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

Utah: Charter Enrollment Declines for First Time in a Decade

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2019 //
5

Charter enrollment declined in Utah for the first time in at least a decade, and no new charters opened.

Enrollment at Utah’s charter schools — which have seen explosive growth in the past as they’ve attempted to be “education’s disruptors” — declined this year for the first time in at least a decade.

The dip is largely unexpected but follows a particularly chaotic year for charters in the state. One was forced to close with millions in debts owed to overseas investors. Another filed for bankruptcy. A third was ordered to shut down after less than two years in operation…

In addition to some schools closing, no new charters opened this fall — which is also a first in the state for at least a decade, Peterson added, and likely contributed to the enrollment decline. Two or three were slated to enroll students in August but pushed back their starting dates over lease, land and building issues.

Royce Van Tassell, executive director of the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools, said the price of land has gone up in Utah and has put new charters in a challenging spot…

Van Tassell also pointed to the closure of the American International School of Utah, or AISU, for the dip. The Murray charter shut its doors in August in the face of mounting debts. The school owed the state and federal government nearly half a million dollars in misspent funds, according to an audit of its books.It also still faces potentially millions of dollars in other unspecified debt, according to its former spokesman, most of which was spent overseas. It’s likely that will never be repaid.

I was glad to see the reporter refer to charters as”disrupters,” which they are, and not as “reform,” which they are not.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Utah

Nancy Bailey: It’s Wrong to Force Four- and Five-Year Olds to Read!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2019 //
41

Nancy Bailey writes here about the idea–promoted by NCLB, Race to the Top, and Common Core– that kindergarten children should know how to read. She says this is wrong.

Young children should be encouraged to speak and listen, she writes, which is something they do while playing and interacting with other children.

She writes:

With No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards, some adults have been led to believe that four- and five-year-old children should read by the end of kindergarten. Preschoolers are pushed to be ready for formal reading instruction by the time they enter kindergarten.

This is a dangerous idea rooted in corporate school reform. Children who struggle to read might inaccurately believe they have a problem, or reading could become a chore they hate.

Pushing children to focus on reading means they miss listening and speaking skills, precursors to reading. These skills are developed through play, which leads to interest in words and a reason to want to read.

Some children might learn to read in kindergarten, and others might show up to kindergarten already reading, but many children are not ready to read when they are four or five years old. And just because a child knows how to read in kindergarten, doesn’t mean they won’t have other difficulties with speech and listening.

When children come to schools from poor home environments, much of what they’ve missed involves a variety of language skills like speech and learning how to listen. When children have disabilities, speaking and listening skills are critical.

Forcing children to focus on reading early denies children opportunities to work on those other missing skills.

Also, there’s no research, no evidence that a child’s brain has evolved to indicate children can and should read earlier. Our culture has changed, but children have not. Even if new reading methods are developed that assist children to be better readers, there’s no reason to push children to read before they are ready.

In the drive for higher test scores, play has been minimized or eliminated. This is a crime against children.

This is a good time to recommend some reading: Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle, Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Play, Race to the Top

Peter Greene Confesses: My Toddlers Can’t Read!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2019 //
17

 

Peter Greene has older children and a set of young twins. He refers to the twins as the “Board of Directors of the Curmuducation Institute.” He, the father, is the CEO.

In this post, he confesses that his twins can’t read!

They turn the pages, they look at the pictures, but they can’t read!

Of course, they are only 2 1/2, so soon they will read, he is sure.

But this gives him the opportunity to delve into the recent renewal of the perennial Reading Wars!

Phonics or Whole Word? Phonics or Whole Language? Decoding or Comprehension?

I personally find this very tiresome because the Great Debate over reading was settled in 1967 by Jeanne Chall in a book called Learning to Read: The Great Debate. 

I summarized the Reading Wars in my book Left Back in 2000.

Phonics is necessary but not sufficient.

Some children learn to read without direct instruction.Some need direct instruction to learn to read.

Peter summarizes it like this:

Why is this so hard? You can’t have reading without decoding. You can’t have reading with only decoding. Reading involves a whole complex of skills, and none of those skills can be taught or acquired outside of the business of actually reading. Every reading student brings a different web of experience, knowledge, interest and processor power, which means that teachers need a toolbox filled with many tools.

I have a feeling that in about 20 years, some enterprising journalist will write a sensational book about “the reading crisis” and we will hear the same debate again, and again, and again.

Categories Education Reform

Leonie Haimson: Achieve Misleads the New York Regents about Exit Exams

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2019 //
2

Leonie Haimson writes that the New York State Board of Regents (the state board of education) hired Achieve to review the evidence about the value of exit exams.

Achieve presented a report saying that 28 states require tests for high school graduation.

Haimson says that Achieve confused end-of-course exams with high-school graduation exams that students must pass to get a diploma. 

In 2003, 30 states had exit exams, but most of them dropped them. Today, only 12 states still have exit exams.

Haimson writes:

When challenged on Twitter about the disparity in their figures compared to other sources, Achieve responded that they “define them [exit exams] as assessments that matter for students – impacting course grades or graduation.”  Yet to conflate states that require students to pass a test to graduate from high school with those that assign ordinary end of course exams is extremely misleading.

The trend, she says, is against high-stakes exit exams.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, High School Graduation, Testing

Steven Singer: The First Report from the Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2019 //
28

Steven Singer participated in the Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh, where the leading Democratic candidates (and a few not-leading candidates) spoke to an audience of teachers, members of civil rights groups, and teacher unionists.

These are his ten take-aways from the day. 

A few highlights:

 

The fact that it happened at all is almost miraculous.

 

Who would have thought Presidential hopefuls would care enough about public schools to address education issues and answer our questions?

 

Who would have thought it would be broadcast live on TV and the Internet?

 

And – come to think of it – who would have EVER thought it would happen in my hometown of Pittsburgh!?
But it did.

 

I was there – along with about 1,500 other education activists, stakeholders and public school warriors from around the country.

 

It was an amazing day which I will never forget.

 

Perhaps the best part was getting to see so many amazing people in one place – and I’m not talking about the candidates.

 

There were members of the Badass Teachers Association, the Network for Public Education, Journey for Justice, One Pennsylvania, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and so many more!

 

I wish I could bottle up that feeling of commitment to our children and hope in the future…

 

Here’s my top 10 most important lessons:

 

1) Charter School Support is Weak

 

When the forum was announced, Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform wrote a blistering memoabout how the charter school community would not put up with politicians listening to constituents critical of their industry. Allen is a far right Republican with close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who even used Donald Trump’s public relations firm to publicize her protest. But when we got to the forum, all it amounted to were a dozen folks with matching yellow signs trudging through the rainwho didn’t even stay for the duration of the forum. YAWN! Silly school privatizers, that’s not how you protest!

 

2) Michael Bennet Doesn’t Understand Much About Public Education

 

The Colorado Senator and former school superintendent really doesn’t get a lot of the important issues – even when they intersect his life. As superintendent, he enacted a merit pay initiative for teachers that resulted in a teachers strike. He still doesn’t comprehend why this was a bad idea – that tying teachers salaries to student test scores makes for educators who only teach to the test, that it demands teachers be responsible for things beyond their control, etc. Moreover, he thinks there’s a difference between public and private charter schools – there isn’t. They’re all bankrolled by tax dollars and can be privately operated.

 

But I suppose that doesn’t matter so much because few people know who Michael Bennet is anyway.

 

3) Pete Buttigeig is Too Smart Not to Understand Education – Unless He’s Paid Not to Understand

 

Mayor Pete came off as a very well spoken and intelligent guy. But he also seemed about as credible as wet tissue. He said a bunch of wrongheaded things. For instance, he said that “separate has never, ever been equal,” but he supports charter schools. Separate but equal is their business model.

 

It’s the kind of misunderstanding that only happens on purpose, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s taken so much money from anti-education billionaires like Netflix Founder Reed Hastings, no one else can trust him. How are we supposed to think he works for us when his salary comes from the super rich? You never recover from ignorance when it’s your job to be ignorant.

 

Read the rest of his post to see what he wrote about Warren, Sanders, Steyer, Klobuchar, and Biden.

 

 

 

Categories Democrats, Education Reform, Supporting public schools, Teachers, Unions

Peter Greene: Betsy DeVos Tells You Who She Is and What She Believes

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2019 //
22

Peter Greene writes here about Erica Green’s excellent coverage of Betsy DeVos’s testimony to Congress about student debt. 

He says you have to pay close attention to her words to understand that she is not greedy, she is not dumb;  she knows exactly what she is doing.

He writes:

“Here’s an absolutely DeVosian quote from the proceedings:

“I understand that some of you here just want to have blanket forgiveness for anyone who raises their hand and files a claim, but that simply is not right.

Ah yes– the smirk.

“This is DeVos– she knows what’s right, and she’s going to stand up for it. And’s what is right is that Those People shouldn’t be able to get away with not paying their debts. Those People should not be allowed to stiff their Betters. Because you know that Those People are probably lying about how badly they were hurt, anyway, because Those People are always trying to get things they don’t deserve. This “anyone who raises their hand and files a claim” characterization that DeVos has been using is such a flip way to dismiss the damage done by for-profit collges, an d here it matters what DeVos doesn’t say– she doesn’t say that there are people out there who played by the rules, tried to bootstrap themselves to a better life through education, and got fleeced, and we should provide those people some real relief. She has never seriously acknowledged that harm.

“But that takes us to the other DeVosian value that’s on display here.

“Ms. DeVos maintained that it was “probably the case” that Corinthian Colleges deceived students, but she also said she believed that the “prior administration basically forced schools like Corinthian out of business” with onerous financial restrictions. She rebuffed questions about an investigation by career staff, unveiled in January 2017 memos published by NPR on Wednesday, that concluded that Corinthian students deserved full loan forgiveness because they received no educational benefit.

“Businesses fleecing customers is not outrageous. What’s outrageous is government interfering with the operations and practices of businesses. There is an extra layer of irony here– the Obama administration actually was pretty damn slow to take any useful action against Corinthian, and even helped bail them out for a time, and any good Obama-bashing Trumpian might hammer that point home, but DeVos can’t see that because for her there is no greater sin than interfering with the operation of a business.

”She’s made variations of that point again and again, all the way back to the confirmation hearing when she couldn’t imagine any misbehavior that would prompt her, as a government official, to step in and say “Stop!” Businesses matter more than people.”

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Michigan’s Ghost Charters: Where Did the Money Go?

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2019 //
4

Michigan has been Betsy DeVos’ Petri dish for school choice for 20 years. The state theoretically has no for-profit charters but in reality, 80% of its charters are run by for-profit management companies.

Michigan also has the largest number of charters that received millions from the federal Charter Schools Program but never opened. These are “ghost schools.” Carol Burris identified them in the NPE report Asleep at the Wheel.

Reporter Allison Donahue investigated to see where the money went.

The study highlighted how the money was spent at four of Michigan’s “ghost schools”:  The Harris Academy, The Great Lakes Anchor Academy, Cultivating Growth and Warren Classical Academy.

Although the inspiration to open these charters differs from developer to developer, a common thread was found within these ghost schools’ invoices ─ for-profit consultants and education management organizations.

Betsy DeVos gave Michigan another $47 million to add more charters, but the state board of education rejected the grant. However the state attorney general said the state education Department was required to disperse the funds.

DeVos wants more charters-in Michigan, Alabama, New Hampshire, Texas, everywhere— and as the saying goes in D.C., she is shoveling the money out the door as fast as she can.

Needed or not, here come more charters!

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization

Bloomberg Buys a National Campaign

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2019 //
12

The Washington Post writes here about MIchael Bloomberg’s unusual campaign: Skip the early primaries, inundate the key states with unprecedented spending.

Unlike Trump, Bloomberg has experience in running for office and winning, and he has executive experience as a three-term mayor of New York City. Unlike Trump, Bloomberg is a real billionaire, with assets of more than $50 billion. He is good on climate change and gun control.

He has liabilities, to be sure, including his racist “stop and frisk” policy, which prompted police harassment of hundreds of thousands of innocent black men. His education policies were a disaster, based squarely on NCLB strategies of high-stakes testing and choice. His corporation was sued for gender discrimination repeatedly by women employees. He is unlikely to be concerned about income inequality or wealth inequality, both of which have directly benefited him.

But Trump has lowered the bar on racism and sexism and preferential treatment of the 1%.

Bloomberg is prepared to saturate the nation with TV and internet ads. He has already hired a campaign staff of hundreds of people. And he has just begun.

The campaign has been offering field organizers salaries of $6,000 a month, a 70 percent premium from the going rate of $3,500 paid by the campaigns of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

It has picked up key hires such as Dan Kanninen, a former aide to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during his successful 2008 campaign; former Obama organizer Mitch Stewart; Obama’s former Ohio strategist Aaron Pickrell; and Gary Briggs, a former top marketing executive for Facebook and Google.
The money they have been sending out the door for advertising is record-setting. Since his campaign launch on Nov. 24, Bloomberg has spent or reserved about $60 million in television and radio ads, with no sign of slowing down.

Taken together, the top four polling Democrats in the race — former vice president Joe Biden; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sanders and Warren — have spent about $28 million on similar ads all year.


He has also purchased $4.6 million of Google ads, from YouTube spots that run alongside video game streamers to classic search promotions. That is more than any other Democratic campaign has spent over the full year, according to the company. On Facebook, his spending over the past week ran at more than $170,000 a day, 2½ times the level of President Trump’s reelection campaign and about three times more than Tom Steyer, the other billionaire Democrat seeking the nomination. All of his digital ads are focused on increasing his support and recruiting staff, rather than the fundraising that occupies other campaigns.

He could spend $1 billion, $2 billion, without putting a dent in his vast fortune. His candidacy will test the question of whether one of the richest men in history can step into a presidential election and buy it.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Democracy, Education Reform

Michael Kohlhass: How “Nonprofit” Charter Schools Make a Profit

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2019 //
8

There are many ways in which nonprofit charters make a profit. Most involve complex real estate transactions and such things as “triple net leases” which are hard for the public to understand. Such deals often involve a charter operator owning or leasing the real estate and renting it to the charter school at exorbitant rates, with the public footing the bill.

Michael Kohlhaas has discovered another ingenious way that allegedly nonprofit charter operators extract money from their operations. 

He describes the case of a charter operator in Los Angeles who sold his “receivables” soon after getting his charter.

Kohlhaas writes:

The idea is very simple. A charter school has guaranteed future income in the form of payments from the state. They sell those payments to a finance company at a discount.

The finance company also charges a transaction fee. So for instance, if a charter has enrollment worth $1,000,000 they might sell those future payments for $980,000 now, which is less 2%. That means that $20,000 of public money, meant to educate children, has just evaporated into some zillionaire’s pocket for no reason, with no social benefit, nothing.2

This is usury. Payday loans for putatively public institutions. It’s textbook predatory lending with the unique distinction that both the borrower and the lender are teaming up to prey on a third party, which is the public. And, as I said, none of this is theoretical. Excelencia Charter Academy actually did this last year, which was their first year in operation.

It was obviously part of the plan all along, because founder Ruben Alonzo began arranging the sale within six weeks of receiving his approval from LAUSD. Read the details in this email chain. And keep this story in mind next time some charter minion starts burbling on about putting kids first and the putative efficiency of the private sector. Their financial model includes skimming a percentage of public money for no reason other than to enrich their cronies. This, friends, is not what efficiency looks like.

The company that handled the transaction for Excelencia is called Charter Asset Management, and this is only one of the incredibly shady sounding services that they offer to charter schools. They’re also not alone in this business. Another such company, which also buys receivables, is Charter School Capital. This one is even shadier than the other, founded as it was by an actual charter school operator who then used it to buy the receivables from his own school, thus pocketing the transaction fees himself.

Kohlhaas used the state’s public records act to obtain a huge trove of emails sent by charter operators, and he has mined them for posts like this one.

This is a big difference between a public school and a charter school. Would it be legal for a public school principal to sell the “receivables” for his or her school? Of course not. She would be charged with a crime and sent to jail.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

North Carolina: Stuart Egan Warns His Fellow Teachers Not to Be Fooled by Lt. Governor Dan Forest

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2019 //
3

High school teacher Stuart Egan notes that teachers across the state of North Carolina received a letter from Lt. Governor Dan Forest boasting about his education record.

Forest is running for governor against Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

Egan warns teachers not to be fooled.

He writes that this is the real record of Dan Forest, and it should not be forgotten at election time:

So why did Forest send this letter? He’s hoping that teachers will forget what this current NCGA that he is aligning himself with has actually done since 2011. Here’s a list.

  • Removed due process rights for new teachers to keep them from advocating loudly for students and schools.
  • Removed graduate degree pay bumps for teachers entering the profession.
  • Instituted a Value Added Measurement system which are amorphous and unproven way to measure teacher effectiveness.
  • Pushed for merit pay when no evidence exists that it works.
  • Attacks on teacher advocacy groups like NCAE.
  • Created a revolving door of standardized tests that do not measure student growth.
  • Lowered the amount of money spent per pupil in the state when adjusted for inflation.
  • Removed class size caps.
  • Instituted a Jeb Bush style school grading system that is unfair and does nothing more than show how poverty affects public schools.
  • Created an uncontrolled and unregulated system of vouchers called Opportunity Grants.
  • Fostered charter school growth that has not improved the educational landscape and siphons money from the public school system.
  • Created failing virtual schools outsourced to private industry.
  • Allowed for an Innovation School District to be constructed.
  • Eliminated the Teaching Fellows Program and brought it back as a former shell of itself.
  • Created an atmosphere of disrespect for teachers that teaching candidate numbers in colleges and universities have dropped over 30%.

It is rather entertaining to see the Lt. Gov. run for the office of governor by touting the record of an eight-year NCGA leadership which has crafted the very policies he is “owning” in an example of transference. Those are the same policies that have brought thousands of the very people he addressed in this letter to the streets of Raleigh to protest.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Hypocrisy, North Carolina, Teachers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »