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Peter Greene: “Personalized Learning” and the Great Bait-and-Switch

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2017 //
45

Peter Greene explains the hoax at the heart of “personalized learning.”

The appeal is that it is customized just for you. The reality is that it is a standardized algorithm that adjusts to your responses but doesn’t you from Adam or Eve.

The Brand X that we’re supposed to be escaping, the view of education that Personalized Learning is supposed to alter, the toxin for which Personalized Learning is the alleged antidote is an education model in which all students get on the same car of the same train and ride the same tracks to the same destination at the same time. That’s not what’s actually going on in public schools these days, but let’s set that aside for the moment.

Real personalized learning would tear up the tracks, park the train, offer every student a good pair of hiking shoes or maybe a four-wheeler, maybe even a hoverboard, plus a map of the territory (probably in the form of an actual teacher), then let the student pick a destination and a path and manner of traveling.

But techno-personalized learning keeps the track and the train. In the most basic version, we keep one train and one track and the “personalization” is that students get on at different station. Maybe they occasionally get to catch a helicopter that zips them ahead a couple of stops.

But personalized? No.

Categories For-Profit, Hoax, Technology, Computers

Peg Tyre: Can a High-Tech Start-Up in Africa Educate Hundreds of Millions of Children and Make a Profit?

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2017 //
42

Peg Tyre, veteran journalist, published a balanced and well-written article about Bridge International Academies in the New York Times Magazine. BIA operates numerous low-fee, for-profit schools in Africa and  its investors hope to spread its brand across the world.

Investors in Bridge include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Pearson, and other familiar names.

The founders had no education experience but they had experience creating successful tech start-ups. They wanted to disrupt education in the manner of Uber and AirBNB, the leaders of the new tech-based economy. They raised $100 million. Their schools cost parents a few dollars a month. Teachers deliver scripted lessons, written in the U.S. and delivered daily to them on an iPad. BIA opens its schools in poor countries where the quality of public education is low. They hope to do good while doing well.

Critics, including me, see BIA as a way that these countries slough off their responsility to provide education by outsourcing it. Critics see it as neocolonialism. Huge numbers of families can’t afford to pay the low fees. Kids are kept out of school when their parents don’t pay.

BIA was supposed to generate huge revenues. However, it is losing $1 million a month.

That is the only metric that counts. If they don’t turn a profit, they will close shop and move on.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, For-Profit, International

Ohio: State Auditor Reprimands ECOT for Using Public Money to Lobby Against Penalty of $60 Million

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2017 //
11

ECOT is the largest virtual charter school in Ohio and among the lowest-performing schools in the state. It has thrived over the years because its founder, William Lager, has given generously to elected officials. The New York Times reported last year that ECOT had the largest graduating class in the nation, but also the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an online charter school based here, graduated 2,371 students last spring. At the commencement ceremony, a student speaker triumphantly told her classmates that the group was “the single-largest graduating high school class in the nation.”

What she did not say was this: Despite the huge number of graduates — this year, the school is on track to graduate 2,300 — more students drop out of the Electronic Classroom or fail to finish high school within four years than at any other school in the country, according to federal data. For every 100 students who graduate on time, 80 do not.

Virtual online charters, said the Times, are the new “dropout factories.”

Having abysmal results was not enough to cause a problem for ECOT. If it were a brick and mortar public school, it would have been closed down.

What caused a problem was that the state audited ECOT’s attendance and found that a substantial number of students were phantom. They either did not exist, never logged on, or logged on for a minute or two.

The state sued ECOT, and won a decision that ECOT owed the state $60 million for inflated attendance numbers. ECOT maintains that the state has no right to audit their numbers. Ha.

Now ECOT is flooding the TV space with heartrending advertisements about how the state is picking on the school. And, here is a true demonstration of chutzpah: ECOT is using taxpayer money to pay for the ads defending its right to avoid auditing.

State Auditor Dave Yost has called out ECOT for its audacity. Yost has ordered ECOT to stop using taxpayer dollars to attack the court’s order to repay the state $60.4 million.

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost has ordered ECOT to stop using taxpayers dollars on television ads attacking the state Department of Education’s decision to seek repayment of $60.4 million, saying the commercials are not proper expenditures “and are impermissible.”

In a letter to the giant online charter dated Friday, Yost said he was writing ECOT “to demand that you act without delay to cease and desist the expenditure of public funds” being used for ads.

ECOT has not yet responded, but it is maneuvering in the Legislature to get the debt deferred until it has time for more appeals.

In the latest ad, signed at the end by “Ohio’s children,” a former ECOT student says: “The Ohio Department of Education wants to end school choice and stop parents from deciding what’s best for their children. That’s why I and the over 36,000 students and alumni of ECOT are hoping our elected leaders fix what’s broken and save our school.”

Thank you, Auditor Yost, for upholding the law and requiring accountability even from a big campaign contributor!

As for ECOT, its results speak for themselves: Close it down.

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio: ECOT Uses Taxpayer $$ to Fight Accountability

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
24

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from Ohio taxpayers to pay for online schooling st home. The owner of ECOT makes large campaign gifts to legislators. The “school” delivers low-level instruction and gets terrible results. High attrition, low test scores, and (according to the New York Times) the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.

Incredibly, the Ohio Department of Education audited ECOT and found that its enrollment numbers are vastly inflated. The state ordered ECOT to refund $60 million.

ECOT went to court to challenge the state’s right to demand accountability. ECOT lost. ECOT announced layoffs.

Now ECOT is blitzing the state with TV ads to protest the state’s efforts to recover the$60 million in overcharges.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170624/ecot-continues-tax-funded-ad-blitz-despite-layoff-announcement

This is the definition of chutzpah.

Categories Accountability, For-Profit, Fraud, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

SHOCKER! Massive Charter Scandal Stretches from Ohio to Florida

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2017 //
17

The Akron Beacon-Joirnal reports on a multi-state charter scandal.

“The founder of an Akron-area charter school company is accused of using thousands of dollars parents paid for student lunches and uniforms and millions more from Ohio and Florida taxpayers to fund home mortgages, plastic surgery, extensive world travel, credit card debt and more.

“Criminal charges filed last week in Florida against Marcus May also allege he improperly used private and public funds earmarked for students’ education to expand his charter school empire in Columbus, Akron, Cleveland and Dayton.

“Florida State Attorney William “Bill” Eddins brought the charges of racketeering and organized fraud against May, the founder of Newpoint Education Partners and Cambridge Education, a Fairlawn company that manages about 20 charter schools in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Akron, Youngstown, Canton and Cleveland.

“In a prepared statement provided to the Beacon Journal on Friday, Cambridge Executive Director John Stack said: “My co-owners and I asked for and today accepted Mr. May’s resignation as managing member of Cambridge. We are now in discussions to remove him completely from ownership in the company because we feel it’s in the best interest of our schools.

“Despite this distraction, my colleagues at Cambridge and I will continue to focus on our core mission and the students we serve as we have always done.”

“Cincinnati businessman Steven Kunkemoeller also was charged in the First Judiciary Circuit, a regional court in Florida. Kunkemoeller is a longtime business partner of May, according to a Beacon Journal/Ohio.com report from December and a multi-state investigation that included help from the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office.

“Kunkemoeller was arrested Wednesday in Florida. May’s attorney has reportedly talked with authorities there. Neither man could be reached for comment.

“The Florida prosecutor alleges that the men fabricated invoices, embellished enrollment, misappropriated public funds and created an elaborate network of limited liability companies in order to bilk the federal and state governments, as well as parents and students.

“In Akron, where Cambridge manages Towpath Trail High School, Middlebury Academy and Colonial Prep Academy, school board members are taking caution but not jumping to conclusions.

“We are keeping a close eye on it and discussing alternatives if they are needed,” said Ron McDaniel, president of Towpath Trail High School. “But we need to be responsible and not make snap decisions. Our schools are running well and run responsibly. We verify things better than the Florida schools did from what I understand.”

“The mark up

“School and business records obtained by the Beacon Journal and detailed by a forensic accountant working on the case show that May and Kunkemoeller marked up the price of services and supplies provided to the charter schools they managed in Ohio and Florida, sometimes more than doubling the cost of school uniforms, desks, computers, chairs and website design.

“Florida investigators questioned the vendors who sold the goods and could find “no apparent business reason” for the mark ups. May and Stack, Cambridge’s executive director, have said that the schools pay more upfront for more flexible financing terms.

“Fabricated invoices

“Items listed on invoices, from iPads to furniture, could not be found when Florida investigators swept schools for evidence of how public dollar were spent…

“Property and bank records reviewed by investigators showed May and his wife, Mary May, purchased a Florida home soon after “rebate” payments began. In 2014, two payments of $175,000 were applied to Kunkemoeller’s mortgage and the May’s home equity line of credit. Investigators traced the money to a laundry list of other non-public expenses, including $381,631 for credit cards, $207,415 for Marcus May and his family, $52,388 for a homeowner’s association fees (including swimming pool services), $4,735 taken as cash, personal loans to other people, a $10,000 jet ski from Barney’s Motorcycle Sales in St. Petersburg, $5,000 to the Fairlawn Country Club, $11,000 for plastic surgery and additional money for trips to Amsterdam, the British Virgin Islands, Brussels, Cancun, China, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Japan, Los Cabos, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Italy.”

Florida officials are investigating; Ohio officials don’t seem to care.

The story goes on to detail massive fraud, double-billing, and other misappropriation of public money.

When will the mainstream media report this story? We know that Betsy DeVos won’t care. As long as parents are choosing these schools, why worry about the money?

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

Pennsylvania: Haverford School Board Opposes Charter “Reform” Legislation

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2017 //
1

The Pennsylvania legislature is considering a bill to “reform” charter schools, but it still allows charters to drain resources from public schools without reimbursement, and it still preserves the low-performing cybercharters that milk resources from public schools with providing a decent education to any students.

Many grassroots groups oppose this bill, and the Haverford School Board just voted 7-1 against it.

The board of school directors recently joined Education Voters of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Education Law Center and other school districts around the state that have voiced opposition to provisions for charter school reform in House Bill 97.

School directors voted 7-1 to adopt a resolution opposing the bill, which they allege “fails to establish meaningful change” from the state’s 20-year-old Charter School Law.

Approved by the state House in April, HB 97 is currently in the Senate Education Committee where amendments are under consideration, said school director and chair of the Delaware County School Boards Legislative Council Larry Feinberg, the resolution’s sponsor.

The resolution states that charter schools that are “publicly funded and privately operated institutions governed by non-elected boards …not accountable to taxpayers, yet paid for with local school district funds….”

Larry Feinberg said that while Haverford has no brick and mortar charter schools, the district has spent $2.4 million since 2012 on historically underperforming cybercharters, with $90.9 million spent county wide for “something that doesn’t work.”

And, “I have grave concerns about accountability,” Feinberg said, recalling Pennsylvania Cyber Charter founder Nick Trombetta’s diversion of funds to make lavish purchases for himself, his girlfriend and family members.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Pennsylvania, Resistance

Amy Shuffelton: Why Did PBS Air a Three-Hour Series that Promotes Free Market Schooling?

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2017 //
25

Amy Shuffelton, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, asks why PBS chose to air “School Inc.” when it was so clearly biased and evidence-free. The three-hour program began to air in April, although some local PBS affiliates chose not to show it. In New York City, it is airing now, on Saturdays.

She writes of its thesis and its many errors of fact and interpretation.

Episode One, The Price of Excellence, starts with Coulson wearing 1970s attire and holding an early Sony Walkman. When the Walkman was invented, he points out, it was expensive, but thanks to entrepeneurial inventiveness it soon became widely affordable. Because competitors were hard at work on cheaper replications, Coulson explains, quality improved as prices dropped. Why hasn’t education followed this trend?…

Over the course of three hours, Coulson revisits the story of Jaime Escalante, the real-life Los Angeles teacher whose success preparing low income public school students for the AP Calculus exam was made famous in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver. He visits Cranbrook Schools, an elite private institution in Michigan. Then he turns to charter schools, which aren’t limited by commitments to tradition as schools like Cranbrook are.

What makes the series truly provocative is that Coulson doesn’t stop there. In Episode Three, Forces and Choices, he visits for-profit private schools in Hyderabad India, Sweden, and New Orleans. And in the last ten minutes of the series, he brings his argument to its conclusion: the key to scaling up educational excellence is free market competition between for-profit schools.

The answer is as obvious as Andrew Coulson’s devout belief in the free market as the answer to everything: Follow the money. The series was paid for by a group of libertarian foundations that are hostile to government and specifically to public schools.

The central thesis of Coulson’s series is that public schools are the same as they were 100 years ago because they don’t compete. Competition, he says again and again, drives innovation. Yet, he does not show a single example of innovation in the private sector schools he lauds. Not one, unless you count the class sizes of 12 at the private Cranbrook School in Michigan, where tuition is $29,000 a year and the endowment is $200 million. The private sector schools, at best, look just like public schools, but without the drama club, the marching band, the robotics classes, the sports teams, and the many activities other than drilling students to take tests.

Please email PBS and let them know how you feel about airing bought-and-paid-for rightwing propaganda.

https://networkforpubliceducation.org/2017/06/9479/

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Testing

Thank You, Massachusetts Teachers Association, for Standing Up to Profiteers!

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2017 //
60

The Massachusetts Teachers Association rejected the for-profit promotion of Depersonalized Learning! MTA delegates also adopted a resolution calling for full funding of public schools.

Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation on NAEP tests, yet the rightwingers on the state board keep trying to shove corporate reform on their successful public schools and teachers.

Thank you, MTA and your valiant leader, Barbara Madeloni.

Madeloni wrote the following to the MTA membership:

“The Annual Meeting of Delegates, which is the highest decision-making body in the MTA, convened on May 19 and 20 to discuss, debate and vote on policy. In this e-mail, I highlight several of the New Business Items that were approved by the delegates. You can read all of those NBIs here in the members’ area of the MTA website. (First-time users will need the number on their MTA membership cards to log in.) The votes of the Annual Meeting delegates reinforce the membership’s commitment to defending public education and building union power to bring about the schools our communities deserve.

“Personalized Learning: The New Threat to Public Education

NBIs #6, #12 and #13 address the threat posed by the state’s promotion of computer-based “personalized learning” strategies, including one through a program called MAPLE/LearnLaunch. This overview is long, but well worth watching. It explains the real dangers of handing over our schools and students to corporate education technology entities.

“Teaching and learning are deeply human activities. We cannot let ed tech companies depersonalize learning or make education a technocratic endeavor. We must assert the centrality of face-to-face relationships – community – and our professional knowledge and autonomy as essential to public education.

“NBI #6 asserts that the MTA opposes DESE’s MAPLE/LearnLaunch partnership and calls for the MTA to create a web page to “share strategies to combat the harmful effects of unvalidated ed tech products on our students, and to defend teachers’ professional judgment and standards against interference by business interests.”

“NBI #12 calls for a web page dedicated to informing members about the threat to public education posed by privatization, including but not limited to personalized learning programs. This connects to our existing page on State Takeovers/Privatization and encompasses the many forms that privatization is taking in preK-12 and higher education. (Important note: The current page includes a link to a form where members in Level 4 and 5 schools are asked to report on their experiences. Please take a few minutes to fill this out if you are in one of those schools.)

“NBI #13 calls for the MTA to update its 2016 report, Threat to Public Education Now Centers on Massachusetts, to include a section on corporate support for personalized learning.

“Hold the Commonwealth Accountable: Fully Fund Our Public Schools

“NBIs #9 and #10 call for the MTA to prepare to file a lawsuit against the governor and Legislature if they fail to address the school funding shortfall identified by the nonpartisan Foundation Budget Review Commission. The commission determined that public schools are underfunded by at least $1 billion a year. NBI #10 says that in the event a lawsuit must be filed, it should seek to end the state’s punitive accountability system until and unless the schools are fully funded. Moved by retiring Springfield Education Association President Tim Collins, these two NBIs represent one way the MTA is responding to the failure of the Commonwealth to abide by its Constitution and “cherish” our public schools.

“On a related note, the City of Brockton recently set aside $100,000 toward funding a similar education lawsuit, and officials in Worcester are also discussing the issue.”

Categories Corporate Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Massachusetts, Technology

Buzzfeed: DeVos Plans to Cancel Regulations that Protect College Students from Predatory For-Profit “Colleges”

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2017 //
13

Betsy DeVos plans to withdraw federal regulations adopted during the Obama administration to protect college students from predatory for-profit colleges.

“The Trump administration moved today to roll back two regulations designed to protect students against predatory for-profit colleges.

“In federal filings, the Education Department said it would renegotiate the federal “gainful employment” rule, which stops government money from flowing to for-profit colleges whose students take on too much debt, but earn little after they graduate. Years in the making — it went into effect in 2015 after surviving two lengthy court battles with the for-profit college industry — the regulation is arguably the most significant piece of President Obama’s higher education legacy.

“The department also said it would also delay the implementation of a second rule, widely known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which would allow students who said they had been defrauded by their schools to more easily have their federal loans forgiven. Those regulations — which were set to go into effect on July 1 — also included provisions to prevent colleges from forcing their students to sign away their right to sue.

“In a statement, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called the borrower defense rules “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools.”

“It’s time for a regulatory reset. It is the Department’s aim, and this Administration’s commitment, to protect students from predatory practices while also providing clear, fair and balanced rules for colleges and universities to follow,” she said.

“The move was quickly decried by Democrats and student advocates who fought for the regulations’ passage — frequently sparring with the Obama administration over whether they went far enough in penalizing for-profits.

“Today, Secretary DeVos chose for-profit colleges over students and taxpayers,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said in a statement. “Her actions to eliminate important protections in higher education will harm students and waste millions in taxpayer dollars.”

Is it time to restart Trump University?

Categories Betsy DeVos, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Florida: Governor Scott Signs Bill Packed with Millions More for Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2017 //
39

Why do so many Tepublicans hate public schools? They know that funding for education is a zero-sum game. More money for privately-run charters and vouchers means less money for public schools.

Today, Governor Rick Scott of Florida signed into law a bill that transfers more money away from public schools to the privately-run schools.

The charter industry in Florida has been riddled with scandals and frauds. The for-profit charter industry is making money.

In the article cited, Valerie Strauss explains the legislation and the harm it will do to the public schools attended by the great majority of Florida’s students.

Why are Republicans like Rick Scott determined to shift money from public schools to private schools?

It is a scam. Shameful.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization
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