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Pennsylvania: GOP Speaker Pushes DeVos Plan for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2019 //
7

Republican Mike Turzai, Speaker of the House in Pennsylvania, is encouraging the state to adopt the Betsy DeVos agenda for diverting public funds to religious and private schools.

Turzai’s agenda is described here by Lawrence Feinberg, a school board member in Haverford Township and director of the Keystone State Education Coalition.

Feinberg writes:

The 2022 race for governor’s race has begun, and Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai wants to make it clear that he shares Betsy DeVos’ vision for privatization of public education.

In a recent Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece, Turzai, R-Allegheny, touted our state “as a gold standard with respect to funding public school districts”, completely ignoring the fact that Pennsylvania is home to the widest per pupil funding gap between wealth and poor districts in the country.

Under his leadership, the Pennsylvania Legislature has been negligent, willfully and deliberately ignoring the state’s historic gross inequity in the distribution of school funding and locking students in poorer districts into their underfunded and under resourced predicament. A school funding lawsuit is pending, with the trial tentatively set to begin in summer 2020.

In fiscal 2015-16, only 36.8 percent of aggregate education funding came from the state while 57.2 percent came from local sources, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s “Annual Financial Reports.”

The U.S. Census’ “Annual Survey of School System Finances” data from fiscal year 2015 ranks Pennsylvania 47th out of the 50 states in state support for public schools.

Instead of addressing the funding issue, he has consistently and aggressively promoted anything but democratically governed public schools that are accountable to taxpayers. While he supported the Financial Recovery Act of 2012 setting in motion a plan for distressed school districts to get back on track, he is thwarting that effort by ensuring that such districts remain in financial distress.

His signature tax credit program, which diverts public tax dollars to private and religious schools, skirts the Pennsylvania Constitution which explicitly says that “no money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.”

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Funding, Pennsylvania, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Wisconsin: It’s Time to Hold Legislators Accountable for School Success!

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2019 //
1

The Resistance has opened a new front in Wisconsin!

The proper place for accountability is at the top: with those who decide how much money is available, and those who write the laws and the mandates and the regulations.

The legislature determines whether funding is available to reduce class size, to provide adequate staff, to offer appropriate compensation to those who work in the schools.

The lawmakers should be held accountable!

Get active! Get involved!

This notice was distributed by Heather DuBois Bourenane <hdb@wisconsinnetwork.org>

 

The Department of Public Instruction issues its school and district report cards today, a legislative mandate which requires our students and schools to be held accountable for many things they cannot control.

It’s only fair to hold our lawmakers accountable for the one thing they can control: their votes.

Today we have issued a new tool to help hold them accountable: our first ever Legislative Report Cards that help connect the dots between the performance of our legislators and the needs of our children.

Despite the countless successes of students and public schools around the state, we have invested in widening the gaps between “haves” and “have nots” — gaps that are reflected very clearly in standardized test results.  We know that Wisconsin has the worst racial performance gaps in the nation. We know that our funding formula is profoundly inequitable, unpredictable, and inadequate. We know we are worst in the nation for how we fund special education. Our support for bilingual and bicultural needs – which increased by zero dollars in this year’s budget – has been described as “pitiful.”

The 2019-2021 state budget made gains in some areas, but failed to even meet the 2/3 funding mark. 40% of districts received less aid this year than last year. We did not move the needle for our kids. How can we continue to hold our kids and schools “accountable” but not those whose votes reflect the state’s failure to meet our most basic expectations?

You asked for a tool for holding legislators accountable, and we created one: a rubric for assessing budget votes based on the priority needs of our students as outlined by the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding and put forward in the budget requests of Governor Evers.

Click here to read the full release and access our Legislative Report Cards for all Wisconsin lawmakers: http://www.WisconsinNetwork.org/blog/report-cards.

Then use the tools below to demand better. This isn’t about people – it’s about policy. It’s not about politics – it’s about what’s best for our kids. Take time to tell your local funding story and share details on what might have been different in your district if nearly a billion dollars hadn’t been cut from the proposed education budget this year. Look for local releases from our partners around the state and use them to shine a flashlight on Wisconsin’s school funding crisis.

Whether your lawmaker “exceeds” or “fails to meet” our high expectations, we all need to work together to ensure every student in every public school has equal opportunity thrive. We believe we can make that happen, and we call on all of you to join us in holding lawmakers accountable for making success a reality for every child in every public school in Wisconsin.
Categories Accountability, Funding, Wisconsin

Wisconsin: Join the Resistance! Here! Now!

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2019 //
3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Contacts: Heather DuBois Bourenane, Executive Director, Wisconsin Public Education Network, (608) 572-1696, hdb@WisconsinNetwork.org; Dr. Julie Underwood, President of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools board of directors, julie.madison.wisconsin@gmail.com, (608) 469-2287

View this release online here.

 

Lawmakers Held Accountable for Votes on Education with Report Cards

As districts statewide receive state-mandated report cards, public education advocates demand an assessment of lawmakers who set budgets that determine schools’ ability to succeed

 

As the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction issues its annual school and district report cards today, the nonpartisan Wisconsin Public Education Network is doing the same for state legislators.

 

The organization’s Legislative Report Cards provide much-needed political context for understanding how the DPI assesses school and district performance. They assess state lawmakers across five categories: K-12 budget overall, special education, bilingual/bicultural needs, mental health and public funding of private schools. The report cards are available to the public at http://www.WisconsinNetwork.org/blog/report-cards.

 

The DPI’s school and district report cards fulfill a state mandate to hold all schools “accountable” to taxpayers. That mandate was put forward in 2011, the same year Wisconsin saw the largest cuts to education funding in state history.

 

In conjunction with its Legislative Report Cards, the Wisconsin Public Education Network has issued the following statement:

 

“In Wisconsin, our lawmakers use report cards to hold our children and their schools accountable for circumstances and state-level policy decisions that are beyond their control. How well a school does on a report card is often closely connected to factors like revenue limits, the number of students living in poverty, the number of English-language learners and the resources available for serving students with disabilities. 

 

What the report cards do not reveal is the fact that Wisconsin is last in the nation in state support for students with disabilities, and last in the nation in state support for English language learners. The state does not live up to its commitment to support student mental needs and we lack a coherent state policy to support children challenged by poverty. We can trace these failures back to the statehouse, not the classroom.

 

 It only makes sense that we hold lawmakers accountable for their education votes.

 

Parents and communities are told that school report cards represent a single ‘snapshot’ of student performance, but that snapshot becomes a frozen image impacting property values and undermining the successes that cannot be accounted for using test scores and other data points. Research shows that test scores often measure little more than economic status. Holding our schools accountable for student needs while failing to provide sufficient resources to ensure student success is unfair and unethical.

 

Senator Luther Olsen has often said the state report cards should be used as a ‘flashlight’ and ‘not a hammer’ to demonstrate where we can best meet the needs of our students and schools.

 

 

We present these legislative report cards in the same spirit. They reflect a single snapshot: a picture of the budget votes of the elected officials who determine how much state aid is provided to our public schools. 

 

In 2019, Wisconsin legislators approved a budget that cut nearly $1 billion from the governor’s proposed public education budget, withholding much-needed aids for special education, mental health and English language learners, while failing to meet the much-touted goal of providing two-thirds of school funding.

 

Given the state’s continued refusal to provide the funding needed to close Wisconsin’s opportunity gaps, we are holding lawmakers accountable for their education votes.

 

The 2019 Legislative Report Cards reflect a failure to meet the expectations that were outlined clearly by the Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding, at the budget hearings of the Joint Committee on Finance and by parents, board members, educators and school leaders statewide.

 

Public education should not be a partisan issue. Support for schools should not fall along party lines. We strongly encourage all who care about great public schools to take time to provide targeted support and encourage improvement from those legislators who fail to meet Wisconsin’s high expectations for supporting student success. Every child attending public school in Wisconsin deserves an equal opportunity to succeed, and our lawmakers, just as our schools, must be held accountable for making that opportunity equally accessible to all.”

 

 

About Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN)

 

Wisconsin Public Education Network is a nonpartisan grassroots coalition supporting strong public schools that provide equal opportunity for all students to thrive. The Network is a project of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions can be sent to: P.O. Box 6592, Monona, WI 53716. Learn more at http://www.WisconsinNetwork.org.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Funding, Wisconsin

Cincinnati: New School Board Member Has Conflict of Interest

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2019 //
10

 

Our reader Laura Chapman wrote about a newly elected member of the school board in Cincinnati. He is a local executive for TFA. The board on which he will serve pays TFA $100,000 to supply inexperienced teachers. He should resign his TFA position or resign from the board. At the very least, he should recuse himself from any discussions of contracts for his employer.

Chapman wrote:

Some details on Cincinnati Ohio elections.

Ben Lindy won a seat on the Cincinnati School Board. Lindy is CEO of Teach for America (TFA) in Southwestern Ohio. He will NOT step down as regional CEO of Teach for America (TFA) in Southwestern Ohio. He has at least one conflict of interest of course, because Cincinnati Public Schools has been co-opted into sending about $100,000 to Lindy’s operation to hire TFA’s.

Lindy got 20% of the vote. Local editorials supported Lindy and attacked the teacher union for not endorsing Lindy. Lindy also raised MORE money than all the other candidates, a whopping $165,398, all for a seat whose pay is capped at $5,000 annually.

TFA executives and staff in 21 states and 26 cities outside of Ohio contributed to his campaign. About $13,000, came from Leadership for Educational Equity or LEE. LEE trains and supports TFA alums (like Lindy) who run for local, state, and national public office. In these positions, they launch unjustified criticisms of public schools, teacher unions, and elected school boards. They aggrandize test scores and they market computers as if these devices offered more “personalized” learning than human teachers.

Lindy was also supported by funders of Accelerate Great Schools. Accelerate Great Schools is the local version of the “Education Cities” effort to put more districts into a portfolio model, managed like stocks in a portfolio. You add, keep, or close schools based on their outcomes, meaning the test scores of students (and other measures in Ohio’s Report Cards where schools are graded, A-F). The Accelerate Great Schools coalition includes: • Cincinnati Business Committee, • Cincinnati Regional Business Committee, • Farmer Family Foundation (wealth from Cintas services), • Haile U.S. Bank Foundation, • KnowledgeWorks Foundation (promoter of computers to replace teachers), and • Archdiocese of Cincinnati. https://www.accelerategreatschools.org/who-we-are/^

Accelerate Great Schools hopes to call the shots if they can get enough people on the school board who approve of TFA temps, the charter school test-em-til-they-drop philosophy, and a portfolio model of privately-managed schools. Lindy and local reporters did not report this factoid: Ben Lindy’s wife, Paige Elisha Lindy, is the Chief of Staff and Operations at Accelerate Great Schools. It is not surprising that Arthur Rock, founder of Intel, worth $340 million, contributed to $4000 to Lindy’s campaign or that KnowledgeWorks, promoter of computer- centric education is in the orbit of the Accelerator. https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=37970366

This will not stop the the Cincinnati Education Justice Coalition, advocates for traditional public schools, from calling out the many efforts to undermine public education and deprofessionalize the work of teachers.

 

Categories Accountability, Cincinnati, Education Reform, Ethics, Funding, Teach for America

Steven Singer: Why NAEP Scores Do Not Matter

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2019 //
26

I am not sure that I agree with Steven Singer’s point here, that NAEP scores tell us nothing other than that students from affluent homes have higher test scores than students who live in poverty. 

His main point is undeniable. All standardized test scores are highly correlated with family income.

We could use income and poverty data to learn what the test scores tell us, without wasting billions on standardized tests and corrupting instruction.

But I think that NAEP does tell us something we need official confirmation for: the utter failure of Disruptive Corporate Reform.

The Disrupters have promised since No Child Left Behind was proposed in 2001 that they knew how to raise test scores and close achievement gaps: Test every child every year and hold schools accountable for rising or falling scores. That will do it, said George W. Bush, Margaret Spellings, Rod Paige and Sandy Kress. They rode the wave of the “Texas miracle,” which turned out to be non-existent. Texas in 2019 is stuck right in the middle of the distribution of states.

Then came Jeb Bush, with his fantastical claims of a “Florida miracle,” which are now repeated by Betsy DeVos. Look at the NAEP scores: Florida is right in the middle of the states. No miracle there.

Arne Duncan has been promoting Tennessee, which as one of the first Race to the Top states, which is also ensconced in the middle of the distribution.

Look for yourself.

Two states that were firmly under the control of Reform heroes, Louisiana and New Mexico, are at the tail end of the distribution.

What do the NAEP scores tell us?

Don’t look for miracles.

Don’t believe propaganda spun by snake-oil salesman.

Look to states and districts that are economically developed and that fund their schools adequately and fairly.

The scores in states may go up or down a few points, but the bottom line is that the basics matter most. That is, a state willing and able to support education and families able to support their children.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Funding, Louisiana, NAEP, Propaganda, Race to the Top, Tennessee, Testing, Texas

Chicago: The Teachers’ Strike Brings a Sea-Change in Education Policy

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2019 //
7

Craig’s Chicago Business acknowledges that the children in Chicago public schools need what the Chicago Teachers Union won in their contract negotiations. But still, they wonder, are taxpayers willing to pay the price? 

Now that financial details of the pact are starting to trickle out, it’s clear that the mayor was telling the truth—that is, for the teachers. And that truth raises a very significant question of whether the unprecedented, potentially $1.5 billion mayoral bet will be worth the cost to already struggling Chicago taxpayers.

That $1.5 billion figure comes from the Chicago Public Schools’ budget office. It’s at the high range of what officials say the new CTU deal will cost over the next five years cumulatively…

“The union won the strike. They absolutely won,” says Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who was one of Lightfoot’s rivals in the February mayoral election. “It’s going to be impossible for them to come up with that much dough without major tax increases if (Gov. J.B.) Pritzker does not fully fund the state’s new school-aid formula.”

Pritzker is working on that. But as Vallas noted, doing so likely depends on voters next year enacting the governor’s proposed graduated income tax amendment, and that’s no sure thing.

Overall, there is little dissent that putting increased staff resources into particularly needy schools—as the contract requires—is the right thing to do. Eventually, that should result in higher graduation rates and kids better prepared to enter the job market.

It is always good to get Vallas’ views, since he privatized schools in Philadelphia and New Orleans as his budget solution and ran unsuccessfully for mayor, governor, and lieutenant governor.

Are the voters in Illinois willing to pay higher taxes to improve conditions of learning, to assure smaller class sizes, and to get better prepared youth?

The Chicago teachers’ strike represents a change in Chicago, for sure. The harsh policies of Daley, Duncan, and Emanuel are over. A new day has dawned, with national implications.

“It’s a definitive shift in the entire landscape, not just in Chicago, but throughout the U.S., away from privatization, school closures, charter schools, and the kind of Koch Brother-funding of private schools instead of public schools, a threat we’ve been fending off for the last 30 years,” said Jackson Potter, a high school teacher and union bargaining member in Chicago.

Potter continued, “This contract really represents advances—and not just trying to preserve what we had or prevent the annihilation of the public system—but how to expand it, fortify it, and have a considerable [investment] in low income students of color and their communities that starts to look more [like] what we see in wealthy white suburbs.”

The contract dealt a blow to the charter industry, with “hard caps on charter school expansion and enrollment growth.” The rightwing Heartland Institute called the settlement “a death blow to charter schools in the Windy City.”

Alas, the sustained efforts of the Disrupters foiled by one powerful teachers’ strike, joined by Chicago’s progressive new mayor!  Their policies of austerity and privatization undone. Calling the world’s smallest violin.

Thanks to the invaluable organization “In the Public Interest” for assembling these sources in one place.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Funding

Wisconsin: Did Foxconn Fool Scott Walker?

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2019 //
2

Foxconn is the giant Taiwanese tech company that manufactures electronic products for major tech companies around the world. They are known for poor working conditions and long hours, also for employee suicides on the job. When Scott Walker was governor of Wisconsin, his great coup (or so he thought) was to woo Foxconn to open five “innovation centers” in the state. This was supposed to create jobs. Foxconn won billions in tax breaks and incentives. That was 2017. But not a single innovation center has opened, and according to this article, none is on track to open. While Walker made grandiose plans for Foxconn, he cut the budgets of schools and universities, which is the usual place to spur innovation.

Looks like he was hoaxed.

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn’s promised Wisconsin “innovation centers,” which are to employ hundreds of people in the state if they ever get built, are officially on hold after spending months empty and unused, as the company focuses on meeting revised deadlines on the LCD factory it promised would now open by next year. The news, reported earlier today by Wisconsin Public Radio, is another inexplicable twist in the nearly two-year train wreck that is Foxconn’s US manufacturing plans.

The company originally promised five so-called innovation centers throughout the state would that employ as many as 100 to 200 people each in high-skilled jobs, with the Milwaukee center promising as many as 500. Those jobs were to complement the more than 13,000 jobs Foxconn said its initial Wisconsin electronics manufacturing factory would bring to the US, in exchange for billions in tax breaks and incentives that Governor Scott Walker granted the company back in 2017.

Categories Budget Cuts, Economy, Funding, Hoax, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Wendy Lecker: Philanthopy Is No Substitute for Equitable Public Financing of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2019 //
11

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights attorney who writes frequently for the Stamford (CT) Advocate.

In this article, she takes issue with a public-private partnership that fails to address the state’s woefully School finance system.

Ray Dalio, a billionaire who wants to do good, has created a partnership with the state government that will operate outside public scrutiny. Dalio and the state will each contribute $100 million and raise another $100 million. This amount, she writes,  will barely scratch the surface of the state’s neediest children and schools.

Controversially, the Partnership insists on being exempt from Connecticut transparency and ethics rules. Supporters maintain that “innovation” is required to solve entrenched problems like poverty and struggling public schools, and addressing these sensitive issues can only be done in private.

When it comes to public education, the issues have already been addressed in a public forum- the CCJEF trial. The trial judge made thousands of public findings of fact in his 2016 decision in Connecticut’s school funding case, all based on evidence presented during the months-long public trial.

Among his findings are that Connecticut’s poorest districts have significantly lower levels of children who attend high quality preschool, and that preschool provides significant lasting benefits, particularly for poor children, such as: reduced grade repetition and special education identification rates, decreased behavioral problems, higher graduation and employment rates, higher lifetime earnings, reductions in involvement with the criminal justice system, reductions in the probability of being on welfare, and improved health measures.

The evidence at trial also proved that, despite higher need, Connecticut’s poorest districts could not afford an adequate supply of guidance counselors, social workers, psychologists, reading interventionists, special education teachers, and teachers and services for bilingual students. The lack of these essential services prevented these districts from successfully serving their neediest children. Districts often had to spend their Alliance District money, funds intended to be “extra,” to try to pay for at least some of these basic services and staff; and had to divert money intended for general education to cover growing special education costs.

This persuasive public evidence came from people who work in and belong to the communities shut out of the secretive Partnership for Connecticut leadership. They are the ones with the knowledge of what these communities lack and need.

The trial court findings paint a picture of districts in triage mode, trying to plug gaping holes caused by inadequate state education funding.

Unfortunately the same judge who reached these findings did not order the state to remedy the injustice, which only the state can do, not a public-private philanthropy operating behind closed doors.

Categories Accountability, Connecticut, Education Reform, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Philanthropy

The Crisis at Hampshire College and the Threat to The Future of Liberal Arts College

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2019 //
4

This fascinating article about the fiscal crisis at experimental Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, suggests that all except the best-funded colleges are in danger of collapsing. The first risk is the coming contraction of the college-age population, which will decline by 280,000 by 2026. Second, the author suggests, the business model that colleges rely on threatens their future, with full-paying students subsidizing those who can’t afford to pay tuition.

Underlying these arguments is the fact that the cost of higher education has spiraled out of control. It’s hard to remember that there was a time when most community colleges were tuition-free because states and cities wanted to invest in the education of their citizens.

There are also decisions that colleges have made that strain their budgets, such as inflated administrative salaries and pouring millions into facilities instead of faculty salaries and scholarships. And the decision to shift from tenure track faculty to adjuncts has been a false saving, in my view.

Hampshire College is different. It was created specifically to enroll a diverse student body and to have a pedagogy that scorns grades and requirements and majors. But it is in deep trouble, financially. Last September it enrolled a freshman class of only 13. One has already left.

Poll most top educators about their ideal kind of learning for the 21st century, and they’ll probably sound a lot like a Hampshire student. The virtues of open-ended thinking and project-based learning will be familiar to any Washington parent who has toured a bougie preschool. But thanks to a slow recovery from the 2008 recession, rising student debt and class anxiety, parents and students are looking at college less as an intellectual experience and more as an insurance policy — and that calls for colleges that offer proven outcomes, measurable skills or exceptional prestige.

All this means that private colleges like Hampshire are struggling to find enough students able or willing to pay their high sticker prices, and the situation is only likely to get worse. Because of low birthrates following the Great Recession, Carleton College economist Nathan Grawe predicts that the four-year-college applicant pool is likely to shrink by almost 280,000 per class, over four years, starting in 2026, a year known in higher ed as “the Apocalypse.” As youth populations decline everywhere but the southern and western United States, colleges in New England and the Midwest will find it increasingly hard to lure students, particularly those able to pay.

The problem is the business model. Colleges have long counted on wealthy students to subsidize the cost of education for those who can’t afford it. But for many institutions, that is becoming untenable. With only a $52 million endowment, Hampshire is especiall vulnerable to this reality, but enrollment experts say it will affect many schools outside the most elite. Schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale and MIT will be fine, says Jon Boeckenstedt, Oregon State University’s vice provost of enrollment management. “It’s those colleges in the middle of the curve, with good, solid, well-known reputations but not spectacular financial resources or academic reputation, that are feeling the pinch,” he explains.

Film-maker Ken Burns, a graduate of Hampshire, heads a group trying to raise $100 million. A new President is rallying supporters. But the future is uncertain.

If the economic troubles of elite liberal arts institutions have you mock-playing an air violin, consider the consequences. For one, there’ll be fiercer competition for spots at the most prestigious schools — a sport already so gruesome, actress Felicity Huffman is doing jail time for gaming it. For another, there will be fewer opportunities for low-income students who rely on generous financial aid packages at small liberal arts colleges as one of the few tickets into the upper class. It may also mean the retreat of the only part of higher education that is uniquely American. Residential liberal arts colleges are rare in other parts of the world. For more than 200 years, they’ve made American higher education an exceptional laboratory for fostering empathy, creativity and innovation. We’ve gotten so used to them, we may not notice what we’ve lost until it’s gone.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Funding, Higher Education

Carol Burris: Wealthy Charter Organizations Lash Out at Elizabeth Warren for Proposing to Cut Off Their Federal Funding

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2019 //
15

Carol Burris, a veteran educator and now executive director of the Network for Public Education, has conducted extensive research into the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP), which resulted in a report called Asleep at the Wheel. That report documented the waste of about $1 billion in federal funds spent on charters that either never opened or that opened and then closed in short order. At the time the CSP was created by the Clinton administration, there were fewer than 100 charters; the new program was supposed to help start-up charters. However, since Betsy DeVos became Secretary of Education, she has used the CSP as her personal slush fund, lavishing million on established corporate charter chains–especially IDEA and KIPP.

In this post, which appeared on Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post, Burris describes the outraged reaction of the charter advocacy groups to Elizabeth Warren’s plan to end the federal CSP. She details that each of the major charter groups has received many millions of dollars from the federal government, in addition to the support they have received from billionaires, foundations, and Wall Street. They are angry that their federal money might be cut off.

Strauss invited charter advocates to respond, and she includes their responses in the post. They want the money, they all said, because it is all about the kids.

Strauss writes:

Last week, Warren spelled out a detailed plan that would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to improve public schools from prekindergarten through 12th grade, saying she would pay for it by taxing America’s wealthiest people.

She calls for, among other things, quadrupling federal Title I funding for schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, which would add $450 billion over the next 10 years — and change the way that funding is implemented so that the neediest students benefit. The plan would also fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act at the level the federal government originally promised — 40 percent of the total cost of educating students with disabilities.

But this is what set off supporters of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated: She said she would end federal investment in charter school expansion, ban for-profit charter schools and ensure existing charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability requirements as that of traditional public school districts. Warren also said she wants to ensure that only school districts can authorize the opening of charter schools.

She wasn’t the only Democratic presidential candidate to call for an end to federal funding for new charter schools; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) did the same thing. But Warren has risen to the top of a number of polls, and she is now a prime target for critics of her proposals.

A day after Warren’s announcement, the pro-charter Center for Education Reform issued a release attacking her, saying in part: “This week is seeing Elizabeth Warren’s education stances go from disastrous to downright awful. Yesterday she released a plan filled with failed policies of the past that puts narrow special interests over parents’ rights and student’s opportunities to succeed.”

Carol Burris writes:

The unveiling of Elizabeth Warren’s education plan resulted in a flurry of emails, tweets and blogs all focused on one small part of the plan — shutting down the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program. Most of the biggest objectors were those charter organizations that enjoy a stream of federal funding, with some having received hundreds of millions from a program whose original mission has gone astray.

It is not surprising that the alarm bells went off in the charter school establishment. Warren is now the second of the three leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president who have promised to shut down the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) called for a moratorium on the same program in his education platform, eliciting the same outrage from many of the same players.

Below is a sample of some of the recent emails, followed by a discussion of the benefit that each organization received.

First, a fundraising email for the Charter PAC went out from Nina Rees, the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools:

From: Nina Rees
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 7:18 PM
Subject: Warren Proposes to Stop Federal Funding for Charter Schools
Dear Friends —
Today Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren called to end federal funding for the expansion of
charter schools.
But we know that 5 million more families would choose a charter school if one could open near them.
Senator Warren’s plan to starve charter schools of funding would destroy the dreams of a quality education
for the families who need it most. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools responded sharply.
However, to protect as well as grow the Charter Schools Program, we must deploy all the tools available to us.
Please contribute to the Charter Schools Action PAC today. A strong Charter Schools PAC helps reinforce our
mission to candidates that need to know the impact of Senator Warren’s plan.
I’m writing today to ask for your help. Give today and share with 5 of your friends who support charter schools.
Thank you
Nina

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which had an income of nearly $13 million in 2017, has a vested interest in the continuance of the Charter Schools Program.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education, under Secretary Betsy DeVos, awarded it a $2,385,960 grant. That is because a new funding stream was established that year, the National Dissemination Grants Program. The new grant program does not fund charter schools, but rather organizations such as the national alliance. Given the size of its budget, that award provides a substantial inflow of cash.

Since 2010, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has spent $2,621,999 lobbying Congress and the White House for funding for charter schools, with much of that lobbying being directed at the expansion of the federal Charter Schools Program, legislative records show.

[Asked to comment, Rees said in an email: “Charter Schools Action PAC, a voluntary organization of charter school supporters, responded to the Warren campaign’s direct assault on charter schools and the contribution they are making to high quality education for all kids. When our schools, students, and families are attacked our supporters have no choice but to respond on behalf of all families who want high quality educational options for their kids.”]

Rees’s email was then shortly followed by another from the CEO of IDEA Charter Schools, Tom Torkelson, who forwarded Rees’s email to the same listserv with this note:

Friends,
I hope you saw Nina’s note below. Senator Warren has proposed to cut the entire charter schools federal program. We need your help today [gmail.us4.list-manage.com]; don’t wait to support our efforts.
Tom
Tom Torkelson
Former Classroom Teacher and Charter School Founder

Torkelson, the CEO of the IDEA charter chain has an even greater vested interest in the preservation of the Federal Charter Schools Program. IDEA Charter Schools has received $225,000,000 from the Charter Schools Program since 2010. In 2018, IDEA had nearly $900 million in assets. That year, Torkelson earned over $550,000 from the charter chain and its related organization, public tax records show.

[A spokesman for IDEA said in an email: “As the Founder of IDEA Public Schools, Tom Torkelson has dedicated the last two decades to developing high-quality public schools that serve students from low-income backgrounds. Thanks, in part, to the federal Charter Schools Program, IDEA Public Schools has been able to expand in communities where the need is greatest, in partnership with teachers, students, and families…. We’re glad to see our founder stand up to defend schools that give students from all backgrounds the chance to go to a school that works for them.]

Just to make sure everyone on the listserv got the message and gave to the political action committee, Richard Barth of the KIPP charter chain forwarded the same email again.

Barth wrote:

Friends, We can’t let Senator Warren’s plan of cutting charter school funding become reality. Join us today and help all kids achieve their dreams. Richard.
Richard Barth
CEO
KIPP Foundation

The KIPP charter chain received $218,457,063 in grants from the Charter Schools program since 2010.

[A KIPP spokesman said in an email: Richard Barth is on the board of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools PAC. He sent the email on behalf of that organization, not on behalf of the KIPP Foundation. It is not uncommon for organizations like the PAC to ask for support when they are faced with important threats to their mission. The Charter School Program has been a critical and effective tool in creating opportunities for educationally underserved children. We are proud of our CEO for continuing to fight for black and brown families to have access to a quality education.]

That is nearly a half-billion dollars going to two of the most well-endowed charter chains in the nation — and that does not include the millions more that their individual schools received prior to the establishment of the Charter Management Organization grant program.

No one should be surprised that progressive candidates are taking on the Charter Schools Program. Sanders and Warren have been outspoken critics of billionaires and Wall Street driving public policy, and both of those groups have driven charter policies for years.

The federal Charter Schools Program, which began modestly in 1995, has turned into a massive giveaway with multiple examples of waste and the enabling of fraud. More than $4.1 billion in public funding has gone to start, replicate and expand charter schools with millions more now going to other ancillary programs for dissemination and facilities funding.

In Warren’s home state of Massachusetts, 74 charter schools were awarded CSP grants between 2006-2014. Fifteen never even opened and eight shut down or were shut down — hardly a resounding success. That represents over $4.6 million in federal funds going to charter “experiments” that failed.

Last March, the Network for Public Education issued our report, “Asleep at the Wheel,” that exposed the enormous waste the program has generated by freely given tax dollars to charter school operators who never actually open a proposed school, and to operators whose charter schools open and close.

Next year we will issue a follow-up report that will provide detailed documentation of where wasted funding went, including how funds make their way to charters run by for-profit organizations as well as to operators who would use that money to start charters while engaging in mismanagement and unlawful profiteering.

Under DeVos, the Charter Schools Program is moving in a direction that accelerates school privatization and the flow of public funds into private hands. Since DeVos has been in charge, six of the 20 grants from the State Entities program — totaling $116,571,458 — have gone not to state government agencies, but to private agencies to distribute school start-up grants. In exchange, these agencies get to keep 10 percent of the grants to administer the grants and supply services.

As these private agencies receive grants that have a funding stream for their organization attached, it is likely that the waste associated with the previous grants to state education agencies will get worse.

As mentioned earlier, the new National Dissemination Grants Program, has also been a financial windfall for charter advocacy groups. The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools was not alone in receiving a grant. Grants to private organizations totaled $16 million in 2018, federal records show. Joining the National Alliance were the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the California Charter Schools Association, which has also received big funding from billionaires of that state.

The CSP program is now moving in a direction aligned with the philosophy of DeVos — the private sector is preferred over the public sector when it comes to the schooling, and the management of schooling, of America’s children.

Some of the teacher strikes around the country that started in early 2018 — including those in West Virginia and California — focused on more than teacher salaries and benefits. West Virginia teachers walked out to stop the encroachment of privatization in the form of vouchers and charters in their state. In both the cities of Los Angeles and Oakland, calls to stop the spread of charters were heard from the picket lines and became part of negotiations.

The “competition” between the charter and public school sector was supposed to be the tide that would lift all boats. Instead, some public school systems are unable to stay afloat as that tide pulls public resources from their schools.

In 1995, New Hampshire enacted legislation permitting charter schools. It received two modest CSP grants in 2003 and 2010, together totaling about $18 million. In the 25 years since charters have been allowed, 33 charters opened, five of which have closed due to lack of enrollment and financial insolvency. The state does not allow for-profit organizations to run schools, and as of now, there are no charter chains in the state.

Although 28 charter schools is a small number, those charters are embedded in a public school system of only 448 public schools. Nevertheless, in 2019, DeVos gave the state a whopping $46 million as a CSP federal grant. In addition to providing support for existing schools, the intent of the grant is to both expand existing schools and create 27 charter schools in the five years of the grant — doubling the number of charters in that tiny state.

Frank Edelblut, the governor-appointed commissioner of education in New Hampshire who applauded receipt of the grant, home-schooled his seven children. He is a strong supporter of charter schools and vouchers (which use public founds for private and religious school education) — and like DeVos, has no experience in public education.

“Asleep at the Wheel” detailed up to $1 billion in federal funds that were wasted on charter schools that never opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons, and that may be an underestimate. Sanders and Warren have now stood up to the charter industry, questioning a program that they say been used as a lever to sponsor unfettered charter school growth and private profits while undermining democratically governed public schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization
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