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

Washington, D.C.: Does Anyone Know if the Reports About Staff Turnover Are Accurate?

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2018 //
9

Valerie Jablow, D.C. parent, blogger, and activist, read two reports on teacher and principal attrition and retention. One of them was prepared by the highly respected D.C. civil rights attorney Mary Levy, who has been tracking data in D.C. for many years. Levy looked at both public schools and charter schools.

One conclusion: staff turnover is startlingly high, especially in schools with the most disadvantaged students.

Overall, our public school teacher turnover rates dwarf national averages and have socioeconomic implications, such that the more at risk students a school has, the higher its teacher turnover. The data examined by Levy from the last 3 years alone show that fully a quarter of our public school teachers leave each year—a much higher rate than other jurisdictions. The result is that over half a decade, most of our publicly funded schools will see the majority of their teachers leave.

Our DC public school principal turnover is high as well, averaging about 25% annually. Although that is closer to the national average for principal turnover, in DC it is (like teacher turnover) also correlated with socioeconomics, such that schools with the most at risk students often have the most principal turnover.

Levy had to hand-calculate some of the data because data-collection is slipshod:

For one, we have this data on teacher turnover in DCPS only because Levy herself has spent years comparing staff rosters for individual DCPS schools and budgets and reported what she found. Consider, for a moment, the painful irony of Levy being commissioned to do a report on teacher attrition in DCPS through a painstaking process of backing out data that the school system may already have in a better format–and, for all any of us knows, could provide in a much easier way.

For another, the charter school data on teacher turnover is suspect, as Levy discovered that a number of charter schools appeared to have confused teacher attrition with retention in their required annual reports.

Thus, whenever the reported teacher attrition rate in a charter school was higher than 50%, Levy painstakingly compared staff rosters from one year to the next in the same school. Roster comparisons were, however, inexact because different schools defined “teacher” in different ways, and the rosters themselves changed in form and format from year to year. (Not to mention that the attrition/retention confusion happened within LEAs–so each school had to be looked at separately.) Nonetheless, Levy recorded how many teachers appeared to stay and leave each year; used that to determine whether the reported high rate of attrition above 50% was accurate; and, if it was not accurate, flipped the percentage.

Imagine that! The schools reporting data often didn’t know the difference between retention and attrition! Are any of the data credible when the people responsible for reporting don’t inow the meaning of basic terminology?

D.C. public schools have been controlled by the mayor and by “reformers” including Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson (now looking for a new chancellor since Antwan Wilson left) since 2007, and there in no accurate data collection and analysis program.

Foundations including Gates, Walton, and Broad have poured tens of millions into DCPS, and there is no accurate collection and analysis program.

Whenever D.C. makes a claim about graduation rates, test scores, teacher and principal attrition and retention, they are probably just guessing. Or boasting. They really don’t know.

If you want to learn more, you can attend this meeting:

This Wednesday November 28, from 6 pm-8 pm, the DC State Board of Education (SBOE) and teacher advocacy group EmpowerEd will hold a joint forum on staff retention in DC’s publicly funded schools. The forum will be held at Walker-Jones Education Campus, 1125 New Jersey Ave. NW. RSVP here.

Categories Accountability, Data, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Principals, Teachers

California: Charter Billionaires Spent $62 Million on State Races but Lost the Two Big Ones

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2018 //
13

The charter billionaires spent about $62 million to push their single issue in the state elections but lost the two big statewide races. They did better in legislative races, unfortunately, where it was easy to swamp their opponents.

Advocates for charter schools outspent almost everyone else trying to sway California elections in 2018.

Pro-charter groups helped break spending records trying to swing the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, the most expensive down-ballot fight in California this year. They were also the top sources of outside spending in the race for governor — and even state Senate and Assembly races.
In total, charter school advocates made $62 million in independent expenditures on this year’s elections, according to a KPCC/LAist analysis of campaign finance data.

But most of that money was spent on losing efforts.

Last week, Marshall Tuck conceded the superintendent race to outgoing State Assemblyman Tony Thurmond. Pro-charter groups — most notably the advocacy group EdVoice — spent a total of $34 million trying to elect Tuck.

They were up against significant opposition: the state’s largest teachers unions and the California Democratic Party spent about $20 million to support Thurmond.

The loss comes after a disappointing gubernatorial primary in June. The political wing of the California Charter Schools Association spent $22 million trying to get former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa into the general election for Governor. Villaraigosa didn’t even come close.

They will now curry favor with Gov.-Elect Newsom.

Pro-charter groups fared somewhat better in state legislative races.

Combined, EdVoice and the California Charter Schools Association spent more than $5.9 million on those races. CCSA Advocates was the largest single source of independent expenditures in state legislative races.

In a down-ballot state legislative race, an independent expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars “is a lot of money,” Sonenshein [of Cal State L.A.] said.

In all, charter groups spent money trying to sway 17 state Assembly or Senate contests. In 13 races, charter school groups supported the winning candidate; eight of these winners were safe incumbents who held their seat by a double-digit margin.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Virginia: TFA Political Group Funds School Board Races in Alexandria School Board Race

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2018 //
22

This is getting ridiculous. We know that billionaires like Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, Reed Hastings, and Michael Bloomberg have been underwriting candidates for local and state school boards.

Now Teach for America’s political action arm, called “Leaders in Education Fund,” which is part of LEE (Leadership for Educational Equity), is also intervening to elect local school board candidates.

Got that? TFA created LEE, which is part of Leaders in Education Fund, which funds candidates.

(Who supports LEE and TFA? The same billionaires who support charter schools: the Waltons, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, etc. One of the Waltons is on the board of LEE.) Any candidate funded by Leaders in Education Fund is funded by the Waltons and the rest of the billionaire privatizers.

Debbie Truong in the Washington Post writes about TFA intervention into a race in Alexandria, Virginia, where its preferred candidates spent ten times (10X) as much as the other candidates and won.

The winning candidates, both TFA alumni, insist that they are not planning to promote charters.

Why would TFA invest in local school boards? In Virginia, only school districts can authorize charter schools, and Virginia has only eight charter schools.

Why would TFA/LE/LEF/Waltons support candidates unless they intend to support TFA and charters?

Read the NPE/NPE Action report on the billionaires buying candidates for office, Hijacked by Billionaires. Of course, the report only scratches the surface, because it does not capture the full list of billionaires supporting privatization, like Republican Bill Bloomfield in California and the Koch brothers. One of the billionaires listed in the report, Arthur Rock, subsidizes TFA alumni who work as staff in Congressional offices, supplying “free” staff who are looking out for the interests of TFA.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teach for America, Virginia

John Thompson: Can We Save Our Schools from the Corporate Giants?

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2018 //
15

John Thompson of Oklahoma attended the NPE Conference in Indianapolis and learned a lot about how allies in other cities and states are resisting the Corporate Goliaths invading public schools.

He writes:

“Previously, I overestimated how much of Goliath’s failure was due to the arrogance of power. Today’s Silicon Valley Robber Barons’ hubris can match that of their 19th century counterparts, but their control of data makes them uniquely dangerous. As the latest NPE presentations enlightened me on what is working for us Davids as we successfully resist Goliath, I was mostly struck by the evidence that he only continues to exist for the purposes of privatization, profits, and the monetization of data.

“Fortunately, the 2018 NPE conference was extremely positive, so I can move beyond my errors to a post which provides an overview of a) what I learned and b) some ideas on future messaging.”

Thompson attended many workshops and all the keynotes and he weaves together a coherent narrative, answering the question:

“Why do they [the Corporate Goliaths] keep infusing money into charters?

“The answer, it is now clear, is that they are monetizing data. Pearson testing company thinks it knows more about the children they test than their parents do. As Leonie Haimson has shown, Goliath has bought 400 identifiable data points on students. And Summit Learning says it will follow your child through her entire life.

“Pasi Sahlberg’s presentation on GERM, the Global Education Reform Movement, showed graphically how the corporate reform assault undermined schools around the world. He then described counter-attacks against GERM in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Liberia, Scotland, Chile, and elsewhere. Educators have a duty to reclaim our professional autonomy. But we also must be willing to state some hard truths.

“Sahlberg says that people want to believe that the kids are “alright.” But, globally, they face a threat that must be explicitly addressed. The well-being of students is declining as screen time increases. Students and teachers must push back against the Goliath which profits from more eyes being glued to digital devices.

“Susan Ochshorn and Denisha Jones brought this dangerous trend closer to home. They condemned children being placed in front of keyboards before they are ready. And this may be the narrative that will really take off. Silicon Valley elites don’t put their 4-year-olds in online courses.

“During the previous generation, Goliath used charters that increased segregation to supposedly undo the damage done by segregation, but most voters didn’t send their children to the high-poverty schools that were targeted. So, many people didn’t understand why those corporate reforms were doomed to fail. Surely the broader public will grasp the absurdity of placing 70 students and 2 teachers in “personalized” learning to address toxic stress that is made worse by premature exposure to too many hours in front of keyboards.

“Helen Gym’s account of victories in Philadelphia is also encouraging. Goliath won when they rushed implementation of policies without an open discussion of their theories. After the Reformers got so overconfident they consulted parents, they lost. In other words, to know Goliath’s agenda is to understand that they grasp very little about what students need and parents want.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization

A Big Reward for Writing this Blog

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2018 //
8

Several weeks ago, I told the story of Arnold and Carol Hillman, who retired as educators in Pennsylvania and moved to South Carolina. Instead of living a life of relaxation and leisure, they threw themselves into volunteer work on behalf of rural schools and created clubs and activities for high school students in a nearby school. I named them to the honor roll of the Blog for their many acts of goodness.

I recently received this email from Arnold.

Diane,

Many wonderful things have happened as a result of your posting of our story on your blog. The most important one was that the chairperson of the House Education Committee called us to talk about what we are doing and how we could help her with rural schools.

We spent a couple of hours with her. She is the majority chair, a former school board member and someone who has traveled around the state to see firsthand what is happening. We can only say thank you.

Arnold and Carol Hillman

I wrote back, and Arnold sent me a photograph of the group of young men he sponsors, called the Jasper Gentlemen. They were wearing matching red blazers and were very handsome.

I asked how he paid for the blazers, and he wrote:

We have gotten donations from friends in PA and local organizations. We pay for any residual cost. We also can only meet with the Gents and the Diamonds and Pearls (young ladies) during lunchtime. We probably bribe them with pizza, Subway and wings. Carol and I pay for the food during the year. We meet with the groups about 3 times a month. We also arrange for an etiquette luncheon. We hire a woman from Georgia who does a great job. We pay for that with donations and sometimes ourselves.

We also take the youngsters to various colleges. Sometimes the colleges pay for lunch. Oft times, the kids pay for a fast food meal. If they don’t have the dough, either the teachers or Carol and I pay. We also give a $2000 dollar scholarship to a graduating senior. We are happy to do all of this “stuff.”

Note to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos: Goodness is its own reward. Learn from the Hillmans.

Categories Education Reform, Love, South Carolina

Massachusetts: Block Charter Expansion!

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
11

In 2016, Massachusetts voters decisively rejected a referendum to expand the charter sector. State officials don’t care. They are ignoring local resistance and going full speed ahead, as Citizens for Public Schools reports.

The push for charter school expansion in Massachusetts continues, despite the clear message sent by voters in 2016, when 62% said no to Question 2 and charter school expansion.

It’s time to speak out, this time against charter expansion proposals in New Bedford and Haverhill. Contact the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) by December 3 (the deadline for public comment) at charterschools@doe.mass.edu.

New Bedford’s Alma del Mar charter school is asking to expand by 1,188 seats, and Global Learning seeks 100 additional seats. This would cost New Bedford Public schools roughly $15 million a year, beyond the $14 million the district already loses to charter schools.

CPS Board Member and New Bedford School Committee member Joshua Amaral described the stakes for his community in a Commonwealth Magazine article titled “Ignore the charter school think tank crowd.” Amaral writes, “To put it simply, the district cannot afford a single additional charter seat, let alone a doubling of its charter enrollment.”

In Haverhill, the national Wildflower chain has applied to open a 240-seat Montessori charter school. The district already loses more than $3 million a year to a Montessori charter school and, like New Bedford, cannot afford to lose more.

New Bedford and Haverhill students, teachers and families need investments in democratically accountable schools that serve all children, not millions of dollars diverted to charter expansion

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization

Betsy DeVos Will Be in the Hot Seat as Five House Committees Prepare to Grill Her

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
56

We saw at her confirmation hearing two years ago how ill-prepared Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is when questioned persistently about her views and actions. We saw a repeat performance when she was questioned by Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.” This is a person who is unaccustomed to being held accountable.

Now, at least five committees in the new Democratic-controlled House of Representatives intend to question her about her many controversial efforts to protect for-profit colleges, not students; to roll back protections for transgender students; to put the burden of proof on rape victims, not their alleged assailants; and many more of her policies intended to weaken civil rights protections and the duty of government to defend the weak and vulnerable, not the ruthless and powerful.

For two years, Democrats watched with fury as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dismantle nearly every significant Obama administration education policy.

Now, they’re gearing up to fight back. Lots of them.

As many as five Democratic-led House committees next year could take on DeVos over a range of issues such as her rollback of regulations aimed at predatory for-profit colleges, the stalled processing of student loan forgiveness and a rewrite of campus sexual assault policies.

“Betsy DeVos has brought a special mix of incompetence and malevolence to Washington — and that’s rocket fuel for every committee in a new Congress that will finally provide oversight,” said Seth Frotman, who resigned as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s top student loan official earlier in protest of Trump administration policies likely to be examined by Democrats.

Even in a Republican-controlled Congress, DeVos had a strained relationship at times with some committees. Her main priorities, such as expanding school choice, were largely ignored as lawmakers hashed out government funding bills. Now she will have to answer to House Democrats wielding gavels, several of whom have long worked on education issues and have been among her most vocal critics.

She came to her job expecting Congress to allow her to shift $20 Billion from Title I to Vouchers. That never happened. Her only funding victory was an increase in funding for charter schools, which now get $450 million, which they certainly don’t need, since they are the plaything of the billionaires.

Many committees are waiting to interview her, including the House Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia; the Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut; and the Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep.Maxine Waters of California.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Democrats, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education, Students

Peter Goodman: Is the Ed Reform “Movement” Moving into the Dustbin of History?

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
17

Peter Goodman, who blogs as “Ed in the Apple,” usually writes knowledgeably about education politics in New York City and State.

In this interesting post, he asks the Question of the Day/Hour/Month/Year: Is Ed Reform dying?

Reformers are turning against testing; parents are catching on to the Charter School Hustle.

What next? Can Reformers save a dying brand?

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

Peter Greene to Mike Petrilli: A Not So Fond Farewell to “Reform”

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
22

Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham think tank in D.C., penned a piece suggesting that Ed Reform was over, that it had reached a stalemate with its enemies, but that whatever it had done was here to stay. He called it “The End of Education Policy,” a very cheering thought. Now it’s time to zero in on practice, he wrote. I was happy to see an admission that Ed Reform had run out of gas, but I had no idea how he imagined that he or any of the other reformers would have a role in improving “practice,” unless he meant doubling down on the Common Core.

Peter Greene made sense of all this, as he always does.

He begins:

From time to time Mike Petrilli (Fordham Institute) grabs himself a big declaration and goes to town. Last week, the declaration was “We have reached the end of education policy.”

He frames this up with references to Francis Fukuyama’s book about the end of history, and I don’t know that he really ever sticks the landing on creating parallels between Fukuyama’s idea (which he acknowledges turned out to be wrong) and his thoughts about ed policy, but it establishes an idea about the scale he’s shooting for– something more sweeping and grandiose than if he’d compared ed policy to video game arcades or no-strings-attached sex.

His thesis?

We are now at the End of Education Policy, in the same way that we were at the End of History back in 1989. Our own Cold War pitted reformers against traditional education groups; we have fought each other to a draw, and reached something approaching homeostasis. Resistance to education reform has not collapsed like the Soviet Union did. Far from it. But there have been major changes that are now institutionalized and won’t be easily undone, at least for the next decade.

Okay. Well, first I’d argue that he has it backwards. It was reformsters who championed centralized top-down planning and the erasure of local governance, often accomplished with raw power and blunt force, so if somebody has to be the Soviet Union in this analogy, I think they fit the bill.

He ticks off the gains of the reformist movement. Charters are now fact of the landscape in many cities. Tax credit scholarships, a form of sideways voucher, are also established. He admits that the growth of these programs has slowed; he does not admit that these reform programs reach a tiny percentage of all US students.

One data point surprised me– one fifth of all new teachers are coming from alternative certification programs, which is really bad news for the teaching profession and for students. We’ll have to talk about this.

Testing, he says, in claiming a dubious victory, is less hated than it used to be, maybe? He makes some specious claims here about the underlying standards being stronger and the tests being more sophisticated and rigorous– none of that is true. He says that teacher evaluation systems have been “mostly defanged,” citing ESSA, but from where most teachers sit, there’s still plenty of fang right where it’s been. “School accountability systems,” he claims, are now less about accountability and more about transparency. No– test centered accountability continues to serve no useful purpose while warping and damaging educational programs across America.

The era of broad policy initiatives out of DC is over, says Petrilli. Hallelujah, says I. Only policy wonks would think it’s a great thing if state and federal bureaucrats crank out new policy initiatives every year. Every one of them eats up time and effort to implement that could be better spent actually educating students. The teaching profession is saturated with initiative fatigue, the exhaustion and cynicism that comes when high-powered educational amateurs stop in every year or two to tell you that they know have a great new way for you to do your job that will totally Fix Everything. One does not have to spend many years in the classroom to weary of the unending waves of bullshit. It would be awesome if those waves actually stopped for a while.

Petrilli’s claim is that they have, and that now is a time for tinkering with actual education practices, but his list sucks. “To implement the higher standards with fidelity” No. No no no no NO no no, and hell no. “With fidelity” is reform talk for “by squashing every ounce of individual initiative, thought, and professional judgment out of classroom teachers. “With fidelity” means “subordinating the professional judgment of trained educators to the unproven amateur-hour baloney of the Common Core writers.” “Improve teacher preparation and development” is a great goal, except that I don’t think that means “train teachers to do better test prep and go through their days with fidelity.” Then we have “To strengthen charter school oversight and quality,” which seems like a great idea, though “strengthen” assumes that there is anything there to strengthen in the first place, which in some states is simply not so (looking at you, train wreck Florida). Charters need to be reigned in– way in– and if that means that many operators will simply leave the charter school business, well, I can live with that. Work on the whole Career and Technical Education thing, a goal that I have a hard time getting excited about because in my corner of the world, we’ve been doing it well for fifty years. If you think CTE is a brand new thing, you are too ill-informed to be allowed anywhere near CTE policy.

That’s where he starts.

Now who will take the lead in changing practice, Greene asks. Not Petrilli. Not Bill Gates. Not Zuckerberg.

Greene writes:

It’s all on you.

That’s okay. As Jose Luis Vilson often says, we got this. Even if nobody is going to help us get it, we will still get it, because we have to, and because that’s why, mostly, we signed up for the gig.

Practice is where the action has always been. Education reformsters have tried to create a title of education reformers for themselves, but the real education reform, the real growth and change and experimentation and analysis of how to make things work better– that work has been going on every single day (including summers, thank you) since public schools opened their doors. Whether bureaucrats and legislators and thinky tank wonks or rich guys with too much time on their hands have been cranking out giant plans or just twiddling idly while waiting for their next brainstorm, teachers have been honing and perfecting their practice, growing and rising and advancing every single day of their career, doing everything they can think of to insure that this year’s students get a better shot than last year’s. Just one more reason that the whole “schools haven’t changed in 100 years” is both insulting and ignorant.

So thinky tanks and reformists and wealthy dilettantes and government bureaucrats can continue fiddling and analyzing their fiddlings as they search for the next great Big New Thing in policy. In the meantime, teachers have work to do.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Carol Burris: Indiana’s Scandalous Voucher Program

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
7

Carol Burris describes in this post how Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and Governor Mi,e Pence created the most expansive voucher program in the nation.

“Last year, the taxpayers of Indiana paid out $146.1 million to voucher schools, with most of it going to families who would have sent their children to private school anyway.”

The program was launched by Go Error Daniels in 2011.

Indiana’s 2011 voucher program began literally with a kiss when then Gov. Mitch Daniels picked up the bill and brought it to his lips. Daniels and his allies did more than just begin the nation’s largest voucher program. As the bill made its way through the statehouse, a $1,000 tax deduction for homeschoolers and private school families was also added. This allowed private school parents and homeschoolers to deduct costs above tuition, such as school supplies.

Daniels also expanded the already existing Scholarship Tax Credit Program that gives tax credits to companies and individuals who make donations to “scholarship” organizations that, in turn, provide vouchers. Those taking the credit get 50 percent of what they donate back.

The passage of the voucher bills and tax write-offs were hailed then by Betsy DeVos, then a school choice advocate and now U.S. education secretary, who said, “We thank Governor Daniels and the Indiana Legislature for working so hard to make widespread school choice a reality across the state.”

Since 2011, the political action committees (PACs) of the American Federation for Children, which she co- founded, have contributed $1,040,540 to Republican pro-voucher Hoosiers and PACs. DeVos family members, including Betsy and her husband Dick, have personally contributed $1,525,000 to Indiana candidates or PACs since the voucher law was put in place. Their prior contributions (1998 to 2010) in that state totaled only $62,000.

The passage of the voucher bill was also praised by Robert Enlow, president and chief executive officer of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, which changed its name in 2016 to EdChoice. The chairman of the EdChoice board is the CEO of Overstock.com., Patrick M. Byrne. A Utah resident, Byrne contributed $465,000 to Indiana candidates and PACs beginning with Mitch Daniels’s campaign. He and his family financed over $4 million of the $5 million raised by Families for Choice, a PAC formed to support vouchers in a 2007 Utah referendum. Upon realizing that vouchers were rejected by 62 percent of voters, Byrne referred to the referendum as a “statewide IQ test that Utah voters failed…

Pence, as governor, did everything he could to expand school choice. He grew the number of charter schools by creating a $50 million, low-interest loan program for technology and transportation as well as a $500 per student charter increase, which the legislature had scaled back from his original $1,500 ask.

The greatest growth, however, was in the state’s voucher program. Pence, who describes his religious beliefs as evangelical, removed the cap on the number of students who could qualify for a voucher to a private school, increased the limits on qualifying family income, and removed Daniel’s stipulation that the student had to try the public school first.

No longer was money being saved as a small number of students transferred from public to private schools. Now middle-income families already using private schools were having their tuition paid for, at least partially, by the state.

Nearly all of the 300-plus Indiana private schools that receive vouchers are religious schools. Although they may not discriminate in admissions based race, color, national origin or disability, they can require attendance in a designated church, mosque or synagogue and they may select students based on other factors such as test scores, discipline records and the lifestyle of their parents…

Voucher schools with grades of ‘D’ or ‘F’ for two years in a row are prohibited from taking on new voucher students until they raise performance. This law cost private schools with poor test scores considerable funding. To keep the voucher money flowing, last summer the legislature passed a new law that allows voucher schools to appeal to the State Board of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor. As soon as the law was passed, four religious schools applied for a waiver and all four were approved to take on new voucher students despite their failing grades.

The Indiana voucher program has also been an escape hatch for failing charter schools. The Padua Academy, a charter school in Indianapolis, had two years of consecutive failing ratings. Instead of shutting down, Padua became St. Anthony’s Catholic School. The same principal who led the failing charter stayed on as the leader of the replacement voucher school, which received $1.2 million in tax dollars.

Failing charters flipping to voucher schools is not limited to Padua. Imagine Schools is the largest charter management corporation in the United States. Imagine was founded and operated by Dennis Bakke, the former CEO of an energy company, AES, which merged with the Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPALCO) in 2001. That merger would quickly become a disaster for IPALCO stockholders and workers. Stock price plummeted and many lost their jobs and their retirement savings.

When Bakke was ousted from AES in 2002 after its stock crashed, he moved into the charter management business. Imagine quickly expanded and became notorious for the real estate deals of its subsidiary company, SchoolHouse Finance. SchoolHouse Finance buys properties, often selling them for twice or three times the purchase to a buyer, and then leases them back from the buyer in order to then lease them to Imagine charter schools at exorbitant rates. Investigations of Imagine Charters in Ohio and Florida found charters paying leases that amounted, in some cases, to half of the schools’ revenue from tax dollars. Imagine was fined $1 million by Missouri for self-dealing.

We are reminded yet again that the allocation of public money without strict accountability is a invitation to commit fraud and self-dealing.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Indiana, Pence, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »