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Longview, Texas: The State Senate Doesn’t Care About Public Education

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2017 //
13

The leader of Pastors for Texas Children, Charles Foster Johnson, spoke in Longview, Texas, where he told a crowd of educators and local officials that the State Senate doesn’t care about public schools. Led by the obstinate, narrow-minded Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the State Senate wants vouchers. It opposes funding public schools, attended by some 90% of the children in Texas, unless he gets a voucher bill. No vouchers, no funding.

Pastor Johnson told his audience that the Texas House was reasonable and did its best, but there is no getting any funding bill passed by the State Senate.

He told the truth. The State Senate doesn’t care about public schools.

Pastor Johnson said it is time to elect legislators who care about the public schools and the children who attend them: their constituents.

“The Texas Senate’s original budget was this,” Johnson said, making an “O” with his right hand. “Zero. And ultimately, fast forward to the end of the special session. Basically the Senate said if you’re not going to give us vouchers, we’re not going to give you funding. In other words, we’re going to starve your schools until you cave in and let us privatize them. Let us make money off your children. Let our donors — out-of-state donors — make money off your Longview kids, and the House said no, and that’s the stalemate.”

Categories Funding, Texas, Vouchers

Cynthia Nixon: Why Won’t Cuomo and the Legislature Fully Fund Our Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2017 //
28

The story has circulated in the media that megastar Cynthia Nixon may run against Andrew Cuomo for governor. You may have seen her on television or on Broadway, but what you don’t know if that she is a public school parent in New York City and cares deeply about public education.

In this article, she explains that New York City public schools have been denied funding that was promised by the courts. She also explains that Andrew Cuomo is no friend of public education. He is a cheerleader for the charter industry, whose wealthy patrons have underwritten his past campaigns.

Nixon knows more about education that any other candidate who will be on the ballot in 2018 in New York state.

She writes:

As a public school parent, I am fearful about what our new U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has in store for our nation’s public schools.

The Trump-DeVos agenda includes more support for privately run charter schools — which in DeVos’ home state of Michigan are known for being some of the worst performing in the country — and a dramatic expansion of school privatization through vouchers. It could also greatly reduce federal funding for public schools. For New York State that could mean a cut of up to $2.5 billion.

Frightening. But equally frightening is how much Betsy DeVos and Andrew Cuomo’s policies echo each other.

Governor Cuomo wants to eliminate New York’s obligation to provide schools statewide with $4.3 billion in additional funding, including nearly $287 million for schools in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. There is no doubt that high-needs schools require this support: Guidance counselors in Yonkers carry a caseload of 750 students. Ossining and Peekskill struggle to find resources to serve a growing influx of English language learners. And parents in Mount Vernon are suing the state to receive their fair share of education funding. We have the same problems in New York City.

In 2001, on the day my oldest child Sam began kindergarten, I was shocked to find that two thirds of the school’s paraprofessionals, the art teacher, the music teacher and the assistant principal were all gone since the spring tour I had taken a few months earlier — casualties of a woefully inadequate budget. On that day, I joined the fight for New York State to fully implement the ruling from the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit against the state…

In 2007 and 2008, the state made progress towards its constitutional obligations to students by funding Foundation Aid, but after Cuomo took office he did everything he could to avoid paying this debt, and now he wants to eliminate Foundation Aid outright.

He also wants to increase the number of privately-run charter schools in New York City by more than 50 percent. And he has been a loud proponent of private school tax credits, essentially a backdoor voucher system. These are policies we expect from Betsy DeVos, but from Andrew Cuomo?

Whoever runs for office in New York and in other states should go on the record about whether they support public schools. We know the answer from Cuomo. He wants more charter schools. This will be an albatross around his neck if he runs for president in 2020. That is, unless Cynthia Nixon beats him!

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Funding, New York

Jeff Bryant: When Betsy DeVos Says “School Choice,” Think Crony Capitalism

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2017 //
20

Jeff Bryant warns journalists and the public to look behind Betsy DeVos’s words and watch her deeds.

She lauds the importance of supporting teachers at the same time that she endorses Trump’s proposed $2.4 billion cuts for teacher training. She speaks honeyed words about STEM education as that same proposal slashes funding for STEM. And bear in mind, when hearing her praise for science, that she works in the most anti-science administration in history. Besides, her family foundations have supported creationist and other religion-based curricula.

Bryant reviews her recent visit to Michigan, her home state, and notes that she showered attention on private institutions, including one directly connected to the DeVos family.

She may be the only Secretary of Education in memory who was allowed to hold investments that directly conflict with her official duties and is allowed to continue to make new investments as she serves. She recently increased her holding in Neurocore, a quack corporation that claims to cure autism and other disabilities with biofeedback. She and her husband are the company’s biggest stakeholders. When I worked st the U.S. Department of Education, even the appearance of conflict of interest was strictly prohibited. The ethics officer must be asleep or reassigned to other duties.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding

Peter Greene: The Dirty Secret of the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
21

Peter Greene identifies the dirty secret of the charter industry. Two words. Real estate.

In Ohio, a charter lobbyist wrote the charter law for the state. When a charter operator insisted that he owned everything the charter bought with public money, the courts upheld him. It was in the law.

In Pennsylvania, charter schools own the property where the charter school is housed, and they charge rent. They charge rents above the market rate. The state doesn’t ask questions. The state doesn’t even notice that the charter operator owns the property and pays himself rent.

Greene offers a few examples from across the nation, and he didn’t even include Florida, where the charter scams are commonplace:

Carl Paladino, the notorious bad boy of the Buffalo school board, has made a mint in charter-related real estate deals. Not only does Paladino build the charters and lease them, but he builds the new apartment buildings near the shiny new school– a one-man gentrification operation. And he sits on the public school board, where he can vote to approve and support the growth of charters.

That’s not even the most astonishing sort of charter real estate scam. A 2015 report from the National Education Policy Center outlined what might be the worst. Take a public school building, built and paid for with public tax dollars. That building is purchased by a charter school, which is using public tax dollars. At the end of this, you’ve got a building that the public has paid for twice– but does not now own.

In February of this year, researchers Preston Green, Bruce Baker and Joseph Oluwole dropped the provocative notion that charter schools may be the new Enron. It’s a lot to take in, but Steven Rosenfeld pulled out five takeaways for Alternet, if you’d like a quicker look. But just some little factoids give you a taste. For instance, Imagine Schools take 40% of the money they collect from taxpayers and put that right back into lease agreements. In Los Angeles, owners of a private school leased room on their campus for a charter school that they were also involved in running– then jacked that rent up astronomically.

His article has links. Follow them. This is the most underreported story of the charter world: The big money is in the real estate, not necessarily the students.

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

Kansas: Schools, Funding, Taxes, and Lies from the Koch Brothers’ Spokesman

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2017 //
23

While driving yesterday, I listened to a panel discussion on taxes led by correspondent Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC.

With the usual left-right line-up of guests, they debated whether the Trump tax plan would benefit the rich or everyone.

The man from the right was part of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. He insisted that massive tax cuts would be very beneficial for middle-income and poor Americans. The man from the left (center, really) disagreed and insisted that the big winners were the rich.

Then the center-left man said that the governor of Kentucky tried massive tax cuts and it backfired. He quickly was corrected (or corrected himself) and said it was Kansas, not Kentucky.

That’s where Governor Sam Brownback cut taxes, predicting an economic boom–that never happened. Instead, the state is facing a budget hole of nearly $900 million, and even Republicans recognize they must raise taxes.

But Mr. Right winger jumps in and says “the Kansas tax cuts would have worked, but the courts forced the state to spend massive amounts on K-12 schools, which gobbled up all the savings from the tax cuts.”

I almost jumped out of my car. I knew that the Kansas high court ordered the state to fund the schools, but the state has not yet done it.

So Mr. Right winger was wrong on two counts, but no one corrected him:

1. The state did not spend the non-existent savings produced by tax cuts on the schools, because there were none;

2. The courts were trying to enforce the state constitution and demanding equitable funding, which Mr. RW clearly thought was unnecessary.

Having flat out lied, he got away with it because no one else knew the facts. There was no bonanza from the tax cuts, and the K-12 schools have not yet received a dollar of new money.

See here:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/kansas/articles/2017-06-05/kansas-lawmakers-reject-single-plan-on-taxes-school-funding

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article161585073.html

Categories Funding, Kansas

Illinois: Join the Protest at Gov. Rauner’s Home!

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2017 //
10

MEDIA ALERT: Wednesday, August 2, 2017

“SB1 IS NOT A CPS BAILOUT!”
CPS Parents and Students Cry Foul on Rauner’s False Rhetoric and SB1 Veto

Protesters Descend on Gov’s Neighborhood with $6.9 Billion Collection Notice

WHAT: CPS parents and students respond to Governor Rauner’s veto of SB1

WHERE: Governor Rauner’s block: 720 Rosewood Ave, Winnetka, IL

DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 2017

TIME: 10:00 am start

Chicago Public School (CPS) parents and students will gather at Governor Rauner’s house to reject his veto of SB1 and to present a collection notice to him for $6.9 Billion in unpaid pension payments to CPS.

Parents and students will bring attention to Governor Rauner’s false statement that SB1 is a Chicago ‘bailout,’ by pointing out that the state has for years failed to pay billions in dollars due to Chicago for pension support.

Raise Your Hand Action (RYHA) has determined that the state failed to pay at least $6.9B in payments to Chicago Public Schools that they intended to pay according to statute 40 ILCS 5/17-127, item B. Under this standard, and according to information from TRS’ annual reports, the state should have paid a total of between $6.9B and $10.3B to CPS for pensions since 1995.

The group will also canvass in the Governor’s neighborhood, sharing facts about the lack of pension parity for CPS, which contributes greatly to the plight of Chicago children, who attend one of the most financially-disadvantaged districts in the country, just miles from some of the most well-funded schools in the US, those in Rauner’s hometown.

Chicago is not asking for additional taxes or extra money, just its fair share of what the state already allocates to schools. SB1 was designed using recommendations from Rauner’s hand-picked panel to do just that.

The Better Government Association (BGA) conducted an analysis this week and found Governor Rauner’s claim regarding the pension ‘bailout’ language to be false because “it [SB1] only gives CPS what every other school district already has.” It now seems that Rauner would rather demonize CPS than see schools open on time or provide the fair resource allocation that will give kids a chance.

Back of the Yards College Prep High School student Veronica Rodriguez says, “To stop the rise in violence in our communities, we need investment in our schools. We need counselors, teachers and afterschool programs. I need the governor to stop playing politics with my future.”

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Education Reform, Funding

Mike Klonsky: Governor Rauner Vetoes Funding for the Kids of Chicago

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2017 //
9

Mike Klonsky describes Governor Rauner’s rationale for vetoing aid to Chicago public schools.

“Gov. Rauner has vetoed SB1, the school funding bill, thereby continuing to deprive the state’s neediest districts of millions of dollars and threatening the opening of schools in the fall.

“Rauner claims that the bill takes money away from wealthier white districts in order to “bail out” needier, mainly black and Latino districts like Chicago. He also claims, the bill, “includes a bailout of Chicago’s broken teacher pension system.”

“Both claims are false, says the BGA.

“In fact, under the new funding formula no school district gets less state money, but many low-income districts get more. With low-income students accounting for 80.2% of its enrollment, CPS is among the latter group.

“The biggest problem with the bill as I see it, is that it fails to identify new sources of revenue, ie. a graduated income tax, making the wealthiest pay their fair share. But nevertheless, the bill, which passed both houses in Springfield needs to be signed, and fast.

“Rauner’s been using the big-lie technique to play off white students against students of color, urban schools against downstate and suburban schools and everyone against teachers, their unions, and retirees.

“But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that his “bail out” claims are correct. What’s wrong with bailing out public schools or other public institutions in distress? If IL paid its fair share of education dollars, a bail out wouldn’t be necessary. IL continues to rank near the bottom when it comes to school funding.

“The state, by constitutional mandate, has the primary responsibility for funding its public schools but has never come close to covering even 50% of the cost. In recent years, the state’s contribution has dipped below 30%, forcing local school districts to raise their property tax levy or cut programs.”

Another example of a state that has decided to starve its public school and evade its state constitutional responsibility.

Categories Funding, Illinois

BREAKING NEWS: Illinois Governor Rauner Vetoes School Funding Plan

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2017 //
16

Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed an education funding bill because there was too much money for Chicago.

Rauner vetoes education funding plan, rewriting Democrats’ proposal
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-bruce-rauner-education-met-0802-20170801-story.html

Rauner, a billionaire hedge fund manager, loves charter schools, hates public schools. He especially hates Chicago public schools because the union fought him and continues to fight him.

Categories Funding, Illinois

Jersey Jazzman: The Secrets of Successful Charter Schools (Extra Money and Shedding Students)

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2017 //
33

This is second in Mark Weber’s two-part series about an amazing charter school in Philadelphia.

He reveals its secrets: it gets more funding than public schools. It chooses its students with care. It loses students who can’t make the grade. A sure-fire formula for student success!

He writes:

“A follow-up to yesterday’s post:

“As I noted, NBC’s Sunday Night with Megan Kelly broadcast a story earlier this month about Boys Latin Charter School, a “successful” charter school in Philadelphia which claims to have ten times the college completion rate of its neighboring high schools.

“To his credit, reporter Craig Melvin didn’t swallow the claims of the school whole, and pushed back on the idea that Boys Latin serves an equivalent student population to those surrounding high schools. But he did miss two important points:

“First, and as I documented in the last post, Boys Latin raises funds outside of the monies it collects from public sources. The amounts add up to thousands of dollars per pupil per year.

“As Bruce Baker notes in this (somewhat snarky) post, you really can’t make a comparison between two schools and call one “successful” without taking into account the differences in resources available to both. Philadelphia’s public school district has been chronically underfunded for years. It’s hardly fair for Boys Latin to collect millions in extra revenue, then brag about their college persistence rate compared to schools that don’t have enough funding to provide an adequate education.

“But there’s another issue Melvin missed — an issue that Boys Latin’s founder, David Hardy, has been refreshingly candid about in the past:

Hypothetically speaking, say a charter school is authorized to serve up to 500 students, but, for whatever reason, 50 students leave through the course of a school year. A charter that “backfills” will enroll the next 50 kids on its wait list as space becomes available.

Other schools will replace those empty spots at the beginning of the next school year, including filling seats in the upper grades.

Charters that don’t do this will watch their total enrollment in a grade dwindle year by year — retaining only the students tenacious enough to persist.

In contrast, district-run neighborhood schools and renaissance charters must enroll all students living within a prescribed catchment zone, no matter what time of year or grade, when they show up asking for a seat.

At first glance this difference may seem a subtle nuance, but Philadelphia educators say the policy difference tremendously affects school culture and performance.

[…]

David Hardy, CEO of Boys’ Latin, subscribes to the same theory. He oversees a rigorous admissions process that begins well before the school year.

Boys’ Latin asks prospective ninth-graders to submit letters of intent in November, nearly a year before they would enroll. Staff then interview students and parents to ensure that they understand the school’s rigor — classes run until 5 p.m., students must learn Latin, wear a uniform, and adhere to a strict code of conduct.

Those who commit attend a month-long freshman academy in July before the school-year-proper begins.
By September, he said, the kids are all on the same page.

“You introduce new people into that, and it can kind of mess up the environment,” said Hardy.

“This is an issue that comes up over and over again in charter school research: student cohort attrition. As a cohort of students (Class of “x”) moves from freshman to sophomore to junior to senior year, it may lose students. Sometimes students drop out; sometimes they move. If a charter school “backfills,” they then replace the students who left with new students who come into the school in later years.

“Many charters have high student cohort attrition rates, meaning students leave the school before graduation — often returning to the public, district schools, which must take them no matter when they arrive at the schoolhouse door. These same charters don’t backfill, so their cohort sizes shrink as they move toward their senior years.”

You too can create a miracle school. Pick your students carefully; create a few hurdles to winnow out the slackers; bid farewell to those who can’t keep up; get some deep-pocketed funders.

Simple. A miracle!

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization

Jersey Jazzman: The Summer of Choice Love

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2017 //
7

Jersey Jazzman, aka teacher Mark Weber, reviews the blossoming of choice-choice-choice this summer.

Behind it, he says, is a failure of honesty and will.

In recent weeks, we have been besieged with testimonials and heartening stories about choice.

“The clever thing about this construction is that anyone who challenges the narrative is immediately put on the defensive: Why are you against helping people get a better education? Why don’t you care about these children? It must be that you care about your own interests more than theirs…

“There is little evidence that the fraction of “choice” schools that appear to get better results do so because they are “innovative” in their educational practices. But the “choice” schools that do get gains all seem to have structural advantages, starting with resource advantages — gained through a variety of strategies — that allow them to offer things like longer days, longer years, smaller student:staff ratios, and extended educational programming.

“By all appearances, we seem to be able to adequately fund our schools in the affluent, leafy ‘burbs, even as we shrug our shoulders at the prospect of doing the same for urban centers enrolling many students who are in economic disadvantage. Millburn has what it needs; Newark does not. Gross Point has plenty; Detroit doesn’t. New Trier is fine; Chicago is not. Lower Merion thrives; Philadelphia withers.

“It’s a story that plays out across the nation. Somehow these affluent communities manage to scrape together enough to provide adequate educations for their children, even when burdened with unionized teachers and step contracts and democratically elected school boards. Somehow they manage to get their schools what they need without giving up transparency and governmental accountability and agency for all of their citizens through the democratic process.

“School “choice” is the result of a failure of honesty and will.

“The failure of honesty comes from failing to fully acknowledge that structural inequities — inequality, chronic poverty, racism, inadequate school funding — lead to unequal educational outcomes. It also comes from failing to acknowledge that the advantages a select few “choice” schools have accrued to themselves are directly responsible for their outcome gains.

“The failure of will results from a failure to act collectively in ways that would move adequate resources to all schools where they are lacking, without giving up democratic governmental control.

“Neither Kristof nor Lemmon nor Hardy nor anyone else has given us any reason to believe that the only way to get more resources into schools that need them is to abandon governmental control. There is, however, plenty of reason to believe shifting school control to private entities will reduce transparency, student and family rights, and efficiency — both here and abroad.

“When children live lives free of want and attend well-resourced, government-controlled schools they do very well. Certainly, there are problems and room for improvement. But communities don’t need to give up control of their schools if the pre-conditions for success are in place.

“Instead of upending the entire system, why don’t we try that?”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, International, Philadelphia, Privatization, School Choice
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