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

Know Your Enemy: The Freedom Foundation on the Janus Decision

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
42

The reactionary elements of our society are salivating at the prospect of crushing labor unions. The oligarchs, the corporations, and ALEC tremble with excitement as they anticipate the Supreme Court decision on the Janus case. They don’t care that labor unions offer a path to the middle class. They don’t care that labor unions reduce income inequality. They want to grind workingpeople into the dust. They are thrilled that Trump’s pick for the Court, Neil Gorsuch, will supply the deciding vote.

I don’t usually post hate mail, but read it for yourself.

Read the pdf here.

Categories Education Reform

Federal Government Switches Sides on Janus Decision, Opposes Union Dues

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
18

The federal government has switched sides on the Janus decision, and will now argue that people should not be required to pay union dues. The purpose of the Janus offense is to cripple unions, which usually support Democrats in political campaigns. Like others on the far right, the federal government is now opposed to unions.

Although Janus bases his appeal on free speech grounds, meaning he does not want to pay for speech he does not agree with, most union members do not pay for political action.

The Trump administration has weighed in against continuing mandatory union dues for public workers, a shift in the federal government’s position ahead of upcoming Supreme Court arguments in the much-watched Janus case.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed a brief Thursday supporting Mark Janus, an Illinois state worker who argues it’s a violation of the First Amendment to force him to pay dues that support a union that advocates positions Janus himself doesn’t support.

The First Amendment establishes a “bedrock principle” that except in “the rarest of circumstances,” no one should be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she doesn’t wish to support, the government’s brief says, quoting an earlier Supreme Court ruling.

“That principle has added force when applied to the compelled subsidization of speech on public issues, which lies at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection and triggers demanding scrutiny,” the government said, urging the court to overturn a precedent from the 1970s known as Abood that set up the current system.

Public-sector employees, including teachers, are forced to pay most union dues every year in about 20 states. Those who are opposed may opt out of paying for “political” activities. Janus and others argue that funding even basic union duties, like negotiating wages, benefits, and layoff rules, are inherently political in public-sector unions because they affect government policy and funding.

The filing is a departure from the position the Obama administration took in similar cases in recent years in which it supported the continuation of mandatory dues, sometimes called “fair share” fees.

In other words, Janus wants the benefits that his union wins for him, but he doesn’t want to pay any dues to the union.

This court case is purely political. It is an effort to try to crush unions so that employees have no rights.

As Gordon Lafer writes in his important book, The One Percent Solution, the reason that corporations, ALEC, and right-wingers attack unions is because unions raise the aspirations and expectations of non-union workers. Union workers have health benefits, pensions, and higher wages. Non-union workers want the same. If unions are crushed, all workers will see a downward trend in the terms of their employment. They will be at-will employees with no rights. There will be a revolution of declining expectations.

Categories Education Reform

Ethan Siegel: How to Break Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
56

Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel writes in Forbes magazine about the way that federal policies have disrespected and demoralized passionate teachers. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act have been disasters for teaching and learning.

Every sentence in this short article is priceless, and I hate to abridge it. You will have to open the link and read it yourself in its entirety.

He writes:

The ultimate dream of public education is incredibly simple. Students, ideally, would go to a classroom, receive top-notch instruction from a passionate, well-informed teacher, would work hard in their class, and would come away with a new set of skills, talents, interests, and capabilities. Over the past few decades in the United States, a number of education reforms have been enacted, designed to measure and improve student learning outcomes, holding teachers accountable for their students’ performances. Despite these well-intentioned programs, including No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act, public education is more broken than ever. The reason, as much as we hate to admit it, is that we’ve disobeyed the cardinal rule of success in any industry: treating your workers like professionals.

Everyone who’s been through school has had experiences with a wide variety of teachers, ranging from the colossally bad to the spectacularly good. There are a few qualities universally ascribed to the best teachers, and the lists almost always include the following traits:

*a passion for their chosen subject,
*a deep, expert-level knowledge of the subject matter they’re teaching,
*a willingness to cater to a variety of learning styles and to employ a variety of educational techniques,
*and a vision for what a class of properly educated students would be able to know and demonstrate at the end of the academic year.

Yet despite knowing what a spectacular teacher looks like, the educational models we have in place actively discourage every one of these.

The first and largest problem is that every educational program we’ve had in place since 2002 — the first year that No Child Left Behind took effect — prioritizes student performance on standardized tests above all else. Test performance is now tied to both school funding, and the evaluation of teachers and administrators. In many cases, there exists no empirical evidence to back up the validity of this approach, yet it’s universally accepted as the way things ought to be…

If your goal was to achieve the greatest learning outcome possible for each of your students, what would you need to be successful? You’d need the freedom to decide what to teach, how to teach it, how to evaluate and assess your students, and how to structure your classroom and curriculum. You’d need the freedom to make individualized plans or separate plans for students who were achieving at different levels. You’d need the resources — financial, time, and support resources — to maximize the return on your efforts. In short, you’d need the same thing that any employee in any role needs: the freedom and flexibility to assess your own situation, and make empowered decisions…

Like any job involving an interaction with other people, teaching is as much of an art as it is a science. By taking away the freedom to innovate, we aren’t improving the outcomes of the worst teachers or even average teachers; we’re simply telling the good ones that their skills and talents aren’t needed here. By refusing to treat teachers like professionals — by failing to empower them to teach students in the best way that they see fit — we demonstrate the simple fact that we don’t trust them to do a good job, or even to understand what doing a good job looks like. Until we abandon the failed education model we’ve adopted since the start of the 21st century, public education will continue to be broken. As long as we insist on telling teachers what to teach and how to teach it, we’ll continue to fail our children.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Indiana: Governor Wants to “Do Something” about Horrible Online Charter School

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
2

In choice-happy Indiana, where all choices are presumed to be good choices, Governor Eric Holcomb called for the state to do something about the woeful performance of the Indiana Virtual School. Be it noted that virtual schools have low performance everywhere, rake in millions of dollars, and buy political support. Will Indiana be any different from other states that have ignored the scandal of virtual charter performance?

In October, Chalkbeat reported that Indiana Virtual School, one of the state’s largest online charter schools, had received more than $20 million from the state while graduating about 61 students. And between at least 2011 and 2015, a for-profit company headed by Indiana Virtual’s founder, Thomas Stoughton, charged the school millions of dollars in management services and rent.

Wow! More than $20 million to graduate 61 students. A good haul for the school, not the taxpayers.

Indiana Virtual and its sister school that opened this year, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, together enroll 6,332 students. Across the state, more than 12,000 students are enrolled in online charters, most of which earned F grades this year. Two other major online charters, Hoosier Academies and Indiana Connections Academy, also opened new schools in the past year or so.

What will the state do? Certainly the state won’t close down this fraud.

At this point, Holcomb said he doesn’t see a need just yet for legislation addressing online schools, although he wouldn’t rule it out. He said his team has communicated with the state board that this area needs “immediate attention and action.” It’s not yet clear what measures they want to introduce, or how much authority the state board has to change charter school rules, but he indicated authorizing could be on the list.

David Harris, of the faux-liberal Mind Trust in Indianapolis, took time from privatizing public schools in Indianapolis, to suggest the need to change authorizers.

Ah, yes, change authorizers. That won’t help.

These scams should be closed. For-profit schools should be banned.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Fraud, Indiana, Virtual Charter Schools

North Carolina: The News-Observer Opposes GOP Tax Plan Because It Will Harm Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
61

North Carolina is one of the states where the legislature has been working overtime to pass programs to harm public schools. Charters, vouchers, cybercharters, Teach for America, and regular assaults on the teaching profession.

That context makes it especially surprising and gratifying to see that the editorial board of the News-Observer wrote a strong critique of the GOP Tax Plan because it hurts public education.

This is a fantastic editorial:

There’s no doubt that tax-cut proposals in the House and Senate will increase income inequality today, but provisions in the bills could also weaken the earning power of many in the future by eroding the quality and the diversity of public schools.

One change that as approved by the Senate and also found in the House bill extends a tax benefit for college savings accounts to cover tuition for private elementary and secondary education. The change means that those who can afford to save money for non-public school tuition will be able to see that money grow tax-free.

Extending the tax break won’t mean much for families of modest incomes since they can’t afford to save large amounts for pre-college schooling, but it will have the effect of making high-priced private schools less costly to the wealthy. The Senate version of the change offered by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas even allows those who home school to draw up to $10,000 annually out of the tax-favored accounts to cover loosely defined school expenses. In the end, the change reduces tax revenue to give the wealthy a break on private education costs.

This relatively narrow adjustment will be joined by sweeping proposals in both the House and Senate tax bills that limit federal deductions for state and local taxes. Those changes will make it harder for local and state governments to raise taxes to support public schools. Together, the changes will lighten the tuition bill at private schools while adding to the tax burden that supports public schools.

Of course, higher education is also threatened by provisions in the tax plans that would include levies on endowments and on tuition benefits provided to graduate students and children of college employees. But the plans’ broader threats are to public schools, which are already being undermined by Republican-backed efforts to increase the number of charter schools – publicly funded but privately run – and to expand the use of tax funds for private schools through voucher programs. Now that “school choice” movement has gained support at the federal level with the appointment of Betsy DeVos – a charter and private school advocate – as the U.S. education secretary.

Fueling re-segregation

As Republicans cut away at the financial foundation of public schools they are also accelerating the re-segregation of all schools at the elementary and secondary levels. Adding charters and using tax dollars to subsidize private and sectarian school tuition is leading to a great sorting by race. And that, rather than enhancing education, deprives children of learning through exposure to classmates of different racial groups and economic backgrounds.

In a recent report on charter schools, The Associated Press found the number of charter schools has tripled over the last decade and racial isolation has grown with them. Charters tend to be overwhelmingly white, or overwhelming one minority. The AP reported: “While 4 percent of traditional public schools are 99 percent minority, the figure is 17 percent for charters. In cities, where most charters are located, 25 percent of charters are over 99 percent nonwhite, compared to 10 percent for traditional schools.”

The trend worries even some charter school advocates. Pascual Rodriguez, principal of a Milwaukee charter where nearly all the students are Hispanic, told the AP: “The beauty of our school is we’re 97 percent Latino. The drawback is we’re 97 percent Latino … Well, what happens when they go off into the real world where you may be part of an institution that’s not 97 percent Latino?”

The AP report mirrors what an October News & Observer report found about racial segregation in North Carolina charter schools. The report found that the schools are more segregated and have more affluent students than traditional public schools.

Christine Kushner, a member of the Wake County Board of Education and a former chair of the panel, said that despite efforts to foster diversity in the Wake County school system, the state’s largest, minorities are the majority, largely because of an increase in Hispanic students and more white students enrolling in schools outside of the system. She said Wake schools remain strong, but their reduced diversity both in race and income is a setback.

“It’s troubling to me that we are going backward because I think diverse schools are what’s best for all children and economics and history affirm that,” she said. School choice is fine, she said, but public schools need to have the resources “to be the first choice for all parents.”

Good public schools and strong support through taxes are inseparable. But the tax bills in Congress are adding to the forces that are splitting that bond and jeopardizing public education.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article188972429.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, School Choice, Segregation, Supporting public schools

Delaware: Charter Leader Sentenced to Federal Prison for Embezzlement

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2017 //
16

The former leader of Family Foundations Academy was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for embezzlement. He confessed that he was suffering from “‘a severe level of sexual addiction and shopping addiction.’” Yeah, that’s a pretty good reason for embezzlement of public funds.

It is almost as good as my favorite from the founder of the Lion of Judah Charter School in Cleveland, who was indicted for diverting $1.2 million to his personal businesses and was ordered to pay restitution of $195,000. His lawyer said it wasn’t right to blame him because he saw easy opportunities to make money and he got greedy.

Excuses, excuses! Greed, shopping addiction!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Delaware, Education Reform, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Kansas City: The Stealth Plan by Walton to Turn Kansas City into a Portfolio District

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2017 //
10

As this article by Matt Barnum in Chalkbeat shows, Kansas City did not want to hand its public schools over to the corporate reform movement, and it kicked out the privatizers a few years ago.

But the privatizers are back, with a new name, and a local native-born leader touting the virtues of the “portfolio model” and a “common enrollment application” for public schools and charter schools. The new approach is funded by the privatization-loving Walton Family Foundation and the Kauffman Foundation. OneApp, the common enrollment system is intended to confuse parents about the differences between public schools and charter schools, and give the appearance that they are the same. They are not. Charter schools choose their students; public schools do not. Charter schools may close without warning; public schools do not. Charter schools are not willing to take the students with the greatest needs; public schools are required to do so.

And so far, many education leaders in Kansas City seem to have fallen for the “portfolio model,” which is a stealth way of importing privatization.

The Kansas City superintendent, Mark Befell, is approaching the new bait warily. But the stars are aligning to put Kansas City into the grasp of the privatizers.

Bedell, the district superintendent, says that SchoolSmart may be too focused on creating new schools and expanding successful ones at the expense of helping existing, low-performing schools.

“I think the only concern that I have is their initial focus has been primarily on schools that are emerging, schools that are high performing,” he said. “You want to really move an urban school system like ours, you have a larger share of your schools that are low performing, we need to put resources in those schools.”

But, Bedell said, “Fortunately, [Sufi] listened to that and [SchoolSmart] provided support for me and some of my schools that have been struggling.”

SchoolSmart KC has also promoted the idea of a common enrollment system for district and charter schools.

“Participation in common, unified enrollment systems must also be required so that all families have equal access to schools,” Sufi said in recent testimony to the Missouri state legislature. “Such a system will also promote equity where our least advantaged families have equal access to quality options.”

Bedell is skeptical of this idea.

“Nope, not interested in it,” he said flatly, saying that he believed some charter schools were selectively enrolling and pushing out certain students, which made it difficult to build a positive relationship between the two sectors.

“One of the things that we’re looking to do is go and visit some of the other cities — Denver, Indianapolis, Camden — where the [district–charter] partnerships are working well,” said Bedell. Incidentally, those are three cities often promoted by advocates of the portfolio model.

Meanwhile, some remain wary of who is funding SchoolSmart. In addition to local philanthropies, SchoolSmart identifies the Walton Foundation as one of its core investors. Sufi said Hall, Kaufman, and Walton had together made a 10-year funding commitment of over $50 million.

“Philanthropy can have its own agenda too — that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think everybody just needs to be aware,” said Wolfsie, the Kansas City school board member. “Funders, they have a say what [SchoolSmart KC’s] strategic direction probably will be — otherwise they may not fund.”

If history and experience are guides, charter schools will take the best students, and leave the rest for public schools, which have even fewer resources to educate them.

Both the Walton and Kauffman foundations have been strong supporters of charter schools; Kauffman even founded its own (high-performing) charter school in Kansas City.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Kansas City, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Jeannie Kaplan: Denver and the Election That Was Lost Unnecessarily

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
10

Jeannie Kaplan tells the story of the recent election in Denver and explains what might have been if the friends of public education had stuck together.

Parent and community activists backed a slate of four candidates for the seven-person board.

The union backed only two candidates, including a “reformer.”

Only one pro-public education candidate won.

This was an unnecessary setback.

Categories Denver, Education Reform

Andrea Gabor: Why We Should Be “Terrified” of Eva’s Success Charters

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
22

Andrea Gabor is the Michael Bloomberg Professor of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York. She is also a deeply knowledgeable scholar of corporate education reform. She debunked the alleged “New Orleans miracle” in the New York Times.

In this post, she expresses her concern about the fawning praise for Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools and explains why Eva’s charter schools are not a model for public education.

She writes:

It is we—that is American citizens—who should be terrified because Success Academy is entirely in-sync with the Trump era. It is unapologetically anti-democratic, anti-union, segregated and relentlessly test-driven. And, it should be noted, the CMO has not yet graduated a single high school student.

At a time when we are facing an existential threat to our democracy—one enabled by a decades-long obsession with standardized tests that narrowed curriculum and helped kill off civics education—the championing of Success Academy by writer as influential as Elizabeth Green, she is the founding editor of ChalkBeat and author of Building a Better Teacher, is worrying indeed.

Let’s be clear. Judging by its roster of 46 schools, there are potentially thousands of families who are happy with the education Success Academy provides, and many more who might have been if they had won the network’s lottery—though parents have complained of the CMO’s harsh, and even abusive, ‘boot-camp-like” culture—see here and here. Indeed, hundreds, if not thousands of children have been pulled out by their families (or forced out) because of the network’s strict demands for behavioral compliance and its single-focused pursuit of high test scores…

But Green fails to address key questions about the kind of education Success kids get—and at what cost. She certainly doesn’t question whether the ever-changing, bubble-in test-scores are the best—or even a good–measure of learning. While she acknowledges giving up on democratic control of schools and districts, she never considers the historic, foundational role of public education in a democracy—and the civic cost of autocratic education systems. Nor does Green consider the successful public-school networks amid what she, rightly, describes as the crushing bureaucracy that has often stifled New York City schools—even though she has published stories about them!

Green also glosses over—and, in some cases, omits entirely—the considerable problems with the Success Academy model, including widespread creaming and credible allegations of abusive behavior toward children. Although Green’s own book points out that the best teachers have years of experience, she says not one word about Success Academy’s high teacher attrition rate. Some Success Academy schools lose over half of their teachers each year; few last more than three years.

Gabor writes that there are excellent models within public education of success, and she refers specifically to the New York Performance Standards Consortium, which has used a progressive model of education with great results.

Gabor despairs of those who think that democracy is the problem, and charter schools are the answer. To give up on democracy is to fall into the snare of the Trump agenda. Let the authoritarian leader solve all problems.

Why anyone believes that a strict authoritarian school is just right for all or most American children is a puzzle. It may be right for some, but it is not a model for public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Discipline, Education Industry, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization, Testing

How Parents in Douglas County, Colorado, Beat Back the Koch Brothers, ALEC, and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
13

This is an inspiring story about the successful efforts by parents in Douglas County, Colorado, to save public schools from a far-right faction that gained control of the local school board and began an assault on the principle of public education.

Newly elected school board members in Douglas County, Colorado unanimously voted this week to rescind a controversial voucher program. Despite a $100,000 media ad campaign by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity asking voucher supporters to show up to the board meeting, not a single public comment was made in support of maintaining the program.

The end of the voucher program marks a dramatic end to a years-long battle that began in this affluent suburban community with the election of a GOP-backed slate of school board candidates in 2009. On the one side was a vast network of deep pockets, including Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Committee and the GOP, pushing a divisive and ideological agenda for the local schools. On the other was a group of moms with no experience running political campaigns. These grassroots activists struggled to out-maneuver big dollars and slick marketing, but their hard work finally paid off. On November 7, 2017, voters swept in a slate of candidates who believe in public schools. The Dougco election results should give hope to activists across the country who are fighting to put the “public” back in public education.

The newly installed board in 2009 not only supported vouchers but it bullied teachers and principals and drove many of them away from the district.

With a GOP political operative in charge of the Douglas County School District communications department, it was increasingly difficult to remember this was a school district. As teachers and parents were intimidated, and fear settled in, teachers began to leave—by choice or force—what was once considered a “destination district.” Teachers left in the middle of the day. They were escorted out of their classrooms by police in front of children. One teacher was pulled out of a school in front of his own children. Principals were intentionally targeted and told, “You are going to do this and when parents ask we can say, ‘The principal said so.’”

Parents found it hard to believe that their elected school board wanted to undermine the public schools. But activist parents joined with the ACLU and sued to block the voucher program.

The resistance built slowly. The privatizers retained control in an election in 2013. The parent coalition won three seats in 2015. The parent resistance swept the board in 2017 and abolished the voucher program.

The story of Dougco proves that organized grassroots resistance can prevail over big money.

As the Network for Public Education says, “We have the numbers. They have the money. They can hire people to carry their message. But we can beat them if we work together and bring people out to vote for their public schools.”

We must not ever lose hope. Dougco is proof that resistance can succeed.

Categories ALEC, Education Reform, Koch Brothers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »