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

Massachusetts: Citizens for Public Schools Calls on State to Stop Bullying Parents Who Want to Opt Out of Tests

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2019 //
8

Citizens for Public Schools issued a statement today calling on the state to stop lying about parents’ right to opt out of state testing:

 

For immediate release, April 3, 2019

Contact: Lisa Guisbond, Executive Director 617-959-2371 (cell)

Citizens for Public Schools Calls on MA DESE to Remove Misleading Information on MCAS Participation Immediately

With MCAS testing season upon us, Citizens for Public Schools calls on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to immediately delete misinformation on its web site and provide clear, consistent and accurate information to parents who choose to refuse testing for their children and to school officials charged with administering the test.

Specifically, we demand that DESE remove language falsely implying that it is illegal for students and/or their parents to refuse to participate in MCAS testing. On a page titled Participation Requirements for Students in Grades 3-8 and 10, it says: “The 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Law, state law M. G. L. Chapter 69, section 1I, mandates that all students in the tested grades who are educated with Massachusetts public funds participate in MCAS.”

This is not accurate.

The law requires the state to administer the test. There is no mention of students being mandated to take it. Former Commissioner Mitchell Chester often said there is no provision for opting out in Massachusetts law. But when asked by WBUR whether it was illegal to opt out, Chester answered, “I haven’t used the word ‘illegal.’ There is no provision to opt out. Parents have in the past had their students refuse to take the test… That’s always been part of the landscape.” 

 But the new language on the state website–saying students are “mandated” to take the test, does suggest that refusal is illegal.

For more than 25 years, since the introduction of the high-stakes use of MCAS testing, thousands of parents in Massachusetts (and millions across the country) have chosen to opt out or refuse testing for their children.

 Parents opt their children out of the test for varied reasons. Some do it to protest the harm to children’s education inflicted by the state’s laser focus on test scores. Others do it because, for their children, because of disabilities or for other reasons, taking the test is a trauma. It is cruel and unfair to tell parents that their effort to protect their children from harm violates a legal “mandate” when no such law exists.

In the past, DESE guidance for MCAS administration has promoted participation in state testing, but has also explicitly advised school officials to respect the wishes of parents who refuse. For example, a 2017 memo from former Acting Education Commissioner Jeff Wulfson says, “Students should not be forced to take the test against their will.” A 2016 memo said, “We ask principals and test proctors to handle refusals with sensitivity. Students should not be pressured to take the test, nor should they be punished for not taking the test.” (See http://bit.ly/refusethetest.)

There have been no state or federal laws passed since DESE provided that guidance (and Commissioner Chester made his statement) that make it illegal to refuse MCAS testing.

Therefore, we demand that the record be corrected and accurate information be disseminated ASAP so that no student or parent is pressured or threatened for exercising their right to refuse testing.   

###

CPS’s mission is to promote, preserve and protect public schools and public education. CPS opposes any political or social initiative that seeks to infringe on or endanger such a vital resource as our public schools. For more information on the CPS mission and goals, see www.citizensforpublicschools.org.

Categories Education Reform, Massachusetts, Opt Out, Parents, Testing

“Have You Heard” Interviews Award-Winning Reporter about Arizona Charter School Scandals

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2019 //
5

 

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider interview Arizona Republic reporter Craig Harris about the charter school scandals in Arizona, the “wild west” of charters.

Harris was a member of the investigative team that won the prestigious George Polk Award for its coverage of charter schools in their state.

You can listen here.

Or, you can read the interview here. 

Here is a small excerpt, where they begin to interview Craig Harris:

Craig Harris​: It started about a year ago on two fronts. One, there was a relatively prominent charter school, a notorious charter school that abruptly closed on the west side of Phoenix in a town called Goodyear. And the reason that school had gained some notoriety is because a few years earlier, one of the students had gone missing and died. And what happened, now we’re finding out later, is that the school was being fraudulent on its attendance in order to keep it running because people had left the school because of the tragedy. And so the school got shut down. And that piqued our interest.

And then I live on the east side of Phoenix in town called Gilbert, which is kind of like ground zero of where charter schools are. They’re very, very popular out in my neck of the woods. And part of the reason is that a lot of the operators that run the charter schools belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They’re Mormons. And so a lot of them have developed charter schools and they’ve been able to grow because they have pretty good academics, but they also focus on morality and wholesomeness and things like, so that, that gets a lot of parents to enroll their kids at those schools.

Berkshire​: Well, we are obviously here to talk about some of the less wholesome aspects of Arizona’s charter school industry over the last year. You’ve written one unbelievable exposé after another about the edupreneurs, as I like to call them, who are getting rich off of running charter schools. I know it’s hard to choose, but I want you to pick your favorite scandal for us and just sort of break down for us the nature of the scam.

Craig Harris​: Well, Arizona, depending on how you look at it—if you’re a charter organizer Arizona is considered one of the best states in the country for charter schools because it has some of the fewest and weakest oversight and regulations of any of the 44 states that have charter schools. And so one of the stories I wrote about was a guy named Eddie Farnsworth. And coincidentally Eddie is my state senator. We actually live within two miles of each other. And he ran a series of charter schools called Benjamin Franklin Charter Schools. They built them from the ground up. So what happened is that Mr. Farnsworth, who’s also a legislator who’s been in the office for like two decades, created a nonprofit company with three friends of his, two of whom were lobbyists who got votes from him to favor their clients to buy his schools, and they paid top dollar for those schools.

And he made about $14 million in profit on the sale of his schools, which were privately owned, to a nonprofit company that he set up. And then that nonprofit hired him as a consultant and then also agreed to lease buildings from him and agreed to hire his brother as the chief executive. And so he has gotten extremely rich from this. And then during his time when he was in the legislature, we went back and look and he repeatedly voted on bills that increased funding for charter schools. And at the same time he blocked bills that would have brought more restrictions and oversight on charter schools.

The legislature responded to the series of exposes in the Arizona Republic by promising to pass a law reining in the wrongdoing. But, here’s the catch: the charter lobbyists wrote the “reform” legislation!

Harris said:

The Charter Association, which is a nonprofit business that represents the 500 plus charter schools, their lobbyists wrote most of the bill. And so what happened when the lobbyist for the Charter Association or basically the charter industry wrote most of the bill is the legislation is what critics call window dressing. It doesn’t stop any of the self dealing. It doesn’t stop organizations like another one wrote about, which is an online school called Primavera. Their CEO, he paid himself $10 million over the last year and a half, while having incredibly high dropout rates and very low test scores.

The bill also doesn’t stop self dealing from giving no-bid management contracts that are worth tens of millions of dollars.

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Scandals

Texas: A Great Day for Public Education!

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2019 //
13

 

The Texas House of Representatives endorsed sweeping legislation to fund public schools. Representative Dan Huberty (R-Houston), chairman of the House Public Education Committee, steered the legislation to a nearly unanimous vote. 

“House Bill 3 would increase base funding for each student by $890, fund full-day pre-K for low-income 4-year-olds in most school districts, compress tax rates for all districts and reduce the amount of money wealthier districts pay the state in recapture payments to shore up poorer districts. Because Democrats spearheaded a change in the bill, it would also provide across-the-board raises for all full-time school employees who are not administrators.”

“We are finally reforming public education in Texas, and not by court order, so that’s a pretty important thing,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Dan Huberty, a Republican who chairs the House Public Education Committee. The vast majority of House lawmakers signed on to the bill as co-authors. Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, was the lone no vote.

“The bill will now make its way to the Senate. The upper chamber last week increased the amount it had planned to set aside for public education and property tax reform to match the House’s original proposal.”

Rep. Dan Huberty is a hero of public education. I met him a few years ago at an evening sponsored by Friends of Public Education in Texas. He joins the honor roll of this blog for shepherding a complex bill through the House that will improve schooling for five million children.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Honor Roll, Supporting public schools

Jennifer Rubin: Trump Is Mentally Unraveling Before Our Eyes

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
86

 

Jennifer Rubin was hired by the Washington Post to be its “conservative” columnist, to counterbalance its liberal tilt on national issues (on education, the Washington Post is far-right and pro-privatization, with the exception of Valerie Strauss).

But then Rubin encountered Trump, and she was horrified by the hash this man made of her fiscally responsible, conservative principles.

In this article, she says that Trump is unraveling before our eyes. His mental instability has become too glaring to ignore.

She writes:

“Far too much media time has been devoted to mulling whether former vice president Joe Biden, as svelte and vigorous as he has ever been and showing no sign of mental deterioration, is too old to run for president and not nearly enough considering whether President Trump is.

“In the past 24 hours, Trump — who will be 74 in November 2020 and is “tired,” according to aides — has:

  • Falsely declared multiple times that his father was born in Germany. (Fred Trump was born in New York.)
  • Declared that wind turbines cause cancer.
  • Confused “origins” and “oranges” in asking reporters to look into the “oranges of the Mueller report.”
  • Told Republicans to be more “paranoid” about vote-counting.

“He is increasingly incoherent. The Post quotes him at a Republican event on Tuesday: “We’re going into the war with some socialist. It looks like the only non, sort of, heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists, they got to him, our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don’t know him well, I was going to say ‘Welcome to the world Joe, you having a good time?’” Even when attempting to defend himself, he emits spurts of disconnected thoughts. “Now you look at that [presidential announcement] speech and you see what’s happening and that speech was so tame compared to what is happening now, that trek up is one of the great treacherous treks anywhere, and Mexico has now, because they don’t want the border closed.”

If you had a relative who spoke this way, you would gently encourage a mental evaluation. And this man holds the nuclear codes to blow up the world.

 

Categories Education Reform

Massachusetts: Civil Rights Groups, Teachers’ Unions Demand Withdrawal of Racist Test Question

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
11

 

 

Massachusetts’ Civil Rights groups and teachers’ unions are outraged by a racist question in the state ELA Test. 

“In response to accounts about racially troubling questions embedded in this year’s 10th-grade English Language Arts MCAS exam, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Boston Teachers Union, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance and the New England Area Conference of the NAACP are demanding that the test immediately be pulled and that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education not score any exam that included a question concerning material from Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Underground Railroad.”

“The organizations further insist that the DESE end the gag order imposed on students and educators barring them from discussing the content on the MCAS exams. Educators and students are forced to sign confidentiality agreements saying that they will not reveal the questions — or even discuss the contents. Students could have their test scores tossed out; educators could lose their licenses to teach. Passing the 10th-grade MCAS test is a graduation requirement.

“Educators and students have reported that the MCAS is using the passage from “The Underground Railroad” to have students write a journal entry from the perspective of the character Ethel, who is openly racist and betrays slaves trying to escape.

“For all of the unconscionable aspects of standardized testing, DESE has imposed a new layer of trauma — particularly on students of color — forcing students to read a tiny excerpt of the book, produce a quick answer about race relations embodying a racist perspective, and then stifle the complicated emotions that emerge. To deny students their right to wrestle with the issues with their teachers reveals that the MCAS is not about education at all and only undermines a school curriculum,” said MTA president Merrie Najimy….”

”MTA Vice President Max Page said this was not enough and repeated the call for a moratorium on high-stakes testing.

“Students should definitely read the brutal and brilliant book ‘The Underground Railroad’ and work with experienced educators on exploring the important and complex issues it raises,” Page said. “But in order to do so, our students need fully funded schools with small class sizes and teachers who have the academic freedom to guide this complex and emotional discourse so that students are building empathy and understanding of our troubled history. Our schools also must include libraries stocked with literature and full-time librarians who can guide children in exploring the diverse and multiple perspectives on any subject.”

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Racism

Fun Fact from Today’s Boston Globe

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
33

 

i get a daily news summary from the Boston Globe and several other newspapers.

This arrived this morning:

“In the late 1700s, there were more than 60 million bison roaming North America, but because of commercial hunting and slaughter, there were just 541 animals left 100 years later. Thanks to preservation and rescue efforts, there are about 31,000 in existence today, in national parks and on reserves. The bison is the national mammal of the US. Another fun fact to know and tell.”

First I was horrified. Then I wondered who conducted the buffalo count in the late 1700s. Inquiring minds want to know.

Categories Education Reform

Milwaukee: Progressive Slate Sweeps School Board Election!

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
7

 

 

A progressive slate backed by the Working Families Party and the Milwaukee teachers’ union swept the school board election in Milwaukee. 

I received this statement from Rob Duffey of the Working Families Party:

“Last night in Milwaukee the Wisconsin Working Families Party won big, electing a slate of five pro-public school champions who flipped the Milwaukee city school board from a pro-privatization majority to an 8-1 public school orientation. Milwaukee has long served as a laboratory for experimenting with charter schools and voucher programs to no benefit for students. Wisconsin Working Families Party recruited four of the five winning candidates and coordinated a winning strategy that will profoundly affect the decision making for how system budget priorities are set and how private charter schools will be held accountable.”

The slate was led by public education activist and former union president Bob Peterson.

“This is a day to celebrate Milwaukee’s support for public education,” said Peterson, who had gathered with supporters at the Art Bar in Riverwest.

“I look forward — the entire slate looks forward — to working with all the stakeholders, the entire school board, parents, students, the administration and elected officials locally and in Madison to defend and improve our public schools,” he said.

District by district, we will reclaim our schools.

Categories Education Reform, Milwaukee, Supporting public schools

North Carolina: Judge Rules Charter School Requirement of Skirts for Girls Is Discriminatory

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
10

 

A federal judge ruled that Charter Day School’s dress code–which requires girls to wear skirts and does not permit them to wear trousers or shorts–is unconstitutional.

“Yes, the boys at the school must conform to a uniform policy as well,” Senior U.S. District Judge Malcolm J. Howard wrote. “But plaintiffs in this case have shown that the girls are subject to a specific clothing requirement that renders them unable to play as freely during recess, requires them to sit in an uncomfortable manner in the classroom, causes them to be overly focused on how they are sitting, distracts them from learning, and subjects them to cold temperatures on their legs … .”

Also, the judge ruled that the organization that holds the charter for the Charter Day School, a K-8 school in Leland, N.C., acted under state authority, or “color of state law,” when it incorporated its disparate dress code into its disciplinary code.

“In this matter, CDS, Inc. has brought the uniform policy under extensive regulation of the state by making violations of the uniform policy a disciplinary violation,” the judge said.

Howard went on to rule that the manager of Charter Day School, an entity known as Roger Bacon Academy Inc., was not a state actor because it does not contract with or received funding directly from the state and had no power to change the dress code, which was set by the CDS board.

CDS is a “traditional values” themed school and the school’s founder, Baker Mitchell, has asserted that the dress code requirement that girls wear skirts was part of a climate of “chivalry” and “mutual respect.”

Too bad that Education Week did not delve deeper into the management company of this charter school. Roger Bacon Academy operates the charter school. RBA is a for-profit corporation owned by Baker Mitchell and is a favorite of the Koch brothers. Marian Wang of ProPublica investigated RBA in 2014 and reported that it was making millions for Mr. Mitchell, a politically-connected businessman with deeply libertarian views.

Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

How Public Dollars for Charters Flow to For-Profit Companies

Over six years, Mitchell’s two companies have taken in close to $20 million in fees and rent — some of the schools’ biggest expenses. That’s from audited financial statements for just two schools. Mitchell has recently opened two more.

The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.

The schools have all hired the same for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy, is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools’ administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell’s management company. The two organizations even share a bank account.

Mitchell’s management company was chosen by the schools’ nonprofit board, which Mitchell was on at the time — an arrangement that is illegal in many other states.

Hello, Education Week! How about reporting on Baker Mitchell’s charter chain and its outlandish profits?

.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, North Carolina, Privatization

Bob Braun Blasts the Weak-Kneed Charter Expose in New Jersey Press

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
19

 

Bob Braun was a reporter for New Jersey’s biggest newspaper—the Star-Ledger—for fifty years. Now he writes what he wants, without any constraints.

In this post, he lacerates the series of articles about charter school corruption and theft of public dollars in New Jersey because it failed to reach the logical conclusion of the evidence it produced. The logical conclusion would be to call off the heist of public funds by grifters, real estate developers, and corporate chains.

He writes.

“The series, far from calling for an end to the theft of public school funds to finance charter expansion, promotes so-called “reforms” that would make it easier for charters to expand—and further degrade  public schools. ..

“Wrong because, the basic, irrefutable truth about charter schools is this:

“Privately-operated charters take away money (construction and operating funds) from public schools—especially in New Jersey’s largest cities where resources are scarce. They are replacing public schools, using public money that should be used to repair public schools.

“Charters are replacing regular public schools and that was never the intent.

“Following the series’ suggestions would mean more charter schools, less money for public schools, and a continuation–even enhancement–of the racism that propels public education policy in New Jersey’s cities.

“The truth about privately operated charters and how they are built and operated with public funds  has been glaringly obvious for years—but few in the commercial press wanted to look at it, including The Record (northjersey.com).”

Once again, like the series in the Los Angeles Times that documented corruption on a grand scale, the series concludes with a timid proposal that pleases and is sure to embolden the charter lobby.

Braun describes in detail how Governor Chris Christie, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Education Entrepreneur Chris Cerf and their allies engineered the charter school coup, with the help of the Star-Ledger’s zealous Charter love:

“Yes it is too bad that charter schools—with the connivance of Christie, Booker, Cerf, former state-appointed Newark superintendent Anderson and former state education commissioner David Hespe, among others—were able to channel tens of millions of public dollars to privately-owned charter school operations.

“But that wasn’t the worst of it.

              “Children suffered—and the mainstream media didn’t give a damn. Anyone who expressed sympathy for Newark’s children was denounced as a conspiracy theorist.”

To understand the moral and ethical corruption at the heart of charter schools in New Jersey, read Braun’s article in full.

The moral and ethical corruption was even worse than the real estate deals and graft.

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

Inside Philanthropy: Charters Lose Their Luster in the Philanthropic World

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
31

 

Caitlin Reilly of “Inside Philanthropy” writes that philanthropies no longer see charter schools as the means to transform American education. Although a few have doggedly doubled down on their commitment to charters, there seems to be a broad shift underway. Reilly calls it an “inflection point,” a point where change is undeniable.

She writes:

“Though charter schools have acquired a powerful ally on the national level in the form of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, local backlash and scaling challenges have led to questions about the future of the publicly funded, privately run schools.

“Philanthropic enthusiasm for the charter movement is at a similar inflection point. For now, support for charters seems to be holding. However, the schools have had trouble reaching scale and have yet to catalyze the system-wide transformation many backers hoped for.

“Some of the field’s champions take that as a sign of the work left to do. Those foundations are doubling down on their support for the schools.

“Other funders, including former stalwart backers of charters, see the failure of this model to scale and spread as a reason to pause and consider their future investments. Those foundations tend to see charter schools as an important part of the education landscape, but not as a means to transform the system.

“Meanwhile, major new donors arriving on the education scene from the business world haven’t gravitated to charters in the same way that many such philanthropists did a decade ago. While these schools remain a growing sector within K-12, drawing political support and philanthropic dollars, the momentum around charters among funders has palpably slowed in recent years.”

The bottom line is that charters have become politically toxic, and its hard to paint them as “progressive” when Betsy DeVos is their most potent champion and striking teachers demand a moratorium on them. What’s “progressive” about schools that are highly segregated, overwhelmingly non-union, and have a record of excluding the neediest children?

It’s no accident that the foundation most deeply invested in creating new charters is the archconservative, anti-union Walton Family Foundation, which claims credit for opening 2,000 charters, more than one of every four in the nation. Why is this family, whose net worth exceeds $150 billion, devoted to charters? Charters kill unions. That works for Walmart.

We learn here that Eli Broad seems to losing his once-passionate commitment to charters. Eli  Broad!

“There does seem to be a faction of the charter movement that is stepping back to consider what comes next, and are open to charters playing a smaller role in future efforts.

“One of those people is Andy Stern, a board member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and board chair of the Broad Center.

Stern started out as an unlikely ally of the charter movement. He is the president emeritus of the Service Employees International Union, which grew by 1.2 million workers under his leadership. Given the antagonism many felt charter schools held toward unions, some were surprised by Stern’s decision to get involved with Eli Broad, an early and ardent supporter of the charter movement.

“Stern didn’t see charter schools as antithetical to his work on behalf of workers and unions, though.

“I got involved in charters because of the members’ of my union’s kids,” he said. “To me, giving janitors’ kids a chance to get the best education possible was everything they wanted from coming to this country. In Los Angeles, where we started, that was not their experience.”

“Now, Stern’s enthusiasm for the schools is waning, and it sounds like Broad’s may be, as well.

“So I would say Eli [Broad], absent any of the recent strikes and activities, has been rethinking what he wants to do in education, as he has been thinking about what he wants to do in the arts and science, as well,” Stern said. “As he thinks about his age and what he wants to see happen in a transition, I’d say there is a natural rethinking and reprioritizing going on.”

Reilly did not speak to any critics of charter schools, other than Randi Weingarten, whose union operates a charter school in New York City. She did not speak to Carol Burris or me or Jeff Bryant or Peter Greene or Anthony Cody or Leonie Haimson or Julian Vasquez Heilig or Mercedes Schneider or Tom Ultican or any of the many others who have warned about the rise of charters and the danger they present to public education.

Nor did she examine the many scandals that have brought down the repute of charters, like UNO in Chicago or ECOT in Ohio.

The good news is that many philanthropists are disenchanted with school choice.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »