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Annals of Privatization in Pennsylvania

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2012 //
3

Recently, the FBI raided the offices of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, because of concerns about the intermingling of various for-profit businesses that were created by the school. The school has revenues of about $100 million or more and has spun off a number of other businesses. Apparently, the former governor Ed Rendell made some moves to seek greater accountability and transparency in the school’s booming business, but the current Corbett administration relaxed that effort.

This makes for fascinating reading, if you have any interest in how privatization works and how it is possible to become rich beyond your wildest dreams by running an online charter school for profit. The web of interlocking businesses is dazzling. For some reason, this line caught my eye: “The other person most involved in demanding more transparency from PA Cyber, former Department of Education Chief Counsel Judy Shopp, could not be reached. She left the state’s employ and is now PA Cyber’s compliance officer, also getting income from Avanti, according to financial disclosures she filed.”

Categories For-Profit, On-Line Education, Pennsylvania

You Should Read This Article

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2012 //
21

One of the nice things about having your own blog is that you can do things like recommend an article that appeared last November.

I recommend this article by Lee Fang that was published in The Nation.

It is a stunning piece of investigative journalism about the corporate reform movement, its leaders, its methods, its goals.

The article centers on events in Florida but the context is national.

It is a shocking story, well documented, and very important.

When I read it, I tweeted it.

It deserves to be read and widely circulated.

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, On-Line Education

Transforming Education into a Marketplace

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2012 //
16

This reader scrutinized the website of the Capital Roundtable. This is what he learned:

Although I am not a middle-market investor, I sure did learn a whole bunch over at the Capital Roundtable website. You see, I did not know this:

“Education is now the second largest market in the U.S., valued at $1.3 trillion.  So while an industry of this size will always be scrutinized by regulators, the most onerous recent changes are likely over, and investors should face an easier climate down the road.  And while eventual passage is not guaranteed, several pieces of legislation favoring the for-profit industry have been proposed in Congress.”

And I have been following Arne Duncan and the Race to the Top but it was nice to see the following in black and white.

“In the K-12 space, the federal “Race To The Top” initiative has enabled a growing level of privatization in the K-12 segment, and rewarding districts for embracing alternative models, technological advances, and locally-based criteria.”

So in this new “space” public education is a market not a public good. RTTT enabled privatization. OK, now I get it.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Race to the Top

Common Core Standards: A Boon for Edu-Biz

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2012 //
15

Whether the Common Core standards are good or bad, one thing that is clear is that they have opened up multiple opportunities for entrepreneurs.

The textbook industry is retooling, at least adding stickers that say their products are aligned with the Common Core.

Pearson is developing a complete curriculum package in mathematics and reading, for almost every grade, assisted by the Gates Foundation. Children in some district will be able to take their lessons from Pearson products from the isearliest years right through to high school graduation.

Consultants are standing by, ready to sell products and services to school districts.

Here is one interesting list of what is available. There are many more.

What is happening now was not unexpected. Indeed, it is the intended result, it was planned for, hoped for, envisioned.

Joanne Weiss, who helped design Race to the Top and is now chief of staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, described the plan:

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

Weiss spent many years as an edu-entrpreneur, engaged in the design, development and marketing of products for the education industry.

We don’t know yet whether Common Core standards will improve the education of America’s children. But of this we can be sure: They will be good for the education industry.

Diane

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Obama, Pearson, Race to the Top, U.S. Department of Education

Where Does Arne Duncan Stand?

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2012 //
33

When John White was appointed to run the Recovery School District in New Orleans, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called him a “visionary school leader.”

Now John White is doing the bidding of a Tea Party governor and leading the most reactionary drive in the nation to dismantle public education; to take money away from the minimum foundation budget for public schools and give it to voucher schools and charter schools; to give public money to small religious schools that don’t teach evolution; to strip teachers of all protection of their academic freedom; to allow anyone to teach, without any credentials, in charter schools; to welcome for-profit vendors of education to take their slice out of the funding for public schools.

I wonder if Arne Duncan still considers him a “visionary leader”?

I wonder what Arne Duncan thinks of the Louisiana legislation. I wonder why he has not spoken out against any part of it. I wonder why he is silent when Tea Party governors like Chris Christie attack the teachers of their state and try to take away whatever rights they may have won over the years. I wonder if he agreed or disagreed with the Chiefs for Change–the rightwing state superintendents–when they saluted Louisiana’s regressive legislation to take money from public schools and hand it over to private sector interests.

I wonder why he never went to Madison, Wisconsin, to speak out for public sector workers there when it mattered. I wonder what he thinks of the emergency manager legislation in Michigan, where state-appointed emergency managers have closed down public education in two districts and handed it off to charter operators. I wonder what he thinks about the Boston Consulting Group’s plan in Memphis to increase the proportion of students in privately managed charters from 4% to 19%. I wonder what he thinks about the Boston Consulting Group’s plan to privatize up to 40% of Philadelphia’s schools. I wonder what he thinks about the rollback of collective bargaining rights in various states or the removal of job protections for teachers. I wonder what he thinks about ALEC’s coordinated plan to destroy public education. I wonder what he thinks of the emerging for-profit industry that is moving into K-12 education.

He has many opportunities to express his views about the escalation of the war against public education and the ongoing attacks on teachers and their unions.

Why is he silent?

Just wondering.

Categories ALEC, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, K12 Inc., Louisiana, Michigan, Philadelphia, Privatization

The Economist Loves Privatization

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2012 //
14

The Economist magazine has two articles (here and here) about the “success” of charter schools in the U.S., which they admiringly refer to as privatization.

Charter advocates here might be embarrassed by the praise, as they prefer to call themselves “public schools.”

The Economist recognizes that charter schools are experiments in privatization, not simply another form of public school.

Unfortunately the magazine distorts the research on charter schools beyond recognition to justify its praise of privatization and free markets.

After a lame attempt to discredit the CREDO study–the one that found that only 17% of charters outperformed a matched neighborhood public school–the magazine nonetheless portrays charters as the sure cure to “save” black inner-city children. It seems that only private entrepreneurs know the secrets to educating poor black children.

Even charter advocates in the U.S. usually acknowledge that the academic results of charters are mixed, at best. There are some that get high test scores, some that get low test scores, and most that get scores no different from public schools.

The Economist articles do not acknowledge that charter schools typically serve fewer children with disabilities, and fewer children who are English language learners. They also exercise the right to remove students who don’t comply with their strict disciplinary code and return them to public schools.

And in the magazine’s lavish praise of New Orleans charters, it conveniently overlooks the fact that New Orleans is the next-to-lowest ranked district in the state of Louisiana, 69th out of 70. It is a very low performing district in a low performing state.

Also, the magazine ignores the disastrous results of the fastest growing segment of the charter world, and that is, the for-profit cyber-charters.

Why do charters require so much hype and spin to thrive? Why not admit that they face the same problems as public schools if they enroll the same children? Why not admit that the most successful charters spend more money than regular public schools? Why so much pretense?

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

Deathwatch for Public Schools in Michigan, part 2

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2012 //
14

When I wrote about the end of public education in two districts in Michigan, I pointed out that the state’s emergency manager law is a mechanism to end democracy when there is a fiscal crisis. That strikes me as draconian.

Surely we don’t want to see governmental entities running up deficits that they can’t pay, but there is another side to the story. Some districts don’t have the property tax base to provide an adequate education. When that is the case, it is the state’s responsibility to assure that there is enough money to educate the children and to make sure that the money is spent responsibly. A fiscal monitor or a financial control board could perform that function. When New York City teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in 1975, the governor did not shut down democracy in New York City; he appointed a financial control board that helped the city to return to fiscal health.

What is happening in Michigan is extremist and anti-democratic. The governor has the power to appoint an emergency manager and to end the functioning of democratically elected and appointed bodies. Is it mere happenstance that in both instances cited, Muskegon Heights and Highland Park, the emergency manager made the same decision to close down public education and to outsource the children to privately managed charter corporations? In Muskegon Heights, the only offers came from for-profit corporations that have poor track records.

In a Michigan article about my blog, several conservatives (I assume they are conservatives as who else would be happy to privatize school districts) expressed their approval at the idea of ending democracy and local control in these two districts. This is simply bizarre. Don’t conservatives prefer local control to the heavy hand of government? Don’t they usually defend the rights of people to determine their own destiny?

According to the article in Michigan, I and others “have not condemned the behavior that led to the deficits or proposed solutions.”

Yes I do have a solution.

My solution is this: The state of Michigan should preserve public education for future generations in every school district, as the founding fathers intended when they passed the Northwest Ordinance. If they suspect fiscal irresponsibility, they should appoint a fiscal expert to make sure that the district is returned to fiscal health. But if the district lacks the resources to educate its children, then the state should supply what is needed to take care of the children.

And yes, I do condemn the behavior that led to the deficits. I condemn Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature for heedlessly cutting the funding for public schools and plunging dozens of school districts in Michigan into fiscal distress. I condemn Governor Snyder and the Michigan Legislature for giving tax breaks to corporations instead of funding public schools. I condemn Governor Snyder and the Michigan legislature for fiscal irresponsibility. I condemn them for not caring about other people’s children. I condemn them for preferring privatization over public responsibility.

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization
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