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It’s Not Too Late to Send Your Comments about Regulating Federal Funds for New Charters

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2022 //
11

The U.S. Department of Education has extended the deadline for public comments about proposed regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program. This program started in 1995 with $6 million, when there were very few charter schools. Now there are more than 7,000 charters, many of them operated by for-profit corporations. The new regulations would ban federal funding to for-profit school operators and require new charters to do an impact analysis, showing the need for a new charter. Contrary to the charter industry lobbyists, no existing charter would be affected by these regulations, only new charters that seek federal funding.

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, asks for your support:

The US DOE has extended the comment period on their proposed tough Charter Schools Regulations until April 18.

If you have not done so, take one more easy action to stop for-profit-run charters from getting federal Charter Schools Program funds.

Click HERE and send your comment to the U.S. Department of Education via the National Education Association. The NEA has made it easy to do!

If you have sent that quick message, now personalize a longer, more thoughtful commentand submit it through the Department’s portal. Here is a sample you can cut and paste.

I support the proposed rule that schools run by for-profits should not get grants. Charter schools that are run in part or whole to create profit should not benefit from federal expansion or start-up funds.

The relationship between a for-profit management organization is quite different from the relationship between our district vendors who provide a single service. A public school can sever a bus contract and still have a building, desks, curriculum, and teachers. However, in cases where charter schools have attempted to fire their for-profit operator, they find it impossible to do without destroying the schools in the process. In addition, the spending of the for-profit is hidden from public inspection and is not subject to FOIA requests.

I fully support the proposed regulation that “the community impact analysis must describe how the plan for the proposed charter school take into account the student demographics of the schools from which students are, or would be, drawn to attend the charter school.” The reporting of needs based on enrollment patterns as well as the impact on local desegregation efforts is most welcome.

In the past, one of the most segregated charter chains in the country received CSP grants. Arizona’s BASIS schools, do not provide free or reduced-priced lunch nor transportation. BASIS expects parents to make donations to subsidize teacher salaries. In a state where 52% of all students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, the percentage in BASIS schools is only 1%. While 13% of Arizona’s public school students are students with disabilities, the percentage in BASIS schools is 3%. Latinx and Black students are dramatically underrepresented in the schools in this chain. Eight Arizona BASIS charter schools were recipients of CSP sub-grants between 2010-2017 receiving over $5 million dollars.

The inclusion of an impact statement will help reviewers make the best decisions regarding which schools should get awards. The impact analysis requirements should include a profile of the students with disabilities and English language learners in the community along with an assurance that the applicant will provide the full range of services that meet the needs of all students. Too often, the neediest students are left behind in our districts, while funding leaves the schools along with students who require fewer services.

I fully support priorities one and two. They will help us get back to the original purpose of charter schools—innovative places run by teachers and families in cooperation with our local schools. I do not want my tax dollars to go to create new schools for the benefit of the big EMO and CMO chains.

Submit your comment by cutting and pasting it here.

And then keep sending those tweets by clicking here.

Thanks for all you do.

The Network for Public Education is a 501 (c)(3) organization. You can make a tax deductible donation here.

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Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, For-Profit, U.S. Department of Education

Jan Resseger: Feds Propose New Rules to Bar Profiteers

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2022 //
10

Jan Resseger writes here about the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed new regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program. To a significant extent, the Department has incorporated recommendations offered by the Network for Public Education aimed at blocking for-profit entrepreneurs from winning federal funding. The charter lobby is fighting furiously to block these new regulations. Public comment is open until April 13.

Open this link and send your comment.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/03/14/2022-05463/proposed-priorities-requirements-definitions-and-selection-criteria-expanding-opportunity-through#open-comment

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, For-Profit, U.S. Department of Education

Please Support the U.S. Department of Education’s Proposals to Regulate Federal Funding of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2022 //
16

This year, for the first time since the federal Charter Schools program was established in 1994, the U.S. Department of Education is setting forth meaningful regulation of the program. This is a historic development and great news for those of us who have watched the charter industry escape accountability and transparency, while tolerating grift and profiteering.

As the Network for Public Education showed in two major reports (Asleep at the Wheel and Still Asleep at the Wheel), the federal charter program is riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. Nearly 40% of the charter schools funded by this program either never opened or closed soon after opening. About $1 billion was wasted.

The Department has made a good faith effort to repair the negative aspects of the Charter School Program and to create regulations that would put guardrails in place for charter schools.

There are three key features to these regulations:

First, to qualify for federal funding, charters must develop an impact statement, describing the demographics that they will serve, whether there is a need for their proposed charter, whether the charter would intensify racial segregation in district schools, and how the charter would impact the local district schools.

Second, charters would have to demonstrate how they will serve the local community.

Third, charters operated by for-profit organizations would not be eligible for funding.

These are all significant reforms that have the potential to turn charters into good neighbors of public schools.

I urge you to write your own comment to support the Department’s bold effort to regulate the recipients of federal money for charters ($440 million). You can write 50 words in the comment or write a letter and attach it.

Please open this link to make a comment or send a letter:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/03/14/2022-05463/proposed-priorities-requirements-definitions-and-selection-criteria-expanding-opportunity-through#open-comment

Please read the letter that Carol Burris wrote on behalf of the Network for Public Education, posted here.

Comments from The Network for Public Education Regarding Proposed Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, and Selection Criteria-Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP)-Grants

Docket ID Number: ED-2022-OESE-0006

April 1, 2022

The Network for Public Education (NPE) writes in response to the invitation to submit comments regarding “Proposed Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, and Selection Criteria-Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP)-Grants to State Entities (SE Grants); Grants to Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools (CMO Grants); and Grants to Charter School Developers for the Opening of New Charter Schools and for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools (Developer Grants).

NPE is a national non-profit organization with 350,000 subscribers. We network with nearly 200 national, state, and local organizations all committed to the same mission—to preserve, strengthen and support our democratically governed public school system. For the past several years, we have been deeply concerned by what we view as endemic corruption and waste in the Federal Charter Schools Program.

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) must update its priorities and its requirements to address loopholes and flaws in the program that have resulted in for-profit run schools receiving grants, 12% of all CSP grants going to charter schools that never open, grants received by schools and charter management organizations that provide false and misleading information, and sub-grants issued to charter schools with a history of exacerbating racial segregation and that exclude, by policy or practice, students with disabilities and students who are English Language Learners.

The Award of CSP Grants Charter Schools Operated by For-Profit Organizations

We strongly support the Department’s attempt to ensure that charter schools operated by for-profit management corporations do not receive CSP grants, specifically this language:

(a) Each charter school receiving CSP funding must provide an assurance that it has not and will not enter into a contract with a for-profit management organization, including a non-profit management organization operated by or on behalf of a for-profit entity, under which the management organization exercises full or substantial administrative control over the charter school and, thereby, the CSP project.

The federal definition of a public school under IDEA and ESEA is “a nonprofit institutional day or residential school, including a public elementary charter school, that provides elementary education, as determined under State law.” 20 U. S.C. §§ 1401(6) (IDEA), 7801(18) (ESEA) Similarly, the statutes define a “secondary school” as “a nonprofit institutional day or residential school, including a public secondary charter school, that provides secondary education, as determined under State law․” 20 U.S.C. §§ 1401(27) (IDEA), 7801(38) (ESEA).

Former for-profit entities have created non-profit facades that allow the for-profit and its related organizations to run and profit from the charter school, following the judgment of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Arizona State Bd. For Charter Schools v. U.S. Dept. of Educ. in 2006 (464 F.3d 1003).

Ineffective provisions undermine the present regulations against the disbursement of funds from the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) to charter schools operated by for-profit entities. We identified over 440 charter schools operated for profit that received grants totaling approximately $158 million between 2006 and 2017, including CSP grants to schools managed with for-profit sweeps contracts.

We offer as examples the recent CSP grants awarded to Torchlight Academy Charter School of North Carolina and Capital Collegiate Preparatory Academy of Ohio. We also bring your attention to the audit of a charter school run by National Heritage Academies in New York. The State Comptroller specifically chides the charter board for the fees taken by a for-profit that played the role of applying for and managing grants. National Heritage Academies schools have frequently received CSP grants and operate under sweeps contracts.

The relationship between a for-profit management organization is quite different from the relationship between a vendor who provides a single service. A school can sever a bus contract and still have a building, desks, curriculum, and teachers. However, in cases where charter schools have attempted to fire the for-profit operator, they find it impossible to do without destroying the schools in the process.

Recommendations:

Many for-profit organizations operate by steering business to their for-profit-related entities. They are often located at the same address, and the owner of the management company or a member of the immediate family is the owner of the related entity. Therefore, it is recommended that wherever references to for-profit organizations appear, the phrase “and its related entities” is added.

(a) Each charter school receiving CSP funding must provide an assurance that it has not and will not enter into a contract with a for-profit management organization, including a non-profit management organization operated by or on behalf of a for-profit entity, under which the management organization and its related entitiesexercise(s) full or substantial administrative control over the charter school and, thereby, the CSP project.

Quality Control of Awards and the Importance of Impact Analysis

We strongly support the proposed regulations that seek to bring greater transparency and better judgment to the process of awarding CSP grants. We especially support the inclusion of a community impact analysis.

We are pleased that “the community impact analysis must describe how the plan for the proposed charter school take into account the student demographics of the schools from which students are, or would be, drawn to attend the charter school,” and provide “evidence that demonstrates that the number of charter schools proposed to be opened, replicated, or expanded under the grant does not exceed the number of public schools needed to accommodate the demand in the community.”

More than one in four charter schools close by the end of year five. A foremost reason for both public school and charter closure and the disruption such closures bring to the lives of children is low enrollment, as seen this past month in Oakland. In New Orleans, school closures have resulted in children being forced to attend multiple schools during their elementary school years, often traveling long distances. Between 1999 and 2017, nearly one million children were displaced due to the closure of their schools, yet only nine states have significant caps to regulate charter growth.

We applaud language that states, “The community impact analysis must also describe the steps the charter school has taken or will take to ensure that the proposed charter school would not hamper, delay, or in any manner negatively affect any desegregation efforts in the public school districts from which students are, or would be, drawn or in which the charter school is or would be located, including efforts to comply with a court order, statutory obligation, or voluntary efforts to create and maintain desegregated public schools…”

In some states, charter schools have been magnets for white flight from integrated schools. Other charter schools have attracted high achieving students while discouraging students with special needs from attending. And, as you know from the letter you received in June of 2021 from 67 public education advocacy and civil rights groups, the North Carolina SE CSP sub-grants were awarded to charter schools that actively exacerbated segregation, serving in some cases, as white flight academies The information requested by the Department is reasonable and will help reviewers make sound decisions.

In addition to our support for the proposed regulations, we have two additional recommendations to strengthen the impact analysis proposal.

Recommendations: (1) That impact analysis requirements include a profile of the students with disabilities and English Language Learners in the community along with an assurance that the applicant will provide the full range of services that meet the needs of students with disabilities and English Language Learners. (2) That applicants include a signed affidavit provided by district or state education department officials attesting to the accuracy of the information provided.

Regarding proposed rules regarding transparency, we note that in the past, schools were awarded grants without providing even one letter of support, or provided false information indicating support that did not exist.

We also strongly support the requirement state entities provide additional supervision of grants. Some will argue that they do not receive sufficient funding to provide supervision. We believe that funding is more than sufficient and we offer the following example as evidence.

In 2020, the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools(PCPCS) received a SE grant of $30 million to open 18 new or expanded charters in the Commonwealth within five years. ESSA allows state entities to retain 10% of all grant funding with 3% dedicated for grant administration. That means that this small state entity would have access to $1 million dollars to supervise the CSP grant spending of eighteen schools. Given that it is a five-year grant, PCPCS would therefore be allowed to spend from CSP funding $200,000 a year to review applications and keep track of grant spending.

To date, three schools have been awarded grants according to the two co-directors hired to administer the program.

We strongly support all SE sub-grant review requirements. These include: (a) how peer reviewers will be recruited and selected, and (b) efforts the applicant must make to recruit peer reviewers from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented groups. We applaud the requirement for a review team. In some states, including New York, CSP sub-grants are routinely distributed as part of the charter authorization process.

To those proposals we suggest adding the following:

Recommendations: (1) That review teams must include at least one reviewer representative of the district public school community. (2) that a minimum point threshold be established for an award, (3) that applications be checked for factual accuracy, and (4) that applications be posted for public review and comment for a period of no less than 45 days before award decisions.

We also recommend that the Department retain funds from the Charter Schools Program to conduct audits of all Developer, CMO and SE subgrants to ensure the funds are being properly spent and that the conditions and aspirations as described in the applications are being met. Annual audits of 5% of all active awardees in each of the programs, randomly chosen by the Department should be conducted each year.

Priorities One and Two

We strongly support the proposed priorities, which we believe will help return the charter school movement back to its original purpose and benefit the children who attend charter schools. Priority one builds off the successful community schools’ movement. Priority two encourages cooperative activities between district and charter schools. We believe that these priorities should be absolute priorities.

Unfortunately, in many cases charter schools’ employee handbooks commonly require teachers to sign nondisclosure agreements that threaten legal action if they reveal the schools “trade secrets” including such things as “curriculum systems, instructional programs, curriculum solutions … new materials research, pending projects and proposals, proprietary production processes, research and development strategies, technological data, and technological prototypes.”

Recommendation

That the Department disallows grants or sub-grants to any schools that apply under priority two if the school or the CMO considers educational material confidential and proprietary and/or does not make publicly available financial, personal or contracting information.

Planning Grants to Unauthorized Charter Schools

According to a 2019 response to Representative Raul Grijalva by then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, 12% of all CSP grants between 2001 and 2019 were awarded to schools that never opened and were not expected to open. In most cases, these schools had never achieved authorization. Whether unauthorized schools can receive funding for planning purposes and how much can be awarded has been left up to the states. This has resulted in large amounts of federal CSP money in the pockets of people who provided no service to the public.

It has also resulted in egregious abuse, especially in Michigan, where charter schools have received more than $100,000 in awards before their authorization was approved. An in-depth review of such planning grants by Michigan State Board of Education President Cassandra Ulbrich revealed questionable submissions, including invoices that would-be charter operators paid themselves and excessive technology purchases.

Recommendation: A school’s planning amount before an authorization is limited to $10,000. If justifiable expenses exceed that amount, they should only be compensated following authorization.

Proposed Selection Criterion for CMO Grants

ESSA places the following restriction on grants awarded to State Entities: No State entity may receive a grant under this section for use in a State in which a State entity is currently using a grant received under this section. However, ESSA is silent regarding the awarding of grants to CMOs. This has resulted in CMOs having several active grants at the same time, with new grants being issued without proper inspection of the efficacy of former grants. For example, it has resulted in the IDEA charter CMOreceiving six grants in a ten-year period totaling nearly $300 million. These grants occurred under a leadership structure that engaged in questionable practices, including the attempted yearly lease of a private jet, related-party transactions, and the rental of a luxury box at San Antonio Spurs games.

IDEA received two awards, in 2019 and 2020, totaling more than $188 million even as the 2019 audit of the Inspector General found that IDEA submitted incomplete and inaccurate reports on three prior grants. The IG report also looked at a randomly selected sample of expenses and found that IDEA’s charges to the grants did not always include only allowable and adequately documented non-personnel expenses.

Recommendations:

That department regulations disallow the awarding of grants to any CMO currently using a grant received under the CMO program and that for any grant exceeding $25 million, the Department’s OIG conducts an audit before an additional grant is awarded.

I don’t often ask the readers of this blog to do anything other than vote. I urge you to write the Department on behalf of these urgently needed reforms.

The deadline for comments is April 13, 2022.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, For-Profit, Network for Public Education, Segregation, U.S. Department of Education

The Companies That Are Still Doing Business in Russia

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2022 //
23

Dana Milbank wrote about the companies that have stopped making money in Russia to protest its invasion of Ukraine and its ruthless attacks on civilian targets. And those who didn’t.

Milbank said that all of us can help Ukraine by refusing to patronize the businesses still operating in Russia. Zelensky asked this of us when he spoke to Congress yesterday.

Milbank writes:

Zelensky made another ask on Wednesday morning, and it’s something all Americans can help with. We can stop buying the products of businesses that continue to fund Vladimir Putin’s war machine, even after its full horrors — indiscriminately targeting civilians, murdering children — are obvious to the world.

“All American companies must leave Russia. … Leave their market immediately, because it is flooded with our blood,” the young leader said, asking lawmakers “to make sure that the Russians do not receive a single penny that they use to destroy our people in Ukraine, the destruction of our country, the destruction of Europe. … Peace is more important than income.”

Most American companies get that. Some 400 U.S. and other multinational firms have pulled out of Russia, either permanently or temporarily, according to Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who has kept the authoritative list of corporate actions in Russia. Oil companies (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil) and tech companies (Dell, IBM, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter) led the way, and many others (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola) eventually followed…

Those who want to stop Russia’s murderous attack against Ukraine should stop investing in or buying the products of these companies.

Koch Industries, whose owners gave to right-wing causes for years, is now financing Putin’s war. The people who make Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Vanity Fair napkins and Georgia-Pacific lumber are abetting the spilling of Ukrainians’ blood.

Like Reebok shoes? They’re being used to stomp on Ukraine. Authentic Brands Group, which also owns Aeropostale, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Nine West, among others, is in the hall of shame.

The source of his information about the companies that closed their doors and those who didn’t was a list compiled by Jeffrey Donnenfeld at Yale University. Check it out.

The worst malefactor is Koch Industries. The father of the Koch brothers did business with Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s. It’s business.

Categories Ethics, For-Profit, International, Koch Brothers, Wall of Shame

Arizona: State Senate Censures Member Who Threatens Violence

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2022 //
16

Republicans and Democrats joined in a rare bipartisan vote to censure extremist Rep. Wendy Rogers. Rogers, a MAGA zealot, took part by video in a white nationalist conference where she called for “public hangings” of high-level officials and used anti-Semitic slurs.

During the conference, speakers made racist remarks and cheered on Russian President Vladimir Putin, comparing the Russian leader favorably to Adolf Hitler.

Rogers, in her remarks, praised Fuentes — an outspoken racist who has said he does not believe women should have the right to vote — as “the most persecuted man in America.”

Republican leaders joined Democrats in voting to censure Rogers.

Thirteen Democrats and 11 Republicans voted for the censure language read on the Senate floor. It was the first time in three decades senators publicly censured one of their own members, and the move was applauded by Gov. Doug Ducey — who just days ago was criticized for his support of Rogers.

Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts commented on the hypocrisy of Governor Doug Ducey, who first defended Rogers, then praised her censure. Ducey raised $500,000 to elect Rogers.

Well, it took a while – far, far too long, in fact – but the unmasking of state Sen. Wendy Rogers has finally begun and what a sight it is to behold.

At long last, a few Republican leaders are beginning to speak out about the far right rock star from Flagstaff, a first-term state legislator who has built a national following as she rants about election conspiracies and George Soros and the cabal of Jews, journalists, political elites and other nefarious characters who plot to create a New World Order.

The Senate on Tuesday actually voted 24-3 to censure her for inciting violence at a white nationalist conference on Friday and conduct unbecoming a senator … or any decent human being.

Gov. Doug Ducey isn’t speaking out, of course. Oh, he issued a statement after the censure vote, saying that “antisemitic and hateful language has no place in Arizona.”

Since Ducey’s comment, Rogers has gone on to speak to white nationalists at the America First Political Action Conference where she heaped praise on conference organizer Nick Fuentes, a Holcaust denier who has warned that America needs to protect its “white demographic core” and on Friday noted that people are comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolph Hitler, “as if that isn’t a good thing…”

During her pre-recorded speech, Rogers lauded the white nationalists as “patriots” and complained that the country is “forcibly vaccinating people with a bioweapon.” She followed that up with a call for public hangings.

“When we do take back our God-given rights, we will bring these criminals to justice,” she said. “We need to build more gallows. If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them, and use a newly built set of gallows, it’ll make an example for these traitors who have betrayed our country. They have yet to be justly punished for the crimes they have committed.”

She was just getting started.

Over the weekend, Rogers took to Twitter to fire off post after post of antisemitic and just plain unhinged tripe, decrying the West’s treatment of Russia and calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons”. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arder, she said, “all report to the same Satanic masters.”

“I stand with the Christians worldwide not the global bankers who are shoving godlessness and degeneracy in our face,” Rogers wrote.

No matter what Rogers said, no matter how foul, Ducey remained silent.

FYI, Trump has endorsed Ducey’s opponent, because Ducey was in sufficiently loyal to him.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Bigotry, Ethics, Fascism, Insane

Free Shani Robinson!

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2022 //
11

Tomorrow at 9 a.m., the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the Abolitionist Teaching Netwotk will host a press conference at the Fulton County Courthouse. They will be asking the judge and district attorney not to send nonviolent educators to prison during the middle of a pandemic.

Shani Robinson contacted me this morning to ask if I would be willing to send a statement of support. I read Shani’s book None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators and was convinced that Shani was unjustly prosecuted and convicted. Investigators pressured her and others to confess or to name others. She maintained her innocence. As a first grade teacher, she was not eligible for a bonus based on student scores. She was convicted by a racist judge who had the temerity to claim that the cheating scandal was “the sickest thing that’s ever happened to this town.” Not slavery. Not murder. Not Jim Crow.

I wrote the following letter. If you read the book and are as outraged as I am by the prosecution and conviction of Shani Robinson, please send a letter of support for Shani today. You may also contact elected officials on her behalf.

Here is my letter:

A Letter to the Judge and the District Attorney:
Honorable Officers of the Court and the Law in Fulton County:

I am a recently retired Professor at New York University and a historian of American education.
I am writing to urge you not to imprison Shani Robinson and other nonviolent educators.

I have read Shani’s book, which persuaded me that the state wrongly used RICO statutes to prosecute educators accused of changing student answers on standardized tests. Cheating of this kind has been documented in many school districts, and no other district has invoked a federal racketeering statute to prosecute teachers. The usual punishment is termination.

Shani taught first grade, where the tests have no stakes for students or teachers. She had no motive or reason to cheat.

I believe she was unjustly prosecuted by overzealous investigators. She could have pleaded guilty or accused others to avoid prosecution but she insisted on her innocence.

I believe her.

I believe her prosecutors wrongly pursued her, using tactics that were intended to coerce false convictions. Her conviction was unfair and racist.

I urge you not to send her to prison in the midst of a pandemic. Not now, and not ever.

I urge you to reopen and review her case.

I believe in Shani Robinson’s innocence.


Diane Ravitch, Ph.D.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Cheating, Ethics, Georgia, Justice

Jim Sleeper: It Can Happen Here

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2022 //
86

Jim Sleeper is a lecturer in political science at Yale and an author. He wrote the following post in 2018, when the horrors of the Trump regime were fresh. It is still relevant.

Donald J. Trump isn’t a Nazi, although his father came close. It’s true that historical analogies between Trump’s policies and Hitler’s are often facile, and sometimes dangerously misleading. But here’s one that I’m not inclined to shrug off.

During a long stay in Berlin in 2009, I went often to the Grunewald railway station to have my coffee. It’s a picturesque little station, built in the 1899, fronted by a cobblestone square and surrounded by splendid, well-preserved villas of that period.

It’s also the point from which more than 50,000 Berlin Jews were shipped to concentration camps, a few hundred a week, from 1942 to 1945. At the station’s Track 17, a steel strip along the platform edge records, in raised letters, each week’s shipment of several hundred “Juden” to Theresienstadt, Minsk, Riga, Kaunas, Łódź and, later, directly to Auschwitz and other death camps.

It’s hard for most Americans, especially those of us whose parents fought in World War II, to imagine that people who boarded the trains had no idea of what lay ahead. Yet, although Jews had been vilified and some attacked on the streets since 1938, some things remained unthinkable to Berlin Jews, most of whom had been middle-class, law-abiding citizens since birth. They showed up at station on the appointed dates, children and luggage in tow, for what they’d been told would be deportation to resettlement and work centers. At worst, they expected something like what Japanese-Americans experienced in internment camps on our own West Coast during the same war.

Under the watchful eyes of German police, they took their seats in ordinary passenger coaches for many of these departures. Only later, far beyond Berlin, were they transferred to box cars. Some time after that, postcards they hadn’t written were sent to relatives or acquaintances whom they’d listed with the authorities, assuring them that all was well in their new locations.

One day in April of 2009, as I sipped my coffee at the Grunewald station alongside retirees in their 70s and near a beer-garden where younger Germans also overlooked the square, three police cars swept in and officers leapt out, commanding us, “Don’t Move.” Then approximately 45 young military officers in formal parade dress descended from a tourist bus. Their uniforms were attractive, but alien—clearly not German. As they milled about, one of the men seated near me asked a police officer, “Was is das?”

“Israelischen,” he answered. They were Israeli army officers.

A silence descended upon the square like nothing I’d ever felt, so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Not another word was spoken, but I thought that I sensed three dimensions in the quiet all around me. The first was straight out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind: “They’re here. They’ve come.” The second was of admiration, or at least respect, for these vibrant young officers, stunning negations of the image of “Juden” that some of these older men must have remembered from their infancy. The third dimension, I sensed from the tightened body language around me, carried a flicker of resentment at having to be reminded, instead of being left to sip one’s coffee in peace.

A black car with tinted windows ascended a ramp toward Track 17. The Israeli officers fell into formation and followed. They’d come to lay a wreath on Track 17 on Yom Ha’Shoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day. Ironically, I hadn’t remembered the day myself.

I recount this now because some Americans remind me of Berlin Jews who didn’t think the unthinkable when they should have. After watching the Trump administration tear apart weeping parents and children—on the initiative of its senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, who’s Jewish—I’m thinking that although Trump has now found it politically expedient to halt the practice, more than a few of my fellow Americans were thinking, “Well, they deserve it, unlike me, a law-abiding citizen, and a veteran.”

Those Berlin Jews had been law-abiding citizens, too, at least until 1935, and more than a few were military veterans: Some 12,000 of the Jews who had served in the German military had fallen in World War I. In an irony beyond ironies, it was a Jewish lieutenant, Hugo Gutmann, who secured an Iron Cross, First Class, for a 29-year-old corporal under his command, Adolph Hitler.

We now know that German veterans of that war, Jews and non-Jews alike, were lied to and sent into harm’s way for no good reason. So were soldiers in the Nazi Wehrmacht 25 years later, whom my father, a corporal in the U.S. Army Combat Engineers, was ordered to supervise as prisoners as his 277th battalion clanked across northern Germany, because he spoke Yiddish, which is closely related to German.

He did it with mix of grief and revulsion. One day, when his battalion commandeered a Nazi-friendly baron’s estate in the town of Hohne, my father and others scouted a cottage behind the mansion and found a white-haired, well-spoken man who said he was a caretaker but whom the G.I.’s suspected was closer to the missing baron. As some of them prodded him down the hill toward the mansion, jabbing him roughly with their rifle barrels, my father said, suddenly, almost instinctively, “Cut that out.”

“Why? You should enjoy this Sleeper, you’re a Jew.”

“Cut it out, I said.” He had no illusions about Nazism. But he was a young American, emancipated from his ancestors’ European hell, and he thought he was fighting for a world better than one in which the tables of unjust power are merely turned, a world where justice—dare one say, “due process”?—is stronger than revenge.

Watching the fires that Trump is stoking week in, week out, I wonder when his supporters and enablers will see that the unthinkable could happen to them. I’m not inclined to alarmism, but what if, a couple of years from now, veterans who say they fought for an America where people are free to speak their minds decide to speak their own minds in ways Trump doesn’t like? How far might this admirer of Vladimir Putin go against Americans he thinks are his enemies? He’s already said that he wants to tighten libel laws; his ICE agents have developed arrest-and-detention tactics that a craven Congress would let him expand with the stroke of a pen; municipal police forces are more militarized than ever before.

Yes, historical analogies are risky. But, sipping coffee overlooking the Grunewald station’s charming cobblestone square, you’d never imagine what happened there if you hadn’t been told.

Categories Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Fascism, Trump

Peter Greene: Pennsylvania Cybercharters Get $pecial Treatment

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2022 //
9

Cyber charters in Pennsylvania are a money pit because they are not subject to the same rules as public schools. Charter lobbyists must have written the charter laws as they have in other states. And they protect their freedom from scrutiny despite the fact that the founder of the first and biggest cyber charter operator in the state was sentenced to prison in 2018 for his failure to pay taxes on $8 million that he skimmed from the school’s funds. (Note that he was not jailed for embezzling funds but for not paying taxes on the money.)

Peter Greene discovered another way that the state’s cyber charters get favored treatment. Public schools are not allowed to sit on millions of dollars of rainy day funds. Cyber charters are.

I remember what charter advocates promised back in the late 1980s when the idea of charters was first being sold. Charters would be more “accountable” than regular public schools.

But now we know:

Accountability is for public schools, not for charter schools.

Categories Education Industry, Ethics, Fraud, Funding, Pennsylvania, Virtual Charter Schools

The Christmas Miracle

By dianeravitch
December 25, 2021 //
18

What a wonderful story from World War 1. Please read it. These men and boys were not enemies. The politicians told them they were.

On a frosty, starlit night, a miracle took place. In 1914, a melody drifted over the darkness of No Man’s Land. First “O, Holy Night,” then “God Save the King.”

Peeking over their trenches for what must have been the first time in weeks, British soldiers were surprised to see Christmas trees lit with candles on the parapets of the enemy’s trenches.
Then a shout: “You no shoot, we no shoot!”

The Christmas Truce was a brief, spontaneous cease-fire that spread up and down the Western Front in the first year of World War I. It’s also a symbol of the peace on Earth and goodwill toward humans so often lacking not just on the battlefront but in our everyday lives.

In that spirit, the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City has published an online gallery of hundreds of accounts of such Christmas truces — letters home from soldiers that were published in British papers.

Here, a sampling of these letters shows the variety and wonder of the Christmas Truce:

“This has been the most wonderful Christmas I have ever struck. We were in the trenches on Christmas Eve, and about 8.30 the firing was almost at a stand still. Then the Germans started shouting across to us, ‘a happy Christmas’ and commenced putting up lots of Christmas trees with hundreds of candles on the parapets of their trenches.” — Cpl. Leon Harris, 13th Battalion, London Regiment (Kensington)

“At 2 am on Christmas morning a German band played a couple of German tunes and then ‘Home, Sweet Home’ very touchingly which made some fellows think a bit. After they played ‘God Save The King’ and we all cheered.” — Pvt. H. Dixon, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

“We would sing a song or a carol first and then they would sing one and I tell you they can harmonise all right.” — Pvt. G. Layton, A Company, 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment
“Half-way they were met by four Germans, who said they would not shoot on Christmas Day if we did not. They gave our fellows cigars and a bottle of wine and were given a cake and cigarettes. When they came back I went out with some more of our fellows and we were met by about 30 Germans, who seemed to be very nice fellows. I got one of them to write his name and address on a postcard as a souvenir. All through the night we sang carols to them and they sang to us and one played ‘God Save the King’ on a mouth organ.” — Rifleman C.H. Brazier, Queen’s Westminsters of Bishop’s Stortford

German and British soldiers stand together on the battlefield near Ploegsteert, Belgium, during the Christmas Truce. (Imperial War Museum/AP)

“We soon came up to them. About 30 could speak English. One fellow wanted a letter posted to his sweetheart in London.” — Gunner Masterton
“Between the trenches there were a lot of dead Germans whom we helped to bury. In one place where the trenches are only 25 yards apart we could see dead Germans half-buried, their legs and gloved hands sticking out of the ground. The trenches in this position are so close that they are called ‘The Death Trap’, as hundreds have been killed there.” — A junior officer

“On Christmas Day we were out of the trenches along with the Germans, some of whom had a song and dance, while two of our platoons had a game of football. It was surprising to see the German soldiers — some appeared old, others were boys, and others wore glasses . . . A number of our fellows have got addresses from the Germans and are going to try and meet one another after the war.” — Pvt. Farnden, Rifle Brigade

“On our right was a regiment of Prussian Guards and on our left was a Saxon regiment. On Christmas morning some of our fellows shouted across to them saying that if they would not fire our chaps would meet them half-way between the trenches and spend Christmas as friends. They consented to do so. Our chaps at once went out and when in the open Prussians fired on our men killing two and wounding several more. The Saxons, who behaved like gentlemen, threatened the Prussians if they did the same trick again. Well, during Christmas Day our fellows and the Saxons fixed up a table between the two trenches and they spent a happy time together, and exchanged souvenirs and presented one another with little keepsakes.” — A British soldier


“One of our men was given a bottle of wine in which to drink the King’s health. The regiment actually had a football match with the Germans who beat them 3-2.” — A British officer

American filmmaker, Wilbur H. Durborough made a silent documentary film called “On the Firing Line With the Germans” about the German army during World War I. (Courtesy: Library of Congress)


“You said I should probably hardly know it was Christmas Day, but far from it; we had a most extraordinary day and quite different from others. . . . Lots of English and Germans met between the two lines and had talks . . . there were bicycle races on bikes without tyres found in the ruins of the house.” — A British officer

“A hundred yards or so in the rear of our trenches there were houses that had been shelled. These were explored with some of the regulars and we found old bicycles, top-hats, straw hats, umbrellas etc. We dressed ourselves up in these and went over to the Germans. It seemed so comical to see fellows walking about in top-hats and with umbrellas up. Some rode the bicycles backwards. We had some fine sport and made the Germans laugh.” — Brazier

“I daresay you will be surprised at me writing a letter on such paper as this, but you will be more surprised when I tell you that it contained cake given to one of our men by a German officer on Christmas Day, and that I was given some of it . . . We were able to bury our dead, some of whom had been lying there for six weeks or more. We are still on speaking terms with them, so that we have not fired a shot at them up to now (Dec. 29), neither have they, so that the snipers on each side have had a rest.” — Pvt. Alfred Smith, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

“Really you would hardly have thought we were at war. Here we were, enemy talking to enemy. They like ourselves with mothers, with sweethearts, with wives waiting to welcome us home again. And to think within a few hours we shall be firing at each other again.” — Masterson

Gillian Brockell is a staff writer for The Washington Post’s history blog, Retropolis. She has been at The Post since 2013 and previously worked as a video editor.

Categories Ethics

Capital & Main: How Much Corporations Pay to Bust Unions (A Lot!)

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2021 //
8

This article in the Capital & Main series was written by Marcus Baram and is titled ”Inside the Secretive World of Union-Busting: Here’s How Much Corporations Pay to Bust Unions.” Subtitle: “U.S. companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to ensure workers don’t organize.”

It begins:

A handful of workers at the Dollar General In the small Connecticut town of Barkhamsted had grown frustrated last September at being poorly treated by a district manager, amid allegations

The organizing effort involved just six workers (five after one said he was fired for his efforts to unionize) earning $13 an hour — so about $624 a day in total — but the company spent multiples of that to combat the union drive. Dollar General paid Labor Relations Institute, a firm known for its union avoidance consulting, a fee of $2,700 per day for each consultant it brought in, according to filings with the Department of Labor. LRI used five consultants, who reportedly held one-on-one meetings with workers and conducted group sessions to educate them on the risks of joining a union. In the end, the unionization effort failed and the company breathed a sigh of relief. The retail giant posted $33.7 billion in sales and $2.7 billion in profit in 2020, but remains convinced its future earnings might have been hurt if any of its 157,000 workers joined a union.

What do you say when a corporation cares more about profits than the lives of its workers?

Categories Accountability, Economics, Ethics, Funding, Inequality, Unions
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