Archives for category: Education Reform

Cory Booker has been a devoted promoter of charters and vouchers for many years.

He worked closely with Republican Governor Chris Christie and together they persuaded Mark Zuckerberg to pony up $100 million to promote the charterization of Newark. He often boasts about what he accomplished by privatizing public schools.

But now that he wants to be president, he has suddenly decided that he will be a champion for public schools, not charters or vouchers.

Could it be that he did the math and realized that 85-90% of students attend public schools. Only 6% attend charter schools. And he may have noticed that despite the efforts of his former dear friend Betsy DeVos, voters don’t like vouchers. They don’t want public dollars to underwrite religious schools.

Some of his allies are not at all happy about the new Cory.

It just goes to show where the wind is blowing: in favor of public schools, not charters or vouchers.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Jersey, Newark, Privatization, Vouchers

John Thompson: Oklahoma’s EPIC Charter Fraud

By dianeravitch

August 9, 2019 //

Virtual charter schools are a disaster for students, but a honey pot for their operators—that is, until they get caught and face the music and possible jail time.

John Thompson describes the epic fail of the EPIC virtual charter in Oklahoma.

Ghost students, straw teachers, parent bonuses. What a scam.

An Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation revealed that the co-founders of the state’s largest virtual charter school system, Epic Charter Schools, David Chaney and Ben Harris, split at least $10 million in profits from 2013 to 2018. They allegedly recruited “ghost students” (who were technically enrolled but received minimal instruction from teachers) from homeschools and sectarian private schools “for the purpose of unlawfully diverting State Appropriated Funds to their own personal use resulting in high NFAY [not full academic year] rates and low graduation rates for the students.”

Epic established an $800-to-$1000-per-student learning fund for students who did not enroll in a public school. These students were dubbed “members of the $800 club,” and assigned to “straw teachers,” who “would receive additional pay in the form of bonuses which included student retention goals,” while “those who dropped students would see a decrease in pay.”

A search warrant cited parents who received money but admitted they had no intention of receiving instruction from Epic. One family withdrew its ten children from public schools, received $8000, and allowed the kids to ride horses instead of attending school.

Does anyone have a link to Betsy DeVos’ Senate confirmation hearings when she rattled off the impressive but false statistics about virtual charter schools? It turns out they are the quintessential fraudsters of the Disruption Movement.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Oklahoma, Virtual Charter Schools

Mercedes Schneider Reviews a Book about Competition and Choice

By dianeravitch

August 9, 2019 //

Mercedes Schneider reviewed a book about “competitive school choice.”

Kate Phillippo, associate professor of cultural and educational policy studies at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Education, published a book in March 2019, entitled, A Contest Without Winners: How Students Experience Competitive School Choice.

In her book, Phillippo offers details from the experiences of 36 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) eighth graders who attended one of two middle schools and who were vying for acceptance in a CPS high school of their choice.

Phillippo’s term, “competitive school choice,” is apt for two reasons: 1) the most prestigious and most preferred schools tended to be selective admissions (SA) schools, and 2) in general, CPS does not have enough places at schools that its eighth-grade students would actually choose to attend.

Let the games begin. (Indeed, one student likened CPS’ high school choice to “The Hunger Games.”)

In this “contest without winners,” students’ high school fates (and possibly, subsequent college and career fates) depend heavily upon their test scores and core subject grades from their seventh-grade year. If a student has an maturity/responsibility awakening in eighth grade, it is too late.

As it stands, Phillippo discovered (confirmed?) that with CPS’ high school choice demand, eighth graders were being asked to navigate a complex process of forms, meetings, and deadlines that was far above their developmental capabilities; students almost certainly needed some invested adult to effectively engage in CPS’ competitive high school choice process. However, that adult was unlikely to be a classroom teacher since teachers– to whom students often turned– felt the pressure to remain neutral in advising students regarding their choices due to the potential of being held liable if the student or parent were dissatisfied with the choice outcome.

Eighth graders who had an engaged adult available to help with the high school choice process definitely had an edge, as did students whose families had the means to devote resources (time, effort, money) to the process.

Too, Phillippo discovered that the competitive environment created a “me-first,” self-preservation attitude that negatively affected civic engagement among students. Though students might be learning lessons about civic responsibility in their classes, when it came to the pressured reality of securing that preferred CPS high school, application of civic responsibility was cast aside for the all-too-real lesson of “every eighth grader for him-/herself.”

Think of competitive school choice as a lesson in civics. Everyone for himself or herself. You are on your ow. There is no such thing as the common good.

Categories Education Reform

Yong Zhao: The Achievement Gap Mania in America

By dianeravitch

August 9, 2019 //

Yong Zhao is one of the scholars I admire most. He turns out book after book, each saturated with remarkable scholarship and learning. He is also a superb speaker, who fills his lectures with learning and humor.

He recently posted the introduction to a book he published last year called Reach for Greatness.

In it, he wrote about America’s obsession with “the achievement gap,” which is based on the belief that someday the bell curve, on which all standardized tests are normed, will close. The test score gaps can be reduced, as history shows. The biggest narrowing of the gap occurred at the high point of racial integration (late 1970s, early 1980s). For the past decade, the black-white gaps on NAEP have been unchanged.

The gap may narrow but it is designed never to close because bell curves are intended to rank people from best to worst, highest to lowest, most to least.

Here is part of Yong Zhao wrote:

The Achievement Gap Mania in America

For nearly two decades, since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (“No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,” 2002) in 2002, America has been suffering from “achievement gap mania” (Hess, 2011). Closing the achievement gap has been the commanding, almost exclusive, goal of education in America. All educational efforts, be they in policy, research, or practice, must be justified on the grounds that they can help close the achievement gap. As a result, the nation has devoted all its educational resources to the campaign to narrow the chasm in test scores and graduation rates between students of different backgrounds, particularly in income and race.

The campaign has been a futile one. The gap between the poor and the rich has not narrowed significantly, nor has the chasm between children of color and their White counterparts (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2013; Curran & Kellogg, 2016; Plucker, Hardesty, & Burroughs, 2013)—in fact, it has widened (Ostashevsky, 2016; Reardon, 2011). The drastic policies put forth by NCLB, the billions of dollars, the numerous instructional innovations, and the tireless efforts of educators did not seem to have turned schools into an effective mechanism to alter the trajectory preset by children’s family background before they arrive at school. Today, factors associated with a child’s home remain much more powerful predictors of their future than do schools (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2010; Bailey & Dynaski, 2011; Curran & Kellogg, 2016; Duncan & Murnane, 2011; Fryer & Levitt, 2004; Reardon, 2011).

Worse, the campaign has been counterproductive (Hess, 2011). Beyond the squandered resources and opportunities, “achievement gap mania” has significantly changed American education for the worse. It

has led to education policy that has shortchanged many children. It has narrowed the scope of schooling. It has hollowed out public support for school reform. It has stifled educational innovation. It has distorted the way we approach educational choice, accountability, and reform (Hess, 2011).

It has also turned American education into test preparation, resulting in massive “collateral damages” (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). It has demoralized educators and students (Nichols & Berliner, 2008; Smith & Kovacs, 2011; Wong, Wing, & Martin, 2016), and it has deprived many children, particularly those whom the campaign was supposed to help, of the opportunities for a real education (Carter & Welner, 2013; Tienken & Zhao, 2013). Furthermore, it has reinforced the deficit mindset for minority students and concealed the real cause for educational inequality (Cross, 2007; Jones, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2007).

Nevertheless, the campaign continues. The well-evidenced failure and damaging consequences of efforts summoned by NCLB to narrow the achievement gaps have apparently not caused American policymakers to change course. Although NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 (“Every Student Succeeds Act,” 2015), closing the achievement gaps remains the commanding goal of education. Despite the mechanical changes, the purpose of the new education law “is to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps” (“Every Student Succeeds Act,” 2015, Section 1001). Barring any significant changes, achievement gap mania will continue to reign over American education for the foreseeable future.

Rudolph and Me

Rudolph had a red nose. It is a deficit because the standard nose color is supposed to be black in reindeer country. So all efforts were applied to fix his nose color. And of course, the poor red-nosed reindeer was not normal and did not meet the standard. The other reindeers with black noses were the good ones and did not want to mix with the bad kid. But all the children around the world should be grateful that no one fixed Rudolph’s red nose because his red nose was the very thing Santa Claus needed for his sleigh on a foggy Christmas Eve.

I am grateful that no one tried to fix my deficits either. I am able to write this book not because I had planned to be a professor in the United States, but because I was not forced to fix my lack of ability and interest in becoming a farmer in China. I was born in a Chinese village and thus destined to become a farmer like everyone else in the village. But from a very early age, I discovered that I was not cut out to be a successful farmer. I was physically smaller and weaker than other boys. I could not drive water buffalos or climb trees or manipulate the hoe nearly as well as other boys. I tried to learn, and my father was a good teacher, but I was unable to master the farming skills. By any standard, I was way below the average of all the boys in terms of farming knowledge and abilities. There was a clear achievement gap in farming capabilities between me and the other boys in the village.

Luckily, my father did not try too hard to close my achievement gap. He gave up on me early. Instead of pushing me to become a better farmer, he sent me to school. In school, I discovered what I could be good at. My ability to handle reading was much better than my ability to deal with a water buffalo. After all, I could be good at something. And I liked that feeling. However, no one, including my father and myself, knew how I could make a living without farming at the time, when China was in the midst of a disastrous political campaign called the Great Cultural Revolution. The campaign dismantled the formal education system and sent the educated elite to remote rural areas to be “reeducated” by farmers. Education was thus not a way to get out of the village for a better life, like it is today. In other words, it was not the remote chance that education would bring a better life that motivated me to go to school. Instead, it was the feeling that I could be good at something, and the desire to avoid doing something I was not good at, that sustained my motivation to walk barefoot to school every day, in burning summers and freezing winters.

I am a big fan of the “growth mindset” (Dweck, 2008). I strongly believe that anyone can learn anything. But I have tried not to apply the idea to everything in life. I have avoided applying a growth mindset in football, for example, although I know if I indeed put 10,000 hours into it, as Malcolm Gladwell (2008) suggests in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, I could become better. But I also know very well that even if I put 100,000 hours into it, I will not be playing for the NFL because my 5’6” height and 150 lb. weight are way below the average height and weight of NFL players. No matter how hard I try, I probably won’t get there.

I have also avoided applying it in other undertakings. I gave up on putting 10,000 hours into painting quickly after I discovered that I could barely draw a straight line and the Chinese characters I produced always looked like the footprints of a chicken. I gave up studying math in high school because I did not enjoy math and I was not good at it. I received 3 points out of 120 in the College Entrance Exam in 1982.

I was able to go to college without studying math because of a policy that forgave my poor math performance. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Chinese education was recovering from the damages of the Cultural Revolution, it allowed students to major in foreign languages without being good at math. Math was not counted toward the total score of the College Entrance Exam for those applying to study foreign languages. To run away from my poor math, I chose to major in English in college. I was lucky because the policy ended in 1982. Math has since become a required core subject in the College Entrance Exam, which means Chinese students can no longer run away from math if they want to go to college.

I have been fortunate to be able to avoid virtually everything that I have no potential for being good at or I am not interested in. More important, I have been fortunate to have had the space to explore my passions and experiment with different undertakings to discover my weaknesses and strengths. Most people are not born knowing what they are interested in and can be good at. They can only find out through experiences.

But experiences have costs and risks. Every experience requires time, and some require money and extra effort. Thus, adults want every activity their children experience to be positive, to lead to some desirable outcome. They don’t want their children to waste their time, energy, or money, or worse, to have experiences that may have a negative impact. Responsible adults naturally have a tendency to prescribe experiences for children. The result is that many children are allowed to have only experiences deemed to be beneficial and safe by adults.

I was fortunate to have broader and more diverse experiences than most children. Although my experiences were severely constrained by the lack of resources and remoteness of my village, I enjoyed more freedom. As soon as I started school, my illiterate parents did not feel they could guide me anymore and thus allowed me to pursue whatever I thought appropriate throughout my life. My teachers in the village school were not well trained to make me follow a prescribed reading curriculum, so I was able to read anything I could find instead of a series of carefully selected graded reading materials. The assortment of used books, magazines, and newspapers my father collected for wrapping noodles in the village noodle factory not only taught me to read but also, more importantly, exposed me to a broad range of topics, way beyond what a very carefully designed curriculum can offer.

Neither my parents nor my teachers attempted to force me to do things they wanted or forbid me from doing things they did not like. I was free of external judgment and never feared it. So I got to have many different experiences, some more beneficial than others, but all were necessary for me to find my passion and strengths. In college, instead of devoting my energy to studying the English textbooks in the classroom, I spent more time reading English books and magazines on psychology, linguistics, and education. Rather than spending time memorizing English literature as required, I took on computer programming. Instead of worrying about my grades, I spent a tremendous amount of time programming a piece of statistics software for a research project. In the end, I developed great proficiency in English by not following the prescribed program.

I have learned to be very open to new experiences. I have always been willing to explore new opportunities. When opportunities present themselves, I jump right in as long as they look interesting, but I am not one who would keep at it at any cost when I realize that it is not something I can be great at or enjoy doing. For example, I tried making fish tanks after college but gave it up when I discovered I have no talent in engineering. I quit being a college teacher to join a translation business, but gave it up despite its success because I did not find it interesting. I returned to be a college teacher afterwards because I found that that was ultimately what interested me.

I was lucky on two fronts. First, I was lucky that my parents and schools did not force me to fix my weaknesses according to whatever their definitions of strengths or weaknesses were. They were very forgiving of my weaknesses and appreciative of my various adventures. Second, I was lucky that the massive societal transformations in China and the world over the past few decades made it possible for me to use my strengths and interests, just as the fog on Christmas Eve made it possible for Rudolph to change his fate. If China had not restored its education system after the Cultural Revolution, it would not have been possible for me to go to college. If China had not opened to the outside world, it would not have been possible for me to migrate to the United States. If I had not come to the United States, my passions and strengths would not have found as much value.

Fortunately, the changes I experienced in China are now widespread for everyone. In other words, the foggy Christmas has arrived for all due to technological changes. But unfortunately, the accidental great educational experiences I had are not widespread. To enable every child to be able to explore, experiment with, and enhance his or her strengths, education must change.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Testing

Which Democratic Candidates Are the 1% Supporting?

By dianeravitch

August 8, 2019 //

Forbes very helpfully published a list of the candidates who have received contributions from billionaires.

Here it is.

Are you surprised?

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform

“Stand for Children” Folds in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch

August 8, 2019 //

Once upon a time, long ago, a man named Jonah Edelman founded a group called Stand for Children. Edelman had instant credibility because he was the son of civil rights leader Marion Wright Edelman.

Somewhere, somehow, around 2009, Stand for Children decided to change its focus. So it became a grantee of the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, and an advocate for charter schools, high-stakes testing and test-based teacher evaluation. Gates and other billionaires gave millions to Stand to act as a pass-through.

Stand was active in Illinois, fighting against the Chicago Teachers Union. It funded pro-charter candidates in local elections such as Nashville. It was active in Massachusetts, trying to pass a referendum in 2016 to lift the state limit on charter school expansion. That referendum failed.

But, reports U Mass professor Maurice Cunningham, the money people in Massachusetts shut off the spigot, and Stand for Children is leaving, perhaps for another assignment.

Cunningham is a specialist in tracking Dark Money and the ways that the elites are undermining democracy.

What we learn from this tale is that there is no “reform movement.” It has no grassroots. It is a phenomenon of wealthy elites trying to buy public policy.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Stand for Children

Oklahoma: Officials Can’t Track “Ghost Students” in Online Charter School Scandal

By dianeravitch

August 8, 2019 //

How does a state determine whether students on a virtual school’s rolls exist?

Oklahoma can’t.

Oklahoma investigators believe Epic Charter Schools embezzled money by inflating its enrollment with homeschool and private school students. Because of the state’s dedication to privacy, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister says the alleged abuse would not have been preventable under current state law.

The Enrollment Loophole

Virtual charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools. Like traditional public schools, they are free to families and receive funding from the state based on student enrollment. Unlike traditional public schools, they are run by private companies or non-profits, and student instruction and coursework happen online instead of in-person.

With over 20,000 students on the books last year, Epic is the largest virtual charter school in Oklahoma, and it appears to be exploiting a loophole in state law.

All virtual charters are under the purview of a separate agency, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, but verifying enrollment falls to the State Dept. of Education.

The education department has the data to easily keeps tabs on kids enrolled in public schools, including Epic, but it cannot track private or homeschooled students because they aren’t required to register with the state government. That makes it nearly impossible to weed out these so-called “ghost students” who are dually or falsely enrolled in homeschool or private school as well as a virtual charter school during routine audits…

Epic Charter Schools touts many benefits, but one reason for its popularity is financial incentives.

“For the homeschool community, the appeal has been the money,” explained Teresa Burnett, a homeschool parent from Shawnee.

Epic teachers get bonuses for recruiting students and families receive up to one thousand dollars per child. That money is part of what Epic calls its “Learning Fund,” which can be used to purchase extra products and courses.

Burnett regularly joins with other homeschool families in a co-op to do lessons and go on outings. While she has stuck exclusively with home education, many of those in the co-op she participated in last year have joined Epic.

“By the time we got to October, November, I’m going to estimate approximately 50 percent of the families had all enrolled in Epic,” Burnett recalled. “They were still participating in the co-op and still enrolled at Epic. These moms were being told that they basically can have the best of both worlds. We can home educate, and then we get to also take advantage of the perks that Epic will provide. ‘Perks’ being the financial perks.”

State law enforcement describes these kids as “ghost students”— homeschool and private school students that are also enrolled at Epic but receive little to no instruction from the school. Epic’s founders allegedly used them to embezzle millions of taxpayer dollars.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Oklahoma, Privatization

Alert: Koch Brothers Are Paying Operatives to Sow Discord in NAACP

By dianeravitch

August 8, 2019 //

Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, broke the story that rightwing groups have infiltrated NAACP chapters in California to create a fake rebellion against the organization’s 2016 call for a moratorium on new charters. The resolution passed by the National Civil Rights Group demands a halt until charters agree to be accountable, to cease diverting money from public schools, and to stop pushing out students they don’t want.

When three local NAACP branches in California passed April resolutions opposing the national group’s call for a charter school moratorium, school choice advocates greeted the news with glee. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVosvoiced her support in an interview. The Wall Street Journal published a flattering editorial about the move, describing it as a welcome “revolt.”

But leaders at the California state NAACP say this so-called “revolt” is fake news. They say the main member who pushed these actions ― a woman named Christina Laster ― is being paid by a right-wing group connected to the Koch brothers to infiltrate the organization and sow chaos. They also note that, despite the media attention, these resolutions were dead on arrival at the national organization for failure to follow proper submission protocol or rejection by higher committees.

In July, California leadership asked the national NAACP to initiate an investigation into the three branches ― Southwest Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino ― and their leaders’ motivations.

“It’s definitely a funded and deliberate effort to try and do a hostile takeover,” said Rick Callender, the second vice president for the California Hawaii NAACP…

Laster works for the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank that’s an affiliate of the State Policy Network. According to a 2012 report from theCenter for Media and Democracy, the State Policy Network is a main driver of legislation created by the pro-business American Legislative Exchange Counsel and has deep ties to Charles and David Koch, the energy billionaires who spend vast sums of money to promote conservative causes and candidates. The California Policy Center is dedicated to pushing education reform causes, with a focus on beating back the state’s teachers union. The group has been behind a number of lawsuits designed to hurt unions’ bottom lines.

An officer of the San Diego branch of the NAACP is employed by the California Charter Schools Association, the charter lobby.

“These are people on the payroll of charter school associations and payroll of organizations that are trying to attack the greatest civil rights organization in the U.S.,” said Callender.