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Angie Sullivan: Stop the For-Profit Charter Scam in Nevada

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2018 //
9

Angie Sullivan teaches young children in a Title 1 school in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. She writes an email blast to every legislator in the state.

Angie writes:

Folks in other states are banning for-profit charter management corporations.

With good reason.

Whole campaigns are built on banning for-profit scams in other states. We need folks in Nevada to notice this mess.

http://m.wtol.com/toledonewsnow/db_347256/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=yQmm1LBE

Attendance should match testing.

In Nevada we have for-profits corporations claiming they have thousands enrolled but only a few test?

We cannot afford to give $18 Million to a corporation if they are only providing $1 million in educational type services. Note: I did not state learning – because providing a type of service is NOT learning if students do not graduate.

Meanwhile, we elect lawmakers who sit on for-profit charter boards, manage a for-profit branch, or work at a for-profit charter. They will sit in legislative session next year and have their hands on bills to line pockets. Note: I did not say teach kids, because that is NOT the bottom line or mission of a corporation. No wonder no one graduates.

Let’s not repeat mistakes of other states which expanded charters at an alarming rate and now the tax payer suffers. Nevada has a big enough mess already.

Nevada Charters are definitely not a remedy or an example. It is a travesty that a real public school in CCSD is threatened with being turned into a charter. Scary.

It is not fiscally responsible to allow Academica, Gulen Corals, or On-lines to run rampant without the same transparency and accountability required by all public schools.

Time for a for-profit charter moratorium and to clean up this $350 million mess.

CCSD Parents need to be demanding expansion of CCSD Magnets – which are the top schools in the nation – instead of these scammers. And we need funding to maintain quality in Magnets. That is what works. People need to demand what works.

The Teacher,
Angie

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Funding, Privatization

James Harvey: What the Election Meant for Education in Various States

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
5

James Harvey, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, reports on the implications of the recent elections for education in many states. That organization is the opposite of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, in that its members are certified superintendents, mostly from mid-size school districts.


Lost in the partisan noise around Tuesday’s midterm elections was a lot of school news. A former superintendent is ready to move into the Wisconsin governor’s mansion, initiatives in states across the nation will shape education moving forward, and the changing of the guard in the U.S. House of Representatives portends changes in committee makeup, leadership, and legislative emphases. Thanks to Politico, Education Week, and the Committee for Education Funding, we have early intelligence on some of these developments.

State-by-State News

Arizona: Voters refused to expand the state’s education savings account program, a voucher program that allows families to draw public funds to pay for private school tuition and other education-related expenses.

Alabama: Voters backed a referendum allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools and other public buildings.

Colorado: Voters refused to generate an additional $1.6 billion for K-12 education by raising corporate taxes and state income taxes for people earning $150,000 or more annually.

Connecticut: Jahana Hayes, 2016 National Teacher of the Year, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Oklahoma: Voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed school leaders to tap into funding typically reserved for school construction and use it in other ways such as for teacher salaries. Meanwhile, Melissa Provenzano, assistant principal at Bixby High School, and John Waldron, a social studies teacher at Booker T. Washington High School, won seats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives .

Pennsylvania: Mary Gay Scanlon, who served on the Wallingford-Swarthmore school board in suburban Philadelphia from 2007-2015, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

South Carolina: Voters shot down a proposal to allow the governor to appoint the state superintendent of education. The position remains an elected office.

Wisconsin: Tony Evers, a former school superintendent in Oakfield, Verona, and Oshkosh, Wisconsin, went on to be elected state superintendent of public instruction. On Tuesday, he beat incumbent Governor Scott Walker and is set to move into the governor’s mansion in January.

Teachers Seeking Office: Nationwide, NEA identified 1,800 teachers, retired teachers, and academics running for state legislative seats. There is, as yet, no comprehensive count of their success or failure.

Changing of the Guard in the House of Representatives

Insider’s Baseball: The new Congressional makeup means that ratios of CEF Logo Democrats and Republicans on committees in the House and Senate must be revised for the 116th Congress, which convenes in January. House committees will add Democratic slots (and staff) and lose Republican slots (and staff). The reverse will be true in the Senate. Precise ratios await final vote results.

Likely Key New House Committee Leaders:

Rep. Bobby Scott (Va) — Committee on Education and the Workforce, which will probably reclaim its traditional title of Committee on Education and Labor

Rep. Nita Lowey (NY) — Committee on Appropriations (jurisdiction over tax treatment of private school tuition)

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT) — Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, and Education

New Legislative Emphases

Analysts downplay the chances of major new legislation. House Democrats, however, have outlined their legislative priorities. These include a number of education initiatives to be paid for by revising the tax cuts enacted in the 115th Congress:

Making good on the pledge the Federal government first made in 1975 to pay for 40 percent of the excess costs of educating students with disabilities

$50 billion for K-12 school infrastructure and resources

$50 billion over ten years to increase teacher compensation and to recruit and retain a diverse workforce

$107 billion in combined federal, state, and local resources to invest in physical and digital school infrastructure, creating 1.9 million jobs.

Increasing support for Title I schools

Reauthorizing IDEA and the Higher Education Act

More vigorous oversight of the Department of Education and its regulatory actions.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Funding, Politics, U.S. Department of Education

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 3

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
6

Sue Legg recently retired as education director of the Florida League of Women Voters. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. At my request, she wrote a four-part series reflecting on School Choice in Florida after 20 years.

Twenty years later: Who Benefits, Not Schools!

Florida’s Constitution mandates that the state shall make ‘adequate provision for all students to access a uniform, safe, secure, efficient and high-quality system of free public schools.

The strategies on how to implement or circumvent these values result in constant lawsuits…at least five in the last two years alone. The arguments are not new: civil rights, funding, local vs. state control, and accountability. One might ask: Who benefits in a system that generates so much conflict? Politicians and profiteers, but not the public may well be the answer.

Political Cronyism and Conflict of Interest.

Charter supporters use money and influence to affect policy outcomes. According to Integrity Florida, $2,651,639 was spent on committee and campaign contributions in 2016 alone. Major donors include John Kirtley, who heads Florida Federation for Children and is also chair of Step Up for Students (which distributes a billion dollars in corporate tax credit scholarships to private schools). All Children Matters, run by Betsy DeVos, gave over $4 million to Florida political committees between 2004 and 2010. The Walton family gave over $7 million between 2008 and 2016 to Florida’s All Children Matter. Large contributions by the Waltons, John Kirtley, CSUSA, Academica, Gary Chartrand (a member of the State Board of Education) and others were also made to Kirtley’s Florida Federation for Children. In addition, for profit charters have spent over $8 million in lobbying in Tallahassee. Former Governor Jeb Bush’s foundation ExcelinEd, supports the spread of pro-choice policies in 38 states.

Conflict of interest claims in the Florida legislature have been made against current and former legislators including Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran; legislators Manny Diaz, Eric Fresen (recently found guilty of tax evasion), Seth McKeel, House Education Chair Michael Bileca, Senators John Legg, Anitere Flores, Kelli Stargel, and Ralph Arza (who was forced to resign for other reasons). They have personal ties to the charter industry and held important education committee leadership roles.

Testing Companies.

The A.I.R. testing company received a six-year $220 million contract for the Florida state assessment exams. This contract does not include the mandatory End of Course exams required in high school subjects, the kindergarten readiness test, the English Language Learner test, or the 50 teacher certification tests and the principals’ leadership exam. Add to this cost was the technical debacle resulting from a law requiring all tests to be administered online. Districts did not have the bandwidth.

Private and Charter Schools Expansion.

The Florida tax credit scholarships (FTC) to private schools no longer serves only low-income families. Income eligibility has risen to $63,000 for partial stipends. Funding is increased by 25% per year, but the corporate tax revenue to support them runs afoul of the governor’s agenda to reduce taxes. As a compromise, in 2018 a sales tax ‘donation’ to private schools for new car owners was approved for students with approved claims of being bullied. Students with disabilities may qualify for MacKay scholarships to private schools which may have no qualified teachers to serve them. Parents whose children have severe disabilities are given a stipend and search on their own for assistance.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida : Part 1

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
15

Sue Legg was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. She recently stepped down as Education Director of the Florida League of Women Voters.

This is the first of a series on the effects of school choice, which she wrote at my request.

Florida Twenty Years Later: Undermining Public Schools

Florida has a long track record in school privatization.

Consequently, I recently had the sobering charge to help Louisville citizens understand what lies ahead if their new charter school enabling law is funded. Florida has 655 charters enrolling nearly 300,000 students, the third largest number in the U.S., and it also spends over a billion dollars per year in tax credit scholarships to 2800 private schools. What does Florida have to show for it?

Privatizing schools was sold to the public as a money saving policy. Education, after all, is the second largest Florida state budget item.

Competition from the private sector, it was argued, would increase quality and save money. State assessment scores would grade students, schools and teachers to assure the public that the ever-increasing education standards were met. This competition myth imploded. Education became a battleground over funding, support for teachers, and the impact of parental choice on neighborhoods.

Twenty years later, Florida schools are nearing a fiscal and social crisis. Not only did the legislature cut funding in 2008, it reallocated money to charter and private schools and put a cap on local property tax revenue for public schools.

Student enrollment grew, and the Hispanic population doubled.

A forest of temporary buildings sprouted on playgrounds to add classrooms.

In my district alone, $168 million has been lost in facility funding. Some of our schools have buckets in classrooms to catch the rainfall and use sandbags to block water from entering hallways. Others are so crowded that lunch begins at 9:30 a.m. Many districts are asking for increases in local sales and property taxes to support schools; others already have. Opponents, however, want to prevent communities from increasing taxes.

Building maintenance is only part of the problem facing Florida’s schools. Its per student funding to support instruction is among the lowest in the nation. Its teacher attrition rate is high. The PTA reports that there were 1482 teaching positions still vacant in January 2018. Two thirds of teachers who leave are for reasons other than retirement. One clue is that the NEA ranks Florida 46th in average teacher salary. As a result, Florida now ranks first in the nation (25%) in inexperienced teachers.

Teaching and learning also have changed in many ways. ‘Test Prep’ begins in February for April state assessments. The districts’ versions of choice include magnet schools and student placement based on test scores within and across schools. The increasing lament is that there are ‘schools within schools’ where some students have access to high quality programs and teachers and others do not.

Choice fragments neighborhoods.

Think, for example, of the charter school in south Florida that opened across the street from an excellent public school, thus reducing its enrollment and funding but not its overhead expenses. An ‘A’ school became a ‘C’ school. Schools in south Pinellas County declined and were labeled ‘Failure Factories’ drawing national attention.

What changed? The choice movement adopted a ‘separate but equal’ philosophy undermining the integration reform from the 1970s through the 90s. Charter and private schools siphoned off the higher achieving students. Other parents who could, moved away leaving under enrolled schools with insufficient funds to support needed equity programs for children in poverty.

Florida educators and parents are fighting back. Lawsuits reflect the issues: vouchers, school funding, tax credit scholarships, invalid teacher evaluation system, local district control over school funding and charter authorization, ‘union busting’, merit pay, third grade retention, students with disabilities, state take-over of local schools, teacher certification, and a proposed separate educational system for charters.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Florida, Funding, School Choice

Peter Greene: Society Is Failing Our Children and Their Schools

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2018 //
12

Recently, a commenter on this blog wrote that he finally understood why some schools are succeeding and others are failing. He said he realized that children in affluent communities have well-resourced and successful schools, while children in impoverished communities have terrible schools. I tried for the umpteenth time to explain to him that he was reaching the wrong conclusion. The only measure he was using was test scores, which reflect family income. I suggested he consider that the schools in poor communities did not get the same resources as those in affluent communities. The schools he called “failing” very likely have dedicated teachers who are working hard despite large classes and inadequate support. The problem is not the schools, but society’s refusal to pay the cost of making every school a good school.

Peter Greene explains the point in more detail in this post about the Journey for Justice Alliance.

He begins:

“If you’re not regularly exposed to the problem, you might think that finding the ways in which non-white non-wealthy students are shortchanged would require deep and nuanced research. As it turns out, finding the ways in which education fails to serve those students requires no more careful research than finding the nose on the front of your face.

“The Journey For Justice Alliance is based in Chicago, but it’s an alliance of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in 24 cities across the country. They are working and organizing for community-driven alternatives to the privatization of and dismantling of public school systems. They’re the folks behind the #WeChoose movement (as in “we choose education equity, not the illusion of school choice.” Look at their member groups and you’ll find honest-to-goodness community grass roots organizations, not just one more astroturf group funded by Gates, Walton, et al. Their director, Jitu Brown, is one of the most powerful speakers for education and equity it has ever been my pleasure to hear.

“Last spring they issued a report– “Failing Brown v. Board”– that looks at the gap between the schools that serve primarily wealthy white families and those that serve non-wealthy families of color. Their findings are not encouraging.

“The report says: The fact is, public schools in Black and Latino communities are not “failing.” They have been failed. More accurately, these schools have been sabotaged for years by policy-makers who fail to fully fund them, by ideologues who choose to experiment with them, by “entrepreneurs” who choose to extract public taxpayer dollars from education systems for their own pockets.

“The report also rejects the notion that money doesn’t matter, or that somehow the children and their families are responsible. And they know what successful, fully-resourced schools look like

They offer a culturally relevant, engaging and challenging curriculum, smaller class sizes, more experienced teachers, wrap-around emotional and academic supports, a student-centered school climate and meaningful parent and community engagement. These are the hallmarks of what Journey for Justice calls sustainable community schools.

“J4J performed a fairly simple piece of research– looking at course offerings in various schools across twelve cities. They acknowledge that such a comparison isn’t perfect, that schools may offer courses that are never actually taught, that the course offering list doesn’t tell you about the quality of those courses. But the findings are still pretty stark.”

In every pairing of black and white schools, “majority white schools offered both more academic subjects and more “enrichment” subjects in the arts than majority Black and/or Brown schools. Majority white schools offered more foreign languages, more high-level math options, more AP courses. The range of offerings in arts, music, dance and theater was far greater in majority white schools…

“Charter fans are going to say, “See? That’s why we need to build more charters, so we can get some of those children of color out of there,” but why should those children have to sacrifice the other big benefit that majority white schools enjoy– a school in their own community that they can attend with their neighbors? And why do we need a complicated web of privatized schools to fix the problem. We know how to fix the problem, as witnessed by the fact that politicians and leaders have fixed the problem for each of the affluent majority white schools.

“It’s like you have twenty kids in a cafeteria, and ten sit down with a steak dinner and the other ten get bowls of cold oatmeal, and when someone complains about it, a bunch of folks pop up to propose some complex system by which one of the oatmeal kids will be sent out to a restaurant across town. No! Just get back out in the kitchen and use the same tools and supplies that you demonstrably already have to make steak dinners for the rest of the kids.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Inequality, Injustice, Racism

Andrea Gabor: In Many States, Schools Will Be a Deciding Factor in Vote

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2018 //
3

Andrea Gabor surveys the election and reminds us that while Trump has dominated the coverage of the election, school issues will be front and center in many states.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-11-05/midterm-elections-where-schools-not-trump-are-the-focus

“National issues are getting most of the attention in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm election, including health care, immigration and President Donald Trump.

“Yet from Arizona to Kentucky to Wisconsin, politics also remains fiercely local. Especially in states that cut school budgets as a result of the 2008 recession and Republican-sponsored tax cuts, public school funding has become a hot-button issue in many state legislative and gubernatorial races, often scrambling party loyalties. Six years after the Great Recession, most states were still spending less on schools than they were before 2008, according to a 2016 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Teachers in several Republican-dominated states led a political groundswell earlier this year, with walkouts that closed schools. Over 300 teachers are running for political office in the midterms, more than double the number that did so in 2014. While many of the teacher candidates are Democrats hoping to unseat Republicans who cut school funding and promoted privatization in the form of charter schools and private-school voucher programs, educational activism cuts across party lines.

“In Arizona, a small group of mothers and teachers organized to oppose a 2017 law that expanded the state’s voucher program, which steers taxpayer dollars from the state’s public schools to private and religious schools. More than 100,000 people signed a petition to put their referendum on the ballot, provoking a counterattack from Americans for Prosperity, an organization backed by the conservative activists David and Charles Koch. It sued, unsuccessfully, to have it taken off of the ballot. Both sides have identified the referendum on the voucher law as a top priority.”

After years of budget cuts, some districts and states are likely to increase investment in education. And in a sign of the times, the anti-public school Governor Scott Walker claims to be “the education Governor.” Hopefully, voters will not be fooled.

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Kentucky, Koch Brothers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Jeff Bryant: Will the Teachers of Arizona Beat the Koch Brothers’ Effort to Pass Vouchers for All?

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2018 //
22

Jeff Bryant describes the brave teachers who decided to fight the Koch brothers’ plan to introduce universal vouchers in Arizona.

The rightwing strategy has been to take a bite, then another bite, than another bite, until every student is eligible for a voucher.

The teachers fought to get a referendum on the ballot on November 6. The Koch brothers sent their legal team to defeat the referendum and keep it off the ballot.

The teachers fought for a referendum called #InvestinED, to create a dedicated funding source for public schools. That referendum was knocked off the ballot for narrow technical reasons.

The schools in Arizona are underfunded. The vast majority of students attend public schools. The Koch brothers believe that no one should pay taxes, especially not billionaires like them.

VOTE NO ON PROP 305 to defeat vouchers.

Categories Arizona, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Vouchers

Bruce Baker: The Inconvenient Truth About New Orleans’ Reforms

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
7

The National Education Policy Center interviewed Bruce Baker about his review of a much-ballyhooed study of the impact of market forces in the New Orleans schools.

The Education Research Alliance at Tulane University released a study last July declaring that the privatization of almost every school in New Orleans was a great success. That very day, Betsy DeVos gave $10 Million to ERA to become a federally-funded National Center on School Choice. The report was written by Douglas Harris and Matthew Larsen.

Bruce Baker, a researcher at Rutgers University, has studied charter schools, school funding and equity for years. He was commissioned by NPE to review the ERA study.

His conclusion: Harris and Larsen had minimized the importance of demographic changes following the hurricane and the enormous influx of new funding. These changes alone, he said, could have accounted for the effects in New Orleans documented by the ERA.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Funding, National Education Policy Center, Network for Public Education, New Orleans, Philanthropy, School Choice, Segregation

Laura Chapman: The Deluge of Cash Flowing Into the Charter School Industry

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2018 //
21

Laura Chapman, tireless researcher, did a cursory scan of the abundance of billionaire cash flowing into charter schools, enhanced by another $400 million from the U.S. Department of Education. There are literally dozens more foundations and organizations pouring money into the charter industry, such as Reed Hastings (Netflix), Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, John Arnold (ex-Enron), Michael Dell (computers), the Fisher Family (Old Navy, the Gap), and many more.

Why is the U.S. Department of Education pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into this well-funded industry? Betsy DeVos recently handed out $399 million to jump-start new charter schools, even in districts and states where there is no demand. Next year, Congress has allotted $450 million for charters, whether they are wanted or not.

What is clear from Laura’s review is that charter schools are not in need of funding. They are in need of accountability, transpency, stability, supervision, regulation, and integrity.

She writes:


I just did an analysis of these USDE grants, announced by Politico, in tandem with the Walton Foundation 2020 plan for charter school grants. Of course charters have many big funders. For example the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has propped up the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers with grants to date of $35,954,074.

The 2020 plan from the Walton Family Foundation (prepared in 2015) begins with the prideful claim that the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart wealth) has supported 1 in 4 charter schools.

The 2020 plan provides for a five year investment totaling $1 billion for charter schools and supporters.

Between the Walton Family Foundation and USDE grants, thirty states will see inflows of funds for charters and with only a few exceptions (five), these states will have funds from both sources (in addition to many other funders).

The Walton Foundation is supporting charter-friendly STATE policies in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

For 2018-2019, the Walton wealth is supporting charterizing in: Arkansas (any district); California (Los Angeles specific boundaries, two grants]; California (Oakland, two grants), Colorado (Denver, two grants), Georgia (Atlanta, two grants), Indiana (Indianapolis, two grants), Louisiana (New Orleans, two grants), Massachusetts (Boston); New Jersey (Camden), New York (New York City, two grants), Oklahoma (any district), Tennessee (Memphis, Shelby County), Texas (Houston ISD; San Antonio, two grants), Washington, DC (two grants). “Any district” means there are no constraints on location. Most of the two-for grants are for facilities support in addition to operational support.

All of the Walton and USDE grants are for charter school “startups,” expansions, “replications” (as in a franchise), or charter school facilities financing. It is not surprising that most of the USDE grants are complementing those of the Walton Foundation.

It is easy to forget that NCLB provided for various schemes to finance charter schools (in addition to federal funds). Now there are specialty companies in the business of building out the charter sector. Here are some of the services advertised by one of these.

Begin quote: “Charter School Capital provides flexible funding solutions so charter schools can gain ground and achieve success. Our charter school working capital financing enables school leaders the flexibility and stability to support everyday expenses and — importantly — fuel their growth.

We help charter schools access working capital so they can:
Expand or grow programs, Open a new charter school, Provide new technology in the classroom, Hire and/or develop staff, Address budget shortfalls and delays (deferrals, holdbacks, etc.) gracefully, Improve transportation options, Enrich educational programs, Buy new equipment,

Facilities Financing
Our facilities financing product is a long-term lease that allows schools to access funding through all stages of growth – from start-up to expansion through maturity. As a long-term partner, our team works closely with you as we explore budgetary and financial options to support your facilities needs.
Why long-term lease financing? You can finance 100% of project costs, You can retain control of your facility, You can plan on long-term affordability, You can enhance your existing building or finance new construction, Your lease can be customized to your school’s model – whether blended learning, traditional, etc., Tenant improvements can be financed in your lease, Can be used as take-out financing for an existing bond or potential bridge to bond financing.

We currently own 42 school properties in 11 states, more than $350 million in assets. Schools range in attendance from 135 to 1,200 students with educational programs that include college preparatory, art-focused, STEM schools, and others. Our goal is to aid charter leaders so they have accessible, flexible financing options to meet their schools needs today and the needs they have in the future.

Loan Details
The Charter School Capital loan product is a flexible financing solution that can help schools reach their enrollment and educational goals.Available to schools of all ages, Refinance options available throughout the school year to accommodate growth, ƒ Payment plans can be customized to suit school needs, Access to funding in as few as 30 days from date of initial request, Loan amounts based on annual state aid revenue and student count, allowing for increasing scale with growth, NO RESTRICTIONS PLACED UPON UTILIZATION OF FUNDS. (caps are mine, End Quote.) https://charterschoolcapital.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/csc-product-1pager_WC_Facilities_Loans_FINAL.pdf

Here is the Walton 2020 plan: https://8ce82b94a8c4fdc3ea6d-b1d233e3bc3cb10858bea65ff05e18f2.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/04/ab/555b3ee54d3792eebaf27a803400/k12-strategic-plan-overview-updated.pdf

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

Arizona: Vouchers Do Not “Save Poor Kids from Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2018 //
7

Voucher advocates claim they want to “save poor kids from failing schools.”

Well, it turns out that in Arizona, most of the students who use vouchers come from highly-rated schools. 70% of the students who use vouchers come from A or B schools.

Very few poor students seek vouchers.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2018/10/25/prop-305-isnt-helping-poor-kids-escape-bad-schools/1762979002/

Arizona Republic reporter Laurie Roberts writes:

“Anyone who thinks that Gov. Doug Ducey’s expanded voucher program is aimed at helping poor kids escape failing public schools, raise your hand.

“Anyone?

“If you’re buying the Prop. 305 argument that creating a universal voucher program is about helping poor and middle-income kids escape bad schools, make sure you read Republic reporter Rob O’Dell’s latest analysis of who is using state money to pay for private school.

“And as importantly, who is not.

“Here’s a hint: it isn’t the poor kids and the parents snagging a public subsidy to send their children to private schools are escaping failing schools.

“What the numbers show

“O’Dell’s latest analysis shows that nearly 70 percent of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (read: vouchers) are being used by students leaving wealthier A- or B-rated school districts.

“Only 7 percent of ESA money is being used by students leaving districts rated D or F.

“Yet Ducey and the Republican-run Legislature have repeatedly expanded the voucher program, which began in 2011 to allow children with disabilities to attend the school best suited to address their special needs. Since then, it has been broadened to include a variety of categories of children, including those who attend failing schools.

“In 2017, our leaders expanded the ESA program yet again, decreeing that any child should be able to snag public funds to put toward private school but capping the program (for now) at 30,000 students by 2022.

“An earlier Republic analysis showed that 75 percent of ESA money was going to help suburban kids get out of wealthier, higher performing school districts. The top districts being “escaped” with a little help from taxpayers: Mesa, Tucson, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Chandler and Peoria.

“That 2017 expansion is now on the ballot, thanks to a referendum campaign launched by a group of women who formed Save Our Schools Arizona. A vote for Prop. 305 would allow voucher expansion to take effect. A vote against Prop. 305 would kill the expansion plan.”

Stop the hoax.

More vouchers means less money for the state’s underfunded public schools, which enroll at least 90% of the children in the state.

VOTE NO ON PROP 305.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Reform, Funding
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