfunded. This spring 50 school districts will go to referendum, with 29 seeking $915 million in operating costs alone.

During last year’s budget deliberations, Gov. Tony Evers put forth a proposal that would have made significant investments in our public schools. Many of his ideas stemmed from the Republican controlled Blue Ribbon Commission on K-12 education. Unfortunately, the task force recommendations could not make it past the Republicans on the Joint Committee on Finance, including $10.1 million from sparsity aid for rural districts compared to the Governor’s plan. Senate District 27 lost $600,000 alone due to Republican rejections of their own recommendations, with 82 other districts statewide also losing funds.Fast forward to this year, andinstead of doing their jobs and convening for a special session to address the farm crisis, Republicans chose to hold a political rally to promote voucher schools.

Unfortunately, while taxpayers will be voting on referendums this April, voucher school operators are able to take $145.5 million from property taxpayers with zero transparency, oversight or ability to vote “no.”

On Jan. 8, 2020, Senator Bewley (D-Mason), Representative Considine (D-Baraboo), and both of us introduced Senate Bill 661 (SB 661), to prohibit the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) from making reductions in the amount of state aid that is paid to school districts, unless the voters agree to the reductions by a referendum vote.

Under current law, school choice programs are able to drain funds away from public schools, and SB 661 would give power back to Wisconsinites to decide how they want their tax dollars spent.

A recent memo released by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau shows that vouchers caused $145 million in aid reduction to public schools. That amount is up 30% from last year, and this problem is only going to grow if it is not addressed. The trend in tax dollars going away from public schools towards unreliable voucher programs shows the decline to our education system at the expense of our taxpayers. Wisconsinites should have a choice in whether or not they want to fund two separate education programs, and that is why we introduced the bill to bring accountability back into the fold.

For-profit education is chipping away at our democracy with misinformation and misleading standards for education, with the approval of our current presidential administration. Wisconsin Democrats believe in doing what is best for our children, and unfortunately, forcing taxpayers to fund competing education systems will only hinder their future.

Categories Competition, Democracy, Education Reform, Funding, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Florida: Charter Drain Causing School Closures in Broward County

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2020 //
11

About 30 public schools in Broward County may close due to loss of students to charter schools.

The original purpose of charter schools was to collaborate with public schools, not to destroy them. Unfortunately, the charter industry is so well represented in the legislature that they have a distinctive edge over real public schools. The wife of the State Commissiomer of Educatuon Richard Corcoran runs a charter school.

About 30 Broward schools could close, combine with other schools or convert into a new type of facility as the school district looks for ways to deal with nearly half-empty campuses.

Many of these schools are in the southern part of the county, from Hollywood to Pembroke Pines, where thousands of students have left for charter schools. Others are in the Fort Lauderdale area and have struggled with factors such as low student performance, outdated facilities and aging neighborhoods…

Enrollment has dropped about 30,000 in the past 15 years, due mostly to charter schools and to a smaller degree private school vouchers. The demographics also have changed in Broward, where most growth is among adults without school-aged kids….

Broward considers a school to have insufficient enrollment if it has 70% percent or fewer students than it was built to serve. Many of these schools aren’t able to afford an art, music or physical education teacher or a media specialist to run the library. Several didn’t get musical instruments through the $800 million bond because they can’t afford to teach music.

Nearby charter schools are eagerly eying the buildings that might become available.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Privatization

Oklahoma: Gulen-Style Online Charter School Obtains Names and Addresses of Students for Recreuitment

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2020 //
4

Oklahoma has just experienced a fraud involving an online charter school called EPIC, which was accused of collecting money for ghost students and billing for excessive administrative overhead. It’s amazing how many of the big scandals in charter land involve the highly profitable online charters.

Now parents in Oklahoma are outraged that a new virtual charter obtained the names and addresses of their children. The charter is aligned to the Gulen movement.

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister has promised get to the bottom of this breach of student privacy.

Categories Education Reform, Gulen Charter Schools, Oklahoma, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Virtual Charter Schools

Brookings: The Political Strategy Behind Much of Michael Bloomberg’s Charitable Donations

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2020 //
9

Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution wrote one of the most insightful columns that I have read about the candidacy of Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s net worth is more than $50 billion. He has given generously to many charitable causes. But he has also used his charitable donations to advance his political ambitions.

In recent years, he has given millions of dollars to mayors across the nation, ostensibly to aid them as they shaped a political agenda that was anti-gun, anti-smoking, and other good causes.

But now Bloomberg is collecting on some of those gifts. He already has the endorsement of the mayor of the District of Columbia, who received a Bloomberg gift of $4 million.

Williamson writes:

In his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, more than that of the major Democratic candidates combined. But, ironically, focusing on his immense campaign budget underrates the impact of Bloomberg’s money on his chances. Just as important is the political force of his charitable giving.

Traditionally, presidential nominations have been decided more by political insiders than by grassroots mobilization. Bloomberg may be able to gin up some public support through campaign ads and Tammany Hall-style politics, but in the inside game, it would seem he is at a disadvantage. He has never run for national office, has supported Republican candidates, and was himself a Republican.

But politics in America is increasingly organized around institutions reliant on big-donor philanthropy. Candidates, local and state parties, advocacy organizations, think tanks, and many foundations are in a constant scramble for money. Few leaders of these organizations will want to offend a man whose personal wealth makes their entire operating budgets look like a negligible rounding error.

And in case Bloomberg’s potential support had escaped the attention of any would-be grantees, he ramped up his giving in advance of his presidential bid. Bloomberg outspent every other billionaire philanthropist last year, giving away $3.3 billion dollars, nearly five times more than he did in 2017. This spending has had little impact on his overall wealth; the 77-year-old Bloomberg remains the eighth-richest man in the world, with more than $50 billion dollars.

His tactical philanthropy gives Bloomberg the unique capacity to influence the decision-making of the institutions that are traditional power brokers and opinion makers in Democratic politics. As Bloomberg knows well from his stint as mayor, big-money “charity” is an imposition of the giver’s political will. While he is best known for his work on the crucial issue of gun control, Bloomberg has also deployed his wealth to bully and sideline potential opponents. “When church groups or community organizations threatened to get noisy in opposition to him or his programs, he wrote checks that tended to quiet them down,” writes Edward-Isaac Dovere in his analysis of Bloomberg’s mayoralty. Bloomberg can run pork-barrel politics out of his own pocket. And, of course, the political effects of Bloomberg’s philanthropy are not limited to New York.

Charity tends to get a free pass when it comes to its political effects. Liberal concern about “money in politics” is usually limited to direct electoral engagement. Charitable endeavors are seen as sacrosanct; witness the opposition President Barack Obama faced upon attempting to limit the charitable deduction. (The tax implications of Bloomberg’s run are interesting in themselves—assuming the billionaire gets a tax write-off for his charity, and that those contributions meaningfully contribute to his presidential chances, he is the only major candidate whose campaign is publicly subsidized.)

Big-dollar philanthropy deserves vastly more criticism than it receives; when wealth is highly concentrated, charity comes at enormous cost to the public good. The Democratic presidential primary has already seen multiple experienced public servants drop from contention for lack of funds, including, not coincidentally, every single non-white person who was a serious contender for the nomination. If Bloomberg can buy his way out of the public scrutiny that a campaign is supposed to afford—if he can purchase, rather than persuade, the party faithful—it represents yet another fissure in our decaying political process.

In essence, Bloomberg is engaging in a very old form of politics that has long been recognized as at odds with the function of representative institutions. As political theorist Emma Saunders-Hastings explains, philanthropy in ancient Rome was “not only comparable to campaign finance”—it was campaign finance. To assure their political base, those wishing to accrue power gave generously to the poor. Machiavelli, whose analyses made his name synonymous with the pursuit of power, recognized that philanthropy was a form of political domination. “Many times works that appear merciful,” he wrote, “are very dangerous for a republic.”

Machiavelli would easily have recognized the implications of Bloomberg’s philanthropy for his position in the Democratic primary. No matter his intentions, the Bloomberg campaign’s reliance on his personal wealth threatens America’s democratic institutions at a time when those institutions are already profoundly weakened. His charitable contributions exacerbate the risks posed by his self-funded campaign. Money is power, even when it is donated.

In addition to his strategic philanthropy, Bloomberg used his vast wealth to buy opinion leaders. He selected a number of experts in various fields, people known for writing opinion pieces and speaking out on issues, and invited them to be on his “personal payroll,” not on the government payroll. It was impossible to know which experts supported his policies because they agreed with them or because he had hired them. No one knew who was on his “personal payroll.”

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Black Agenda Report: The Looting of Oakland’s Public Schools by Broadies

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2020 //
14

This is an astonishing report about the destruction and privatization of public schools in Oakland, California, and the billionaires who facilitated the looting of that city. The article by Eugene Stovall appeared in “Black Agenda Report.” The audacity of this attack on public education is astonishing. The mechanism for the destroyers were graduates of the Broad Academy, known as Broadies. Since billionaire Eli Broad gave Yale University $100 million to take charge of his program, someone should warn Yale about its record.

Read it all. It will take your breath away.

Stovall writes:

Eli Broad (rhymes with “toad”) conconcted a scheme to privatize Oakland’s public schools and produce a revenue stream for his billionaire cronies.

“Operating unethically and illegally, Broad managers used their training to cripple and plunder Oakland’s schools.”

Eli Broad is a liberal Democrat. He opposes Trump’s Muslim ban, immigration policies and withdrawal from the climate change treaty. In fact, like Democratic billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Blloomberg, Broad opposes Trump’s entire right wing agenda. However, just as the Trump Foundation created the Trump University scam, the Eli Broad Foundation created the Broad Superintendent Academy, an educational enterprise that has become so successful that it is now associated with the home of the Skull and Bones Society, Yale University. But despite its aura of respectability, the Broad Superintendent Academy is no less a scam than Trump University.

Billionaires Want More

Eli Broad created two Fortune 500  companies, Kaufmann-Broad Homes and SunAmerica Bank. With an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion, Eli Broad ranks as Forbes  Magazine’s 78th wealthiest man in the United States. But like many billionaires who create mechanisms to increase their wealth, Broad created a “non-profit” academy as his entré into the private education market. The Broad Superintendent Academy attracts applicants who willingly pay exorbitant tuition fees for the chance to get placed in a top management public education position. Broad academy applicants do not need educational degrees or teaching certificates. Neither are they experienced teachers or successful school administrators. The Broad academy is uninterested in strategies for improving student achievement and does not teach its students about fundamental educational issues, pedagogies and methodologies. The Broad academy only indoctrinates and commits its students to the privatization of public education and the generation of revenues for private corporations. Broad Academy attendees are taught the disruptive management tactics needed to ignore “best educational practices.” They are taught how to overcome objections when mandating school closures and school property sell offs to the billionaire-owners of private schools. When Broad placed his academy graduates in management positions at the Oakland Unified School District, they left a trail of fiscal mismanagement, budget overruns and demoralized staff, students and teachers. Operating unethically and illegally, Broad managers used their training to cripple and plunder Oakland’s schools.

The Broadies Who Plundered Oakland’s Schools

In 1998, Eli Broad recruited Jerry Brown, the former Governor of California and a former presidential contender, to become mayor of Oakland. Broad needed someone with Brown’s political clout with the Democratic Party to implement his plan to privatize Oakland’s schools. Broad had been a close personal friend of Jerry Brown’s father, Pat Brown, and had financed all of Jerry Brown’s political campaigns. Now Broad realized California’s top Democrat and his control over the statewide Democratic Party machine gave him a unique opportunity to make money from private education.

Broad’s scheme to privatize Oakland’s public education resources required the support of other billionaires capitalizing on the private education market. Netflix founder, Reed Hastings, a Bay Area resident with a net worth of $3.7 billion, was associated with the multi-million dollar Rocketship Charter Schools. The late founder of The Gap, Don Fisher, with a net worth of $3.3 billion, was associated with the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), one of the largest chains of charter schools in the country. With a net worth of $3.5 billion, John Doerr, partner in the investment firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, the firm that brought Google and Amazon to the market, cofounded the New Schools Venture Fund which sucks public school resources into for-profit K-12 corporations. Another critical partner in Broad’s clique of billionaires was the bishop of Oakland’s catholic diocese, a representative of the multi-billion dollar, worldwide Vatican empire. With its profound interest in co-opting public funds and real estate for its own network of parochial schools, Oakland’s catholic bishop gave Broad’s unholy coalition a solid block of votes that not only put Jerry Brown in City Hall, but changed Oakland’s charter into the ‘strong mayor” form of government, that gave “Boss” Brown the power function as Eli Broad’s “bag man.” In return for its electoral support, the diocese of Oakland received a multi-million dollar cathedral on the downtown shore of Lake Merritt.

Once “Boss” Brown controlled City Hall, Reed Hastings went into action. Hastings funded another charter amendment that gave the mayor the authority to pack the school board with his own unelected appointees. Greasing the wheels of the Democratic machine, Hastings financed the passage of a State Assembly bill that permitted charter schools to operate without  accreditation and to hire teachers without  teaching credentials. Then Hastings funded the Proposition 39 campaign to force local school districts to share revenues with charter schools. “Boss” Brown’s buddy, Democratic Governor Gray Davis, who later was recalled on corruption charges, put Reed Hastings on the State Board of Education. In the meantime, Don Fisher gave Jerry Brown’s wife, Gust Brown, the position of CEO over The Gap Corporation.

Getting Control Of The Schools … And The Money

In 2001, the Oakland Unified School District had a $37 million budget deficit. The district’s fiscal managers decided to resolve the shortfall by borrowing from its construction fund, a practice other California school districts in similar situations routinely used. But Brown and Broad saw the school deficit as an opportunity to advance their scheme.

Brown contacted Tom Henry, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Team (FCMAT), a firm located in Sacramento and staffed by lobbyists and political hacks. Brown used Henry’s services, on occasion, when he was governor. FCMAT did “hit” jobs for anyone willing to pay. Brown paid Tom Henry to prevent Oakland from solving its fiscal problem. FCMAT lobbied the State Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, the former Democratic Assemblyman from Alameda, to rule that Oakland’s plan to borrow construction funds was a violation of state and local law. Then Henry worked with Don Perata, the State Senator for Alameda County, to lobby a bill through the state legislature that forced the Oakland school district to accept a $100 million loan to cover its $37 million shortfall. In addition, the bill put the Oakland school district under the control of a state administrator to be appointed by Jack O’Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Education. When Jack O’Connell campaigned for state superintendent, he received financial support from Eli Broad’s billionaire cabal. Reed Hastings contributed $250,000, John Doerr $205,000 and Eli Broad, himself, contributed $100,000 to O’Connell’s campaign. With the state takeover of Oakland’s schools, O’Connell agreed to appoint anyone “Boss” Brown wanted. Thus Eli Broad and his cronies got complete control over the $63 million slush fund  forced on the Alameda County tax payers. Jerry Brown described the state takeover as a “total win” for Oakland’s schools. In reality, the state takeover was a total win for Eli Broad and his billionaire cronies. For the tax payers forced to repay the loan and for the Oakland school children whose schools were plundered by malicious billionaires, the state takeover was a disaster.

The Table Was Set And The Feasting Began

The Democratic state superintendent of education, Jack O’Connell, appointed Randolph Ward, a graduate of Broad’s superintendent academy, as Oakland’s state administrator. Ward appointed Arnold Carter, another Broad academy graduate, to serve as his chief of staff. Both state administrators appointed a bevy of Broadies  to fill the Oakland school district’s top management positions. Then Ward implemented Broad’s privatization agenda. He closed public schools and opened charter schools. He created additional management positions for Broad academy graduates and issued multi-million dollar consultation and construction contracts to private corporations. Randolph Ward gave Broad’s billionaire cronies complete access to the $63 million slush fund created by top Democrats, Jerry Brown, Bill Lockyer, Don Perata, Jack O’Connell, Tom Henry as well as other members of “Boss” Brown’s Democratic machine.

When the state took over the Oakland schools in 2002, Randolph Ward fired the superintendent, Dennis Chaconas. When Ward resigned in 2006, Broadie Kimberly Statham replaced him. A year later, Statham left and her chief of staff, Vincent Matthews, another Broadie, took her place.

In 2008, Oakland Assemblyman Sandre Swanson broke with “Boss” Brown and introduced a bill to force the state to relinquish its control over Oakland schools. Eli Broad gave a Sacramento lobbyist $350,000 to oppose Swanson’s legislation, but Swanson’s bill passed and local control was returned to the Oakland School Board. In July 2009, the school board hired Anthony “Tony” Smith as the district’s superintendent.

Smith was not associated with Eli Broad. However, even though local school board resumed control over the schools, Eli Broad was not finished, He funded a front group, Greater Oakland [GO], which financed the election of five Broadies to the Oakland school board. In 2014, the Broadie school board forced school superintendent Tony Smith to resign and appointed another graduate from Broad’s academy, Antwan Wilson , Oakland’s next school superintendent, resuming Broad’s decade-long privatization scheme.

A Decade of Corruption

Under Randolph Ward, Oakland Schools struggled with the overwhelming debt imposed by the Democratic Party machine. When Ward left Oakland, millions of dollars went missing with him. Though FCMAT received a multi-year contract to help manage the debt, Tom Henry provided little substantive support, financial or operational. In 2007, Jerry Brown left Oakland for his cattle ranch in Northern California. In its 2007-08 report, an Alameda County grand jury investigation found that the Oakland Unified School District had been looted.

Between 2003 and 2006, Ward shut down 14 public schools and opened 13 charter schools. He increased the district’s shortfall by nearly $15 million. Ward’s successor, Kimberly Statham, another Broadie, opened 4 charter schools and Broadie Vincent Matthews, who followed Stratham as state administrator, opened 9 charter schools. Under state control, the district’s debt ballooned from $37 million to $89 million while school enrollment, the district’s primary source of funding, dropped from 55,000 in 2002 to 38,000 in 2009. When Assemblyman Sandré Swanson forced the state to return local control, Oakland’s schools had $5.6 million less than what was reported and a total of $9 million unaccounted for and completely missing. But with the return of local control, the district’s fiscal mismanagement problems only worsened. Eli Broad now directed his Broadie school board to support his schemes. 

Antwan Wilson: The Most Corrupt Broadie Of Them All 

When the Broadie school board replaced Tony Smith with Antwan Wilson, it hired a thoroughly corrupt, incompetent and morally reprehensible superintendent to run the Oakland Unified School District. Ignoring all budgetary, ethical and legal constraints, Wilson zealously implemented Broad’sprivatization plan. Wilson overspent the school district budget by overpaying Broadie administrators and conniving with Broadie consultants. In 2015, though the school board authorized only $10.4 million, Wilson paid consultants $22.6 million. The board approved only $7.1 million for administrators and supervisors, but Wilson spent $22.3 million. From July 2014 to January 2015, Wilson spent $22.3 million on district office managers while Smith spent only $13.1 million the entire previous year. From 2013-2014, Tony Smith spent $10 million on classified managers, but in 2015-2016, Antwan Wilson spent $22.3 million. Under Wilson, the number of students shrunk, but spending for administrators and supervisors with teaching certificates grew from $13.9 million in 2013-2014 to $20 million in 2015-2016. Wilson increased spending on outside consultants from $22.7 million in 2013-2014 to $28.3 million in 2016-2017. In Wilson’s last year with Oakland schools, he exceeded the budget for consultants by 32 percent.

These revelations galvanized Tom Henry’s FCMAT into action. Henry immediately lobbied for another state take over even as he collaborated with the Broadie school board to close even more schools and make even more valuable real estate available to billionaire-owned charter schools. But without Boss Brown’s backing, Henry was unsuccessful in getting Governor Gavin Newson’s support for another state takeover.

Open the article and read the ending. It doesn’t get better for the students of Oakland. Eli Broad, Jerry Brown, and their allies used Oakland as their Petri dish. Oakland was raided and looted. Antwan Wilson left Oakland to become chancellor of the D.C.schools, where he was booted out after seeking preferential treatment for his own child. Upon Wilson’s abrupt departure, the mayor of D.C. replaced him with Lewis Ferebee, superintendent of Indianapolis, who is also a graduate of the Broad Academy.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Disruption, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Indianapolis, Oakland, Privatization

California: Charter Schools Advocates Distribute Vile, Anti-Semitic Poster of School Board Member Scott Schmerelson

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2020 //
57

A front group for the California Charter Schools lobby, which calls itself “Families and Teachers United,” released a flyer that attacked school board member Scott Schmerelson, a pro-public school member of the LAUSD school board and well-qualified educator. Schmerelson has been endorsed by every Democratic club in Los Angeles.

The scurrilous flyer accuses him of investing in mutual funds that include products that are harmful to children (tobacco). Anyone whose pension is invested in large mutual funds knows that individual shareholders do not choose the stocks in the fund’s portfolio. My own pension fund includes companies I find abhorrent and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The flyer accuses Schmerelson of “double dipping” because he collects a pension for his decades of service as an educator in the LAUSD schools and a salary as a board member, like other board members.The flyer does not mention that board salaries were increased in 2017 based on the recommendation of an independent commission.

Should he give up his well-earned pension? Of course not! Should he refuse to take the same salary as other board members? Of course not!

Who paid for this vile, lying, unethical anti-Semitic ad?

Ad paid for by Families and Teachers United, sponsored by California Charter Schools Association Advocates. Committee major funding from
Charter Public Schools PAC
Not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate.
Funding details at http://www.fppc.ca.gov.

This may be the most expensive school board election in LA history, even though the billionaires have no ideas other than charter schools. None.

Who are they? Blogger Sara Roos names names. 

How about full public disclosure of the income and investments of the billionaires who fund the CCSSA?

Sara declined to reproduce the flyer, so as not to give more visibility to this trash.

Methinks the charter billionaires  are angry at Scott for telling the public that more than 80% of LA’s charters have empty seats.

Schmerelson, a man of unblemished integrity, responded to the anti-Semitic flyer with a statement denouncing the depths to which the charter lobby is willing to sink. He notes that the group that produced the flyers by the billionaire Waltons and Reed Hastings.

The election is March 3 but early  voting has started.  VOTE  FOR SCOTT SCHMERELSON!

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Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Lies, Los Angeles, Privatization

How Private Equity Looted One of NYC’s Favorite Grocery Stores

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2020 //
14

We have a problem in this society. We have many problems. One of them is the role of private equity in destroying products and services that were once household names.

Here is an example: One of the stores that many New Yorkers love is Fairway Markets. It started as one store on the Upper West Side. It was the place to go for an amazing selection of cheeses and fresh produce and dozens of varieties of olive oil and more.

But it started to grow, and it turned to equity investors for new capital to expand. The investors had big plans. They paid themselves big salaries. They loaded up the company with debt. They went public and took on more debt. And before long this once-successful chain was doomed.

This article appeared at Bloomberg News by Joe Nocera.

There is more. This article in Slate describes how private equity investors have pillaged well-known retail operations. Jordan Weisman wrote:

The list of retailers that have been bought and wrecked by private equity firms keeps on growing. This week, the beloved New York grocery chain Fairway filed for its second bankruptcy in less than four years and announced plans to sell off its stores, thanks to a disastrous run of mismanagement by a series of buyout shops. It’s on a list of casualties that now includes Toys R Us, Payless ShoeSource, and Sports Authority, among many others. That’s on top of financially troubled names like Neiman Marcus that have managed to avoid Chapter 11 or liquidation (so far).

Last year, a group of progressive nonprofits reported that of the 14 largest retail bankruptcies since 2012, 10 had involved companies owned by private equity. The thud of corporate failures has become so constant that it’s essentially become a meme in the financial press.

This is the marketplace that choice advocates favor as the future of schooling.

Scott Maxwell, a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, tweeted a few days ago:

”Berate public schools all you want. There will never be a day when you take your child to aPublic school only to find it’s gone out of business.”

 

 

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

New Hampshire Seeks to Pilot Online Pre-Schooling and Tries Again for Charters

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2020 //
14

New Hampshire’s Governor is a Trump-style extremist, Chris Sununu, whose father John advised the first President Bush. Sununu appointed Frank Edelblut as state commissioner of education. The state commissioner home-schooled his children and follows the ideology of Betsy DeVos. He thinks government money should go wherever children go, regardless of who gets the money. That’s called “Learning Everywhere.”

Edelblut is an extremist libertarian.

Now he wants to pilot online leaning for pre-schoolers. This is his response to the growing recognition of the value of early childhood education.

Not surprisingly, advocates for ECE are alarmed that sitting in front of a computer is being substituted for play, where children learn to cooperate with others and make things and use their imagination. One group said:

Kids aren’t meant to sit still in front of a screen. They use their whole bodies to learn, and they want and need to move. Let’s not forget that some of the essential milestones for preschoolers are gross and fine motor skills. They need to practice galloping, throwing a ball, zipping up their jackets to go outside, and holding a pencil. Having good motor control is essential for children’s growth and independence. They cannot develop it by sitting at a computer.

You may recall that DeVos offered New Hampshire $46 million to double the number of charter schools in the state. The Democrats in the legislature have twice turned down her offer. New Hampshire has declining student enrollment, and the Fiscal Oversight Committee said it would be irresponsible to add new charter schools, which would drain students and resources from existing public schools.

Edelblut came back with his own analysis, claiming that adding more charter schools in a time of declining enrollment would save money.

According to the report from Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, doubling the number of charter schools over the next 10 years could translate into at least $60 million in savings for local taxpayers as 4,000 students leave traditional public schools.

Edelblut’s report points to studies that warn declines in enrollments not related to charter schools will be at least 24,000 by 2030 — and could approach double that figure.

“If the visceral reaction is how are we going to manage a declining student enrollment due to public charter schools, the answer is you are going to have to deal with this issue regardless of this grant,” Edelblut said…

This report clearly responds to analysis from Reaching Higher New Hampshire, which supports traditional public schools.

The group has warned the charter school grant could cost the state an additional $57 million to $104 million in its first 10 years.

The same organization found in its analysis of 20 of the state’s charter schools that at least 1,083 of the 4,025 seats available went unfilled in the 2018-2019 school year.

Reaching Higher New Hampshire also maintains state funding alone often doesn’t cover operating costs for these charter schools, which make them unsustainable.

Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, D-Concord, said the new report doesn’t change his view that the panel should keep rejecting this grant.

“We need to support our public schools and the successful existing charter schools, work on the over 1,000 open spots in existing charter schools, and protect New Hampshire taxpayers. This fiscally irresponsible grant will cause our already record high property taxes to continue to increase, which is unacceptable,” Feltes said in a statement.

With 25% of the state’s charter school seats empty, it should be hard to make the case that NH needs more charters.

Reaching Higher NH’s research on the charter grant is cited here.

Edelblut welcomes the Trump administration’s plan to turn all education funding into a block grant as he feels it will give him more control over federal money. His own philosophy is that public schools are unnecessary, which is rooted in the practices of the 18th century.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Hampshire, Privatization

Jan Resseger Credits NPE for Exposing Charter Scams

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2020 //
20

Jan Resseger, tireless champion for social and economic justice, reflects on the fading reputation of the charter industry. The decision by the Trump administration to axe the federal Charter Schools Program (DeVos’s slush fund for corporate charter chains) is the latest affront to an industry that once was regarded as the great hope for innovation and effectiveness but got overwhelmed by scandals and profiteering.

Resseger credits the dramatic turn in the public reputation of the charter industry to the work of the Network for Public Education and its executive director Carol Burris.

Burris brings to her work the experience of a veteran educator, a teacher and principal who spots scams quickly. Burris also has a rock solid sense of integrity that makes her unwilling to tolerate organizations that are designed to benefit the adults, not the students. She is the quintessential embodiment of the “David” I wrote about in my book SLAYING GOLIATH. She works with passion and dedication because of a sense of mission, not for love of money. She is a mortal threat to the Goliaths who wear the fake mantel of education reform. She can’t be bought and she can’t be stopped. Unlike the hirelings of Goliath, she really does work for the children, for whom she has worked all her life.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Courage, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, Resistance

Oklahoma: EPIC Virtual Charter School Penalized $530,000 for Excessive Administrative Costs

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2020 //
6

There is not much to admire in Oklahoma’s penurious funding of its public schools. But there is one admirable law on the books. Schools are not permitted to spend excessive amounts on administrative overhead. And when they do, they are penalized.

Epic One on One virtual charter school has been penalized more than $530,000 for exceeding the state limit on administrative spending, a limit imposed by state statute meant to keep the bulk of state education funding in the classroom. 

Epic’s superintendent, Bart Banfield, was notified of the penalty last month, according to an email obtained by The Frontier through an open records request. 

The total penalty of $530,527.20 is based on Epic exceeding the allowable limits on administrative expenditures by 5.58 percent. 

School districts with more than 1,500 students are not allowed to spend more than 5 percent of expenditures on administrative costs, which includes salaries for superintendent, assistant superintendent or any employee who has responsibility for administrative functions of a school district. 

The amount will be deducted from Epic’s next state aid payment, according to the email to Banfield. 

Thirteen school districts exceeded administration spending limits in Fiscal Year 2019, according to a report from the State Department of Education. 

The penalties for the 12 other districts averaged $19,468, with penalties on school districts ranging from $27.39 to $39,514.

Epic’s penalty of more than half a million dollars is 10 times more than any penalty issued over the past three years, according to documents obtained by The Frontier. 

EPIC’s CEO said it was a coding error. The state superintendent Joy Hofmeister said there was no error and the fine would be collected.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Oklahoma, Virtual Charter Schools
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