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Jan Resseger: Betsy DeVos Hires the Fox to Guard the For-Profit Higher Education Henhouse

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2018 //
2

 

Jan Resseger writes here about the sordid decision to hire people closely aligned with the interests of the for-profit higher education industry to regulate it. This amounts to hiring the fox to supervise the henhouse. This industry is known for predatory behavior, targeting the most vulnerable students: veterans, their widows, the poor. It is also known for providing subpar education and printing diplomas that are often worthless. Think Trump University.

We are approaching a level of spoils, squalor, and legal corruption that has not been seen since the days of Teapot Dome.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education

Arizona: Ducey Offers a Deal with No Details, No New Taxes, No Negotiation with Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2018 //
22

 

The Blog for Arizona describes the inside story of the Arizona teachers’ strike and Governor Doug Ducey’s feckless efforts to stop the strike without making any concrete concessions to teachers.

“Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as the State of Arizona, is a practitioner of propaganda over policy. He rolls out a glossy media P.R. campaign and gets his corporate benefactors to pay for advertising praising him for his P.R. campaign. The substance of the actual policy gets lost.

“Ducey did this for his #ClassroomsFirst initiative in which he declared himself to be the “education governor,” he did this to sell his unconstitutional Prop. 123 to settle the education inflation adjustment lawsuit against the state so that the state would not have to pay restitution for funds stolen by our GOP-controlled legislature, and he is doing it yet again with his #20by2020 teacher pay proposal.

“Ducey’s dark money “Kochtopus” allies in the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry started a new group called the “Arizona Education Project” and fielded a $1 million soft-sell TV ad blitz to say  “Arizona schools are making progress.” Arizona “Ground Zero” for Koch Attack on Public Education. As the Arizona Daily Stareditorialized, “no number of feel-good TV spots will change the fact that Arizona comes in last, or almost last, in numerous rankings of per-pupil state spending in the nation.” Education ad campaign doesn’t change the facts.

“The “Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, is now threatening school districts with lawsuits for closing during the #RedforEd teacher walkouts, no doubt on Gov. Ducey’s behalf. Goldwater Institute sends letter to schools calling Arizona teacher walkout unconstitutional. Per usual, the Goldwater Institute is full of shit and bluster. The actual point of their intimidation campaign is a reminder  that “We own this state, and you will obey!

”With more than 50,000 educators and their supporters marching on the state capitol this week in a sea of red, our self-described “education governor” (sic) refused to meet with education leaders, Ducey to meet with ‘decision makers,’ not teachers to talk about salaries, and instead negotiated a “deal” with his GOP legislative leaders in a one-sided negotiation that did not include the teachers. Governor announces budget deal with teacher pay raise — but gives no details.”

Republican leaders negotiated a deal among themselves, refusing to talk to teachers. The presence of 50,000 teachers wearing #RedForEd did not earn them a seat at the table. One side talking to itself, said “Arizona Republic”columnist E.J. Montini, is not a deal. One little detail: the Republican Plan is to distribute any new funding to districts and let them decide whether to increase teachers’ salaries. Some pay raise that is!

Blog for Arizona writes:

”You have this weekend to contact your state legislators and to let them know that without new tax revenue dedicated to public education for teacher raises and to restore the billions of dollars cut by our GOP-controlled legislature over the past decade, there is no “deal.” And if they vote for this budget gimmick of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” yet again, you will be voting them out of office in November. Enough is enough.”

 

 

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Fraud, Funding, Koch Brothers, Resistance, Teacher Pay

Ohio: Who Will Go to Jail for the Crimes of ECOT?

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2018 //
27

 

Stephen Dyer says there is now little or no question that crimes were committed by ECOT (the late, unlamented Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow).

Someone knowingly inflated enrollment to collect millions from the state.

Who done it?

“Because it now appears that we have a smoking gun indicating that officials at the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow formed the necessary mens rea to be charged with crimes.

“According to an Associated Press story today (which ran all over the place, but I’ll link to my former employer’s version), people at ECOT — at one point the largest single school in the nation — were ordered to deliberately inflate enrollment so the school could keep getting paid $100 million plus to “educate” children, even if those children weren’t actually at ECOT.

“ECOT infamously did a remarkably poor job of educating those who were, by the way. How poor? Only 109 of 3,794 ECOT graduates from 2010 earned a college degree within 6 years of graduating.”

B
Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Guy Brandenburg: D.C. Made More Progress Under Elected Board Than Under Mayoral Control

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2018 //
30

 

Guy Brandenburg is a retired teacher of mathematics who taught in the D.C. public schools. He was very likely the first person to publicly explode the myth of Michelle Rhee, having pursued her initial claims about miraculously raising the scores of the students she taught as a new TFA teacher from the 13th percentile to the 90th percentile.

He continues to watch the D.C. schools, and he recently attended the public unveiling of NAEP scores for 2017. He was reviewing them in separate posts, and I invited him to combine them into a single post. He generously agreed to do so.

For his diligence and persistence as a researcher and whistle-blower, I name Guy Brandenburg to the honor roll of this blog.

He writes:

NATIONAL TEST SCORES IN DC WERE RISING FASTER UNDER THE ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD THAN THEY HAVE BEEN DOING UNDER THE APPOINTED CHANCELLORS

By Guy Brandenburg

Add one more to the long list of recent DC public education scandals* in the era of education ‘reform’:

DC’s NAEP** test scores are increasing at a lower rate now (after the elected school board was abolished in 2007) than they were in the decade before that.

This is true in every single subgroup I looked at: Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, 4th graders, 8th graders, in reading, and in math.

Forget what you’ve heard about DC being the fastest-growing school district. Our NAEP scores were going up faster before our first Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, was appointed than they have been doing since that date.

Last week, the 2017 NAEP results were announced at the National Press Club building here on 14th Street NW, and I went in person to see and compare the results of 10 years of education ‘reform’ after 2007 with the previous decade. When I and others used the NAEP database and separated out average scale scores for black, Hispanic, and white students in DC, at the 4th and 8th grade levels, in both reading and math, even I was shocked:

In every single one of these twelve sub-groups, the rate of change in scores was WORSE (i.e., lower) after 2007 (when the chancellors took over) than it was before that date (when we still had an elected school board).
I published the raw data, taken from the NAEP database, as well as graphs and short analyses, on my blog, (gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com) which you can inspect if you like.

I will give you two examples:

• Black 4th grade students in DC in math (see https://bit.ly/2JbORad ):

o In the year 2000, the first year for which I had comparable data, that group got an average scale score of 188 (on a scale of 0 – 500). In the year 2007, the last year under the elected school board, their average scale score was 209, which is an increase of 21 points in 7 years, for an average increase of 3.0 points per year, pre-‘reform’.

o After a decade of ‘reform’ DC’s black fourth grade students ended up earning an average scale score of 224, which is an increase of 15 points over 10 years. That works out to an average growth of 1.5 points per year, under direct mayoral control.

o So, in other words, Hispanic fourth graders in DC made twice the rate of progress on the math NAEP under the elected school board than they did under Chancellors Rhee, Henderson, and Wilson.

• Hispanic 8th grade students in DC in reading (see: https://bit.ly/2HhSP0z )

o In 1998, the first year for which I had data, Hispanic 8th graders in DC got an average scale score of 246 (again on a scale of 0-500). In 2007, which is the last year under the elected board of education, they earned an average scale score of 249, which is an increase of only 3 points.

o However, in 2017, their counterparts received an average scale score of 242. Yes, the score went DOWN by 7 points.

o So, under the elected board of education, the scores for 8th grade Latinx students went up a little bit. But under direct mayoral control and education ‘reform’, their scores actually dropped.

That’s only two examples. There are actually twelve such subgroups (3 ethnicities, times 2 grade levels, times 2 subjects), and in every single case progress was worse after 2007 than it was beforehand.

Not a single exception.

You can see my last blog post on this, with links to other ones, here:

https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/progress-or-not-for-dcs-8th-graders-on-the-math-naep/ or https://bit.ly/2K3UyZ1 .

Amazing.

Why isn’t there more outrage?

*For many years, DC officials and the editorial board of the Washington Post have been bragging that the educational ‘reforms’ enacted under Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her successors have made DCPS the fastest-improving school district in the entire nation. (See https://wapo.st/2qPRSGw or https://wapo.st/2qJn7Dh for just two examples.)

It didn’t matter how many lies Chancellor Rhee told about her own mythical successes in a privately run school in Baltimore (see https://wapo.st/2K28Vgy ). She also got away with falsehoods about the necessity of firing hundreds of teachers mid-year for allegedly being sexual predators or abusers of children (see https://wapo.st/2qNGxqB ); there were always acolytes like Richard Whitmire willing to cheer her on publicly (see https://wapo.st/2HC0zOj ), even though the charges were false.

A lot of stories about widespread fraud in the District of Columbia public school system have hit the front pages recently. Examples:

• Teachers and administrators were pressured to give passing grades and diplomas to students who missed so much school (and did so little work) that they were ineligible to pass – roughly one-third of last year’s graduating class. (see https://bit.ly/2ngmemi ) You may recall that the rising official (but fake) high school graduation rate in Washington was a used as a sign that the reforms under direct mayoral control of education had led to dramatic improvements in education here.

• Schools pretended that their out-of-school suspension rates had been dropping, when in actual fact, they simply were suspending students without recording those actions in the system. (see https://wapo.st/2HhbARS )

• Less than half of the 2018 senior class is on track to graduate because of truancy, failed classes, and the like. (see https://bit.ly/2K5DFx9 )

• High-ranking city officials, up to and including the Chancellor himself, cheated the system by having their own children bypass long waiting lists and get admitted to favored schools. (see https://wapo.st/2Hk3HLi )

• A major scandal in 2011 about adults erasing and changing student answer sheets on the DC-CAS test at many schools in DC in order to earn bonuses and promotions was unfortunately swept under the rug. (see https://bit.ly/2HR4c0q )

• About those “public” charter schools that were going to do such a miraculous job in educating low-income black or brown children that DCPS teachers supposedly refused to teach? Well, at least forty-six of those charter schools (yes, 46!) have been closed down so far, either for theft, poor performance on tests, low enrollment, or other problems. (see https://bit.ly/2JcxIx9 ).

**Data notes:

A. NAEP, or the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is given about every two years to a carefully chosen representative sample of students all over the USA. It has a searchable database that anybody with a little bit of persistence can learn to use: https://bit.ly/2F5LHlS .

B. I did not do any comparable measurements for Asian-Americans or Native Americans or other such ethnic/racial groups because their populations in DC are so small that in most years, NAEP doesn’t report any data at all for them.

C. In the past, I did not find big differences between the scores of boys and girls, so I didn’t bother looking this time.

D. Other categories I could have looked at, but didn’t, include: special education students; students whose first language isn’t English; economically disadvantaged students; the various percentiles; and those just in DCPS versus all students in DC versus charter school students. Feel free to do so, and report what you find!

E. My reason for not including figures separated out for only DCPS, and only DC Charter Schools, is that NAEP didn’t provide that data before about 2011. I also figured that the charter schools and the regular public schools, together, are in fact the de-facto public education system that has grown under both the formerly elected school board and the current mayoral system, so it was best to combine the two together.

F. I would like to thank Mary Levy for compiling lots of data about education in DC, and Matthew Frumin for pointing out these trends. I would also like to thank many DC students, parents, and teachers (current or otherwise) who have told me their stories.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

Mercedes Schneider: Sandy Hook Parents Sue Alex Jones for Defamation

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2018 //
8

 

After the Sandy Hook massacre, Alex Jones made his unsavory reputation insisting that the massacre of children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax, elaborately staged by professional actors.

Two of the parents whose children were killed have sued Alex Jones for defamation.

Mercedes Schneider has the story here.

It’s about time that this malicious propagandist was brought to justice.

Categories Fraud, Hoax, Lies, Propaganda

Los Angeles: Frontrunner for Superintendent is a Conservative Banker and Broad Buddy

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2018 //
22

 

The Los Angeles school board is split 4-3, with charter advocates holding the majority. The decisive vote belongs to Ref Rodriguez, who is currently awaiting trial on multiple felony indictments for campaign finance violations.

The board appears poised to select Austin Beutner as its new superintendent, despite the fact that he has no experience in education.

Beutner was an investment banker and managed a private equity firm. His firm, Evercore, financed the purchase of American Media, which publishes the “National Enquirer.” Beutner was a member of the board of that scandal sheet. He is a billionaire. He briefly served as publisher of the Los Angeles Times until he was ousted. He is close to Eli Broad.

Interestingly, as a side note, Beutner was born in Holland, Michigan, and his father was a top executive at Amway. That should give him easy access to Betsy DeVos and help speed the privatization of public schools in Los Angeles.

Thought: If Ref Rodriguez is convicted and has to leave the board, the superintendent will have to lead a 3-3 Board. Too bad the LAUSD is unwilling to select a consensus candidate. Very short-sightrd

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-beutner-nonprofit-faulted-20180415-story.html

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Fraud, Los Angeles

John Merrow Questions Rick Hess’s Belated Discovery of the Failure of Reform in D.C.

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2018 //
19

 

Tongue planted firmly in cheek, John Merrow questioned Rick Hess’s anguished post about the failure of reform in D.C. under Michelle Rhee and her deputy Kaya Henderson. Hess admitted that “reformers” circled the wagons and refused to listen to naysayers, but he blamed the naysayers for being critical of the fraud and the coverup.

John Merrow spent many hours covering Michelle Rhee as the PBS education correspondent, and it was only at the end of her reign of error that the scales fell from his eyes. But fall they did, and he has since documented the depth of the flimflam that Rhee, Henderson, and their enablers perpetrated.

When Merrow read Hess’ apologia, he reached for the phone to question Rick, but Rick was on a national speaking tour. 

The phone at the American Enterprise Institute was answered, Merrow said, by a woman with a French accent.

“I told the young woman that I had the press release in my hand and had hoped to talk with him before he left. I asked her whether he was going to apologize for being wrong about the so-called ‘school reforms’ in Washington, DC?

“Mais non. Monsieur Hess is going to be explaining why everyone of importance got it wrong about Washington. And zen he will explain how to get it right.”

“Hearing that upset me. I told her that a lot of us, including USA Today, Guy Brandenburg, Diane Ravitch, Mary Levy, the Washington City Paper, local politician Mark Simon, and me, got it right about DC. I told her that we have been saying for years that Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson were perpetrating a fraud.

“Zen, monsieur,” she said with a provocative giggle, “You must not be of importance, because Monsieur Rick explained it to me very clearly.”

“Tell me about the tour, I said. I see from the press release that The Four Seasons is the tour’s official hotel, NetJet the official airline, and Uber the official means of transportation. Will Rick be visiting schools?

“Oh, I don’t zink so,” she said. “Monsieur Rick, he does not like to be with noisy children. He prefers to talk to old people in auditoriums.”

“Will anyone else be appearing with Rick, I wanted to know? After all, lots of important people were wrong about DC: Arne Duncan, Checker Finn, Richard Whitmire, Campbell Brown, Katherine Bradley, Tom Toch, Andy Rotherham, Mike Petrilli, Whitney Tilson, Kati Haycock, the Washington Post, some major foundations, and others.”

Merrow is a notorious trickster. I suddenly remembered his resignation letter, when he announced that he was leaving PBS to join the board of Pearson. Or was that his April Fools’ letter?

 

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Fraud, Hoax, Humor, Rhee, Michelle

SQUALOR IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Who Protects Predatory For-Profit Colleges?

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2018 //
10

I posted this report during the Obama administration. It remains timely since the for-profit higher education sector is having a renaissance under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, who is the best friend the predatory, for-profit higher education sector ever had.

As a private citizen, she invested in this squalid sector. As Secretary of Education, she has protected predatory for-profit institutions and even put one of their champions in charge of monitoring their behavior. A fox in charge of the henhouse. She has also cut back on federal efforts to help students who were defrauded by these institutions and left with a mountain of debt and a worthless diploma (think Trump U).

Here’s the lowdown: When your company is raking in profits, it can afford to hire top lobbyists. When you are operating in the public sector, you have to squeeze out the money to pay for any lobbyist.

I urge you to read this fascinating report on the predatory for-profit higher education sector, written before the Trump administration came into being by D.C. lawyer David Halperin. It is carefully researched and sourced. It is long, but has the interest level of a detective story. You will find villains in both political parties. You will find distinguished academics who sold their reputation to bolster a predatory for-profit institution. Behind most of the political squalor is one unifying theme: the power of greed.

It opens like this. I invite you to read the entire report to find out who is protecting the for-profit colleges that rip off American students:


Timothy J. Hatch and Ronald L. Olson are two of the most prominent and successful lawyers in Los Angeles. Hatch is a partner at the national litigation powerhouse firm Gibson Dunn. Olson, a name partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, has represented some of America’s biggest corporations. He is a former chair of the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section, and today he serves on the boards of directors of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the RAND Corporation, the Mayo Clinic, and the California Institute of Technology.

Both Hatch and Olson also have been for years key parts of the protective infrastructure that has shielded predatory for­-profit colleges, institutions that have deceived and abused U.S. students and taxpayers. Hatch has represented the giant publicly­traded for­profit college businesses Education Management Corporation (EDMC), Kaplan, and ITT Tech against charges of fraud, and he has sued the U.S. Department of Education to halt regulations that would hold poorly­performing colleges accountable. Olson is on the board of directors of Graham Holdings Company, which owns Kaplan, and his law firm has represented Corinthian in major fraud litigation ­­ which is fitting, as the Graham company owned a significant stake in Corinthian until its 2015 collapse. In the fraud case where Olson’s firm represented Corinthian, the other party that whistleblowers were suing was Corinthian’s auditor, giant accounting firm Ernst & Young. Their lawyer in the case was Timothy Hatch.

Although the notorious Corinthian Colleges is gone (sort of), many bad actors remain in business. Seven of America’s ten biggest for-­profit college companies, which collectively received about $8 billion dollars in taxpayer money last year, have in recent months and years been under investigation or sued by federal and state law enforcement agencies for deceptive business practices. Despite the mounting evidence that these seven companies ­­ Apollo/ University of Phoenix, EDMC, ITT Tech, Kaplan, Career Education Corporation, DeVry, and Bridgepoint Education ­­ have engaged in predatory behavior against their own students, they continue to market themselves as affordable places to build successful careers, and they continue to enroll new students and deposit their federal grants and loan checks. These companies also have continued to fight reform measures by government to hold bad schools accountable for abuses.

A key reason why such predatory for­-profit colleges have been able to continue receiving billions annually in taxpayer dollars while ruining the financial futures of students across the country is that national power players ­­ politicians, lawyers, academic leaders, celebrities ­­ have been willing to vouch for these companies, serving as their paid lobbyists, board members, investors, and endorsers. It’s not just Donald Trump who has made big money off a deceptive college operation.

Read on to learn who these power players are. You may be shocked. I was. After reading this, I felt that the whole political system is rigged to protect the predators. I went to wash my hands. Why is the “money all gone,” as reformers like to say when they explain why budget cuts are necessary? Because it is lining the pockets of the rich and connected.

Imagine if that $8 billion dollars were used to make community college free for all those who wanted higher education at a reputable university?

Hear are a few tidbits from this report:

● Department of Education data has shown that the University of Phoenix’s graduation rate for first­time, full­time students is about 16 percent, and that graduation rate for the school’s online programs is about 4 percent.

● A 2012 comprehensive investigative report on for­profit colleges by then­ Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) found that the University of Phoenix spent $892 on instruction in 2009, compared to $2,225 per student on marketing, and $2,535 per student on profit. “This,” the report found “is one of the lowest amounts spent on instruction per student of any company analyzed.”

● Around 25 percent of University of Phoenix students default on their loans within three years of leaving school.

Read and gasp. And weep that students will continue to be defrauded by predatory corporations peddling online for-profit junk.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education

Stock Tips for the DeVos For-Profit Education Era

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2018 //
13

 

The business media recognize that Betsy DeVos is changing federal policy to make room for for-profit education, both for K-12 charters and for higher education. She is rolling back regulations intended to curb the excesses of predatory for-profit “colleges,” known for preying on and exploiting veterans, the poor, and unwary students.

So here is a business analysis of the stocks that are soaring with the expectation that the DeVos is great news for educationally unsound for-profit colleges.

The basic story is that DeVos’ Department of Education has made clear that it sides with the predators, not the prey. Students will continue to be cheated. DeVos doesn’t care.

For-profit charters and for-profit virtual charters and for-profit higher education strike me as morally reprehensible. They may make money for investors, but they are educationally bankrupt.

By it’s nature, the for-profit corporation owes its first duty to investors, not students. It must turn a profit or go belly-up. Thus, it must cut costs, and the easiest way to do this is to cut the cost of teachers by hiring inexperienced teachers and giving them large classes. They are also incentivized to seek the easiest to educate students and avoid expensive ones who need extra attention.

Many of the for-profit charters are trying to cut costs by putting kids on computers. They call it “blended learning” or use the oxymoron “personalized learning.” But it is cheap education no matter what you call it.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education

Delaware: Charter Principal Sentenced to Jail for Theft

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2018 //
6

 

The former principal of the Academy of Dover, a charter school in Delaware, was sentenced to prison for embezzling school funds. 

“Noel Rodriguez, the former principal of a Dover charter school, was sentenced to 13 months in prison and ordered to pay $145,480 in restitution.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Andrews handed down the sentence Friday in Wilmington.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one count of federal program theft in November.

According to court records and statements made in open court, between 2011 and 2014, while serving as principal of the Academy of Dover, Rodriguez embezzled $145,480 from the school.

The Department of Justice said he made personal expenses to four unauthorized credit cards that he opened in the name of the school, abusing the voucher program, and using the charter-school issued procurement credit card for his own personal purchases.

Rodriguez used the embezzled funds to purchase camping equipment, electronics, personal travel, and home improvement items, among other things.”

He got off with a lighter sentence than the charges he faced.

”In 2016, Rodriguez was indicted on four counts of federal program theft. Each count carried a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison, along with fines and restitution, the Department of Justice said at the time.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Delaware, Fraud
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