Archives for category: For-Profit
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

“Democracy”: The New, For-Profit High School Rankings

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2017 //
7

A regular reader uses the pseudonym. He/she posted this comment about high school rankings:

“It isn’t just the US News & World Report school rankings that are dubious. It’s also Jay Mathews Challenge Index rankings at The Washington Post, which have been discussed on this blog.

“But there’s another set of rankings that are equally suspect. And no one is saying anything much about them. These are the school rankings produced by an outfit called Niche. And they are not very good.

“First, some history.

“Niche is a private, for-profit company. It began as College Prowler, a college guidebook company. Some questioned its college rankings and reviews, and its less-then-ethical practices. Some higher education experts criticized the “College Prowler scandal, in which the purveyor of college guides was caught impersonating both students and colleges on Facebook in order to mine data and drive traffic to its website.” More information on that scandal can be found here:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/22/frenemies-facebook

“The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that “College Prowler had formed a partnership with [another] company to ‘colonize’ Facebook groups for marketing purposes.”

“In 2015, the architectural engineering company SmithGroupJJR, one of the top such firms in the country, noted in its Perspectives blog that the Niche college rankings were of “questionable” value and – importantly – observed that Niche is working toward a future of trying to get its rankings used as ” a viable future replacement for SAT/ACT scores…”

“Niche now ranks public schools too, in each state and across states. It describes its methodology for “Best Academics” as “a comprehensive assessment of the quality of the academics at public school districts in the United States.”

“But it isn’t really that at all.

“Nearly a third of that assessment relies on dubious data. For “Best Academics,” Niche allots 10 percent to the number of students taking an Advanced Placement (AP) course, 10 percent for the percentage of students who “pass” an AP course, and 10 percent for SAT/ACT composite score. The Niche ‘best academics” assessment jumps to about fifty percent when student “interest” in an “elite” college is added in. Niche also uses state testing data.

“Research shows clearly that AP is not what people think it is. For example, a 2002 National Research Council comprehensive study of AP math and science courses and tests found they were “a mile wide and an inch deep” and did not conform to research-based principles of learning. A “3” on an AP test is considered a “passing” score, but it equates to a “C” in a college survey course, and most colleges – especially the “elite ones” – do not award any credit for a “3.” Students freely admit that they take AP course primarily to “look good” rather than to enrich their learning.

“As I’ve noted before, AP may work well for some students, especially those who are already “college-bound to begin with” (Klopfenstein and Thomas, 2010). As Geiser (2007) notes, “systematic differences in student motivation, academic preparation, family background and high-school quality account for much of the observed difference in college outcomes between AP and non-AP students.” College Board-funded studies do not control well for these student characteristics (even the College Board concedes that “interest and motivation” are keys to “success in any course”). Klopfenstein and Thomas (2010) find that when these demographic characteristics are controlled for, the claims made for AP disappear.

“A newer (2013) study from Stanford notes that “increasingly, universities seem
to be moving away from awarding credit for AP courses.” The study pointed out that “the impact of the AP program on various measures of college success was found to be negligible.” And it adds this: “definitive claims about the AP program and its impact on students and schools are difficult to substantiate.”

“But Niche has glommed onto the AP myth. The SAT and ACT too.

“SAT and ACT scores are little more than proxies for family income. They are not accurate predictors of success in college. College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 14 percent of the variance in freshman-year college grades, and after that nothing (the ACT is only marginally better). As the head of one college enrollment consulting company commented, “I might as well measure their shoe size.” Moreover, colleges – especially “elite” ones – use SAT and ACT scores to enhance their own prestige and to exclude poorer students from admissions.

“The Niche methodology for “best schools” also utilizes survey responses. Niche says that there must be a minimum of “11 unique respondents required at each district.” If that is for the entire district, then it’s a pretty doggone small sample. Moreover, the responses on which the rankings are made must come from “registered users.”

“All of this raises multiple questions. Why is Niche using suspect data like AP and SAT/ACT scores to rank schools? How – exactly – does one becomes a “registered user”? What are the demographics of Niche “registered users”? What does a sample “survey” that Niche gives to “registered users” look like?

“Guess what? If you asked Niche – even if you asked multiple times – you’d not get any answers.

“Interestingly, if you look at the Niche “best schools” rankings, all of them are interlinked with Realtor.com.

“Perhaps even more interesting, and bizarre, is that one central Virginia school division — a school division that touts AP courses and SAT scores, and that has gone all-in on the STEM fallacy, and that bills itself as “innovative” and “cutting edge” — has adopted the Niche rankings as the basis for a “market” that determines how it pays its teachers.

“The founder of College Prowler/Niche says this about Niche evolved out of College Prowler:

“Only a couple million people a year choose colleges. It’s not a market like Facebook…we needed more visitors and more dollars per visitor. How much traffic you have and how well you monetize this traffic is at the core of everything…So we rebranded from College Prowler to Niche…to a much larger market…We wanted to be a very big company, and now that’s what we’re on the path to do.”

“So, Niche, is “on the path” to market its mostly made-up school rankings to suckers, make big money doing it, and it has the help of a public school system that has already bought into all the educational goofiness that’s out there and yet has the gall to call itself “innovative.”

“I cannot help but to recall the line from Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.””

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit

Laura Chapman Exposes the Billionaires Behind GreatSchools, Inc. and Redlining

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2017 //
21

Laura Chapman posted this comment, which I hope you will read:

Readers should know that GreatSchools.org website supports redlining. This is a non-profit website and organization in name only. Zillow, for example, pays a fee to lease all of the data and the ratings of schools. Specific schools can pay a fee to steer users to their websites.

The following supporters of redlining via the great schools website are not friends of public schools. They want to preserve schools and communities that are segregated by income, race, ethnicity, ownership of major assets (e.g., homes, automobiles), access to public services and amenities (e.g., public parks, libraries).

These supporters of segregation hide their agenda under a lot of rhetoric about saving children from failing schools. Wrong. These are the billionaires who are determined to misrepresent and undermine schools and neighborhoods through the irresponsible use of school “performance data,” especially scores on state standardized tests and more recently spurious surveys about school climate, the physical appearance of the school, and usually anonymous “customer” satisfaction ratings.

Major supporters of this redlining website are (logo displayed): Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust; The Leona M and Harry B Helmsley Charitable Trust,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Other supporters: The Charles Hayden Foundation; Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation; Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; The Joyce Foundation; Excellent Schools Detroit; The Kern Family Foundation; The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation;

Four other supporters of this website that forwards redlining sould be noted

America Achieves now calls itself “a non-profit accelerator” of large-scale system-wide change in public education. Achieve was and is the major promoter of the Common Core, college and career agenda, and associated tests. Achieve is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Charles Butt, the Heckscher Foundation For Children, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Kern Family Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (among others).
EdChoice is the updated name for the Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. EdChoice wants market-based education, unlimited choice, but subsidized by tax dollars–The DeVos/Trump policy.
Innovate Public Schools is a California-based national organization that uses GreatSchools reports to promote “new” school formation, especially charter schools, through extensive parent “fellowships” and training.
Startup:Education is a grantmaking project of the Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative founded by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Everything promoted by Start;Up Education and the larger Chan/Zuckerberg initiative is tech-based and mislabeled personalized learning.

There are other commercial supporters of the website. They pay fees for advertising space and market a range of products called “educational.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Segregation, Shame

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
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »