Archives for category: For-Profit
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Karen Francisco: How Failed Charter Schools Survive and Turn a Profit

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
20

In an earlier post, Karen Francisco (editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) lamented that failing charters escape accountability by turning into voucher schools or shopping for an authorizer with low standards. When challenged by a reader, Francisco explained what happened in Fort Wayne.

She wrote:

“In fact, the two failed Imagine Inc. charter schools in Fort Wayne are being converted to voucher schools. The local charter board has been dismissed, loans forgiven and Indiana taxpayers will continue to pay Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease. Instead of through the charter board, the tax dollars now will be funneled through low- and middle-income families to a religious organization and, in turn, to the REIT.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Indiana

Indiana: “It’s the Money, Stupid”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
41

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes that she is often asked to explain what a charter school is. She used to say that it was a publicly- funded school that is exempt from many state regulations in exchange for higher accountability.

But now she sees failing charter schools turn into voucher schools or go shopping for an authorizer with low or no standards.

She writes:

“If I’m feeling less charitable, I explain that charter schools are an effort to weaken and destroy teacher unions. Charter operators hire primarily young, inexperienced teachers; work them to death and then decline to renew their contracts when they should be giving them raises.”

But when she read about the bond investors’ conference this week, she realized that the driving force behind charters is not accountability, it’s not just union-busting, it’s profit.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana

How Charter Entrepreneurs Make Millions with Taxpayer Dollars

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
15

This is a stunning research job by Jersey Jazzman about the money tree that is turning canny businessmen into multimillionaires by investing in charter schools.

They package financing from the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Education, the Walton Family Foundation, and they spin it into gold–for themselves.

The family charter group he describes controls over $100 million in real estate. They have gotten very, very rich.

Here is his conclusion. Please read the whole post. It is jaw-dropping.

“…while we can debate the relative merits of charter schools, one thing is quite certain: any notion that the charter industry is “all about the kids” needs to be dismissed, because there are adults who are clearly making a lot of money off of charter expansion. And it’s not just people like the Zuluetas: Bruno himself, according to Building Hope’s 2011 tax return, earned $388,709 in compensation and another $56,865 in benefits for a year’s work. In contrast, the average Florida teacher salary is $45,723.”

These are the same people who claim that teachers don’t put children first. What do they put first? It is not the children.

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.9D3ptFh6.dpuf

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

Minneapolis Public Schools: Will They Survive?

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
27

It is not news to readers of this blog that public education is under attack in cities across the nation by a politically powerful and heavily funded privatization movement. In some states, this movement has moved into the suburbs as well.

This video pulls away the mask of reform and explains in clear detail the nexus of connections behind the privatization movement in Minneapolis. This district was once the largest in the state. Due to the proliferation of privately managed charters, it is now the third largest in Minnesota.

The video has no production values. It is a simple narration of a complex graphic that displays the web of relationships among powerful foundations, one very powerful family, national organizations, and corporate interests.

All the big players have converged on Minneapolis: 50CAN, DFER, TFA, and many more, abetted by one powerful local family that owned the city’s biggest newspaper, sold it, and now owns the online newspaper Minnpost.

Charters in Minneapolis are more segregated than the public schools and get lower scores.

These inconvenient facts do not slow the advance of the privatization movement. They present themselves as idealists, and some are fooled by the rhetoric about “saving minority children from failing schools” and “closing the achievement gap.” They are flush with cash and federal tax credits, and fueled by ambition, a love of power, media adulation, and–for some–tidy profits.

Left to their own devices, they will restore a dual school system, both publicly funded, one free to kick out students, the other a dumping ground for the kids unwanted by the charters.

Left to their own devices, they will destroy public education in America.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Minnesota, Privatization

Sorry, You Missed Today’s Symposium about Cashing in on the Charter Sector

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2013 //
16

If only I had known sooner, I would have posted the announcement of today’s symposium.

Yes! There is money to be made by investing in charter schools! It’s all about the children! It’s the civil rights issue of our time! And a great investment too!!

“Bonds and Blackboards: Investing in Charter Schools (New York, NY)
Symposium – July 10, 2013; 9:30 – 6:30 PM

WHAT: A one-day symposium to help Wall Street – especially the tax-exempt bond market – understand the value of investing in charter schools and best practices for assessing their bond credit.

WHEN: Wed., July 10 – 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Registration and breakfast begin at 8:30 a.m.)

WHERE: The Harvard Club of New York City, 35 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

WHO: Confirmed speakers include Noah Wepman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; LISC CEO Michael Rubinger; charter school investors Alliance Bernstein, Hamlin Capital and Nuveen; commercial bankers; bond underwriter RBC Capital Markets; and rating agency Standard & Poor’s. The charter school sector will be represented by SUNY, a charter school authorizer; charter support organizations; and charter school operators.

The keynote speaker is Brett Peiser, CEO of Uncommon Schools, a charter school network of 32 schools in the Northeast that has successfully reversed the achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income counterparts.

Registration for this event is now closed.
If you are interested in attending, please email effc@lisc.org to see if we can accommodate you.

Location: Harvard Club
35 West 44th Street
City: New York
State: New York”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

Cash In on the Education Market Now!

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2013 //
18

Here is an event you won’t want to miss, if you can pay the price of admission.

So many opportunities to cash in on the emerging market of education.

There are, as the ad says, lots of needs to address:

“This is a long-overdue shift the public has been clamoring for — measuring quality by what students are able to master, not by time spent in a classroom — and the private sector is offering numerous opportunities to ride this wave.

“Another example is the push to enhance offerings in the K-12 space, potentially opening up more early childhood and supplemental education.

“And many for-profit providers are finding opportunities in partnerships with hospitals and universities and other large employers, so what was once a demand stemming primarily from affluent parents is now trickling downwards.

“These are just some of the excellent reasons why investors who appreciate expanding opportunities in attractively-priced companies belong at The Capital Roundtable’s ENCORE conference — “Private Equity Investing in For-Profit Education Companies,” being held in New York City on Thursday, July 25th.

“Here are even more reasons that new technologies have created among education companies focused on support services —

“Teacher Evaluations — now being put into the hands of third parties.
Enrollment Specialists — outsourcing this key activity to dedicated firms.
Student Services and Job Placement — increasingly being turned over to middle-market providers.
Admissions and Financial Aid IT — with huge interest in software and SAAS providers.
Massive Open Online Courses — helping institutions deliver large-scale MOOCs that are typically free to take and to serve to build an institution’s brand.
Syndicated Content — helping institutions save on course development and faculty costs with pre-packaged curriculums to be delivered online with the institution’s own brand.
No argument, this is an amazing moment for private equity investors to explore for-profit education opportunities. And this encore conference from The Capital Roundtable is particularly valuable if you are new to the education marketplace and need to understand its particular complexities such as the Higher Education Reauthorization Act implications.

“Just consider —

“The education sector represents the second biggest category of GDP, so there’s a lot of need to address.
63% of the deal value last year in the for-profit education sector represented private equity transactions, up from 51% the year earlier.”

What are you waiting for?

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit

President Obama, Please Read This

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2013 //
33

This teacher in Pennsylvania wonders why President Obama is turning his back on the calamity facing students in Philadelphia.

Please send his comment to the White House. After years of budget cuts and layoffs, isn’t it time for action? The Obama girls attend a wonderful school with small classes, experienced teachers, arts, physical education, science labs, a library: shouldn’t everyone?

The teacher writes:

“I teach in suburban Philadelphia in a district which is managing to survive with cutbacks in programming and hiring under Governor Corbett, but my wife teaches in Philadelphia and is experiencing firsthand the devastating impact of the state and city leaders seriously shortchanging public education. In September she currently expects to return to a school with no assistant principal, no counsellor, no nurse, no aids, no librarian, and fewer teachers.

“While I expect the kind of indifference exhibited by our tea party Governor and legislature to public education, I am struck by the almost total dropping of the ball by our President and the Democrats on the issue of saving our schools, especially on behalf of the constituency which worked and voted for their reelection. Is this because the President and those around him making education policy have been bought off by the same education “reformers” who own Governor Corbett?

“I got my answer when I watched the “cutting edge classrooms” town hall for students which was sponsored by the Obama administration on June 6 after the President announced his plan to put more technology in our nations classrooms. Here is the link: whitehouse.gov/show-and-tell. This was billed as the National Show and Tell on connected classrooms. The host was a spokesperson for something called EdSurge and at approximately the 24 minute spot of the presentation she tells the assembled students that she wants them to believe she has a magic wand which could solve any problem in their schools and she invites responses. It is then that a student from Philadelphia explains that her district has a 300 million dollar deficit, that teachers and counselors are being laid off and that she wishes the magic wand would be used by the Obama administration to fix this crisis caused by, what the student refers to as the “Doomsday budget.”

“Incredibly the total response from the spokesperson is to say: okay, Philadelphia wants more funding for its doomsday “project”. That’s it. That’s all she wrote.

“As you said in your letter to the Education Secretary it is a national disgrace to allow the public schools to die, but as long as leaders are more beholden to the technology companies than the students, technology, not learning is what we will get.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, For-Profit, Obama, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Privatization

Anthony Cody: The Nine Most Terrifying Words in the English Language

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
58

Anthony Cody explains that the nine most terrifying words in the English language to an educator are, “I’m from Big Business, and I’m here to help.”

Business ideas about competition and incentives, he says, don’t work in schools.

Profit-driven reforms don’t work either.

Businesses and schools have different bottom lines.

As he concludes:

“The market system demands winners and losers, and the biggest losers of all are the students who find themselves left behind in schools that are unprofitable, or because they are more difficult to educate, and thus are liabilities to whatever schools they enroll in….

“I wrote a week ago that our schools are like a living organism under attack by those who wish to divert resources into profitable ventures. Those of us resisting this are perhaps becoming more activated, like white blood cells are activated when the body’s immune system detects an invasion. We need to understand the reasons business interests are realigning our schools, and work to preserve the core mission of our public education system. Our schools do not exist to prepare students to be compliant workers in an ever more efficient economic system. We are in the business of creating thinkers, not workers, creators, not drones.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

The Onion: A Bold and Innovative Charter School

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2013 //
16

Please read this. THE ONION GETS IT!

When you become a joke in THE ONION, the end of school deform is in sight.

The article begins:

“ATLANTA—One year into its founding as the purported “bold next step in education reform,” administrators on Monday sang the praises of Forest Gates Academy, a progressive new charter school that practices an innovative philosophy of not admitting any students. “We’ve done something here at Forest Gates that is truly special, combining modern, cutting-edge pedagogical methods with a refreshingly non-pupil-centric approach,” said academy president Diane Blanchard, who claimed that the experimental school boasts state-of-the-art facilities, a diverse and challenging syllabus, absolutely zero students, a world-class library, and the highest faculty-student ratio in the nation. “Thanks to our groundbreaking methods, we’ve established a structured yet free-thinking environment where the student is taken out of the equation entirely, and in fact is not allowed on school property. And the results, we think, speak for themselves.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Humor

Idaho Has a Problem

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2013 //
33

Idaho has a problem, and it may not be unique to Idaho.

One of the most powerful families in the state is the Albertson family, which runs the Albertson Foundation.

It seems that one of the family heirs has made millions of dollars by investing in the online charter company K12, and now the Albertson Foundation thinks the whole state should get behind the for-profit corporation and put their kids online. Follow the money.

The foundation has been running “public service ads” with the slogan “Don’t Fail, Idaho,” insisting that the kids in Idaho are doing horribly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal tests. What’s the cure? One guess.

The ads claim that 60% of children in Idaho are “not proficient” on the NAEP tests, but they don’t explain that “proficient” on NAEP is a very high level of performance, what I consider a very strong A or B. The NAEP state coordinator from 2002-2012 tried to explain what the NAEP labels mean, but he probably did not persuade the Albertson Foundation.

Here are the facts:

In fourth grade reading: 31% of children in Idaho are below basic, just below the national average of 34%.

In eigth grade reading, 19% are below basic, well below the national average of 25%.

In fourth grade math, 17% are below basic, about the same as the national average.

In eighth grade math, 23% of the kids are below basic, well below the national average of 28%.

Idaho is not failing.

What would really fail Idaho would be to put large numbers of students into K12 virtual academies, which have high attrition rates, low test scores, and low graduation rates.

Idaho, don’t fall for a bill of goods.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Idaho, On-Line Education, Technology, Computers
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