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Today is Oil Field Prayer Day in Oklahoma: This Minister Can’t Do It

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2017 //
11

As you will read below, the governor of Oklahoma declared today Oilfield Prayer Day. This minister explains why she will not pray for the oil and gas industry. She should also pray for an end to fracking, which is associated with an increase in earthquakes in the state.

Christian minister on Oilfield Prayer Day: ‘I just can’t’

Dear Gov. Mary Fallin,

You have declared Oct. 13 to be Oilfield Prayer Day. You have invited us to, “thank God for the blessings created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His [sic] wisdom and ask for protection.”

As an ordained Christian minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I just can’t.

Gov. Fallin, Oklahoma’s oilfields are fine. It’s our public policies that need divine intervention.

Oklahoma lawmakers have spent decades enticing oil and gas companies to stay in Oklahoma with low taxes and tax credits. The numbers are staggering: $400 million in tax breaks to oil and gas producers per year, $18.1 million in rebates for other forms of production and $188.6 million in deferred rebates. Despite this corporate welfare, oil and gas companies are firing our friends and family left and right, while giving million dollar bonuses to top executives.

All of those tax breaks and tax credits have had a traumatic effect on tax revenue, resulting in devastating cuts to public education and services. We have so little confidence that you and our legislators will fix this problem that Oklahomans are considering a penny sales tax to secure badly needed funding for our classrooms, even though it will be another burden on our working families and the elderly, who are on fixed incomes. This is a failure of leadership.

We know from other oil and gas-dependent states that responsible legislation means that during the lean years, per-student school funding can actually increase instead of plummet.

Reasonable taxes on an industry that uses public natural resources — the ones you describe as created by God — is not, well, unreasonable. It’s making sure that those “natural resources created by God” are used to provide our kids with a free and quality education and give our public school teachers a well-deserved raise — all possible without burdening the most vulnerable among us.

So while you pray for our oil fields, I’ll be praying for you.

I’ll be praying that God grants you the wisdom and courage to work for the public good, not just the wealthy and powerful. After all, it’s the Christian thing to do.

Prayerfully,

Rev. Lori Allen Walke

(P.S. — As theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether noted, “When God is male, male is God.” Be mindful of pronouns. This could be why it took us so long to elect a woman to the highest office in Oklahoma, not to mention the presidency.)

Categories Education Reform, Funding

Buffalo, New York, Requests Three Year Moratorium on Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2017 //
37

The elected school board of New York has asked state authorizers to grant a three year moratorium on new charters.

“Buffalo is losing resources, losing funding, and seeing its own efforts handicapped. The board also wants money refunded when charter students return to public schools.

“The new school year brought a new charter school to the city’s Willert Park neighborhood, while another Buffalo charter added a second location on Hertel Avenue.

“One broke ground for an elementary school on Great Arrow Avenue, while two more charters are scheduled to open next year, bringing the total in Buffalo to 18.

“At least three more are on the horizon.

“The flurry of local activity surrounding charters is refueling tensions with Buffalo Public Schools, which has petitioned the state to slow down the charter expansion across the city.

“Frustrated by the loss of more students and funding to new charters, the Buffalo Board of Education has requested that the State University of New York and the state Board of Regents – the two authorizing entities – issue a three-year moratorium on charters in Buffalo.

“It also asked that school boards be allowed to sign off on charter applications and recoup funds from charters whose students return to Buffalo schools.

“We just don’t want this to be seen as some symbolic gesture that doesn’t go anywhere,” said Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, School Board president. “We’d like to have some feedback, some dialogue.”

“Buffalo had more than 7,100 students enrolled in charter schools three years ago, but the district estimates that number is upwards of 9,000 this year.

“The district then pays the charters per pupil, a budgeted amount that has reached nearly $124 million and accounts for about 14 percent of the district’s general fund.

“In fact, district funding to charters is up by more than $14 million from last year, because of the new charters coming on board. And that doesn’t include other associated costs provided by the district, such as transportation and special education services, Nevergold said.

“More and more of the district funding is going to charter schools,” said Nevergold, who sponsored the charter resolution that passed in a 6-2 vote, “and yet, while that’s happening, we’re losing resources needed for schools in the district.”

“The proposed moratorium will be perceived as anti-charter – but so be it, she said.

“We’re not bashing charters, but charters aren’t the saving grace for public education,” Nevergold said. “While certainly there are charter schools that are successful, they’re not uniformly better than the district schools – some do better, some do worse, some are on par.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Funding, New York, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: Who Funded Campbell Brown’s “The 74”?

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2017 //
18

Mercedes Schneider has developed a specialty as a detective of Follow-the-Money. A forensic accountant of financial transactions in the corporate reform world.

In this post, she tries to figure out who funded Campbell Brown’s “The 74.”

It is harder than you can imagine to untangle this web, woven of money and connections. Behind it all: privatization and union-busting. “O what a tangled web we weave…”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Betsy Visits McMinnville, Oregon, Today; Parents Unhappy

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2017 //
9

Betsy DeVos is visiting McMinnville High zschool in Oregon today. The parents are not happy about it. They love their public school. They are afraid that Betsy doesn’t. They are right. Betsy thinks their kids should go to charters or religious schools, even lousy virtual charters. Even if only a small percentage should leave, their high school will have to lay off teachers, close down programs, cut the arts.

Bad deal.

She should listen to the parents.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding, Oregon

Oregon: What Are “Social Impact Bonds”?

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2017 //
8

Deb Mayer of Parents Across America in Oregon has thoughtfully created a graphic to explain the meaning of “Social Impact Bonds.”

First, she shares the graphic explainer created by Goldman Sachs. Then she superimposes on the graphic the language that clarifies what’s really happening and how the investor makes money.

A helpful deconstruction.

Categories Corporate Reform, For-Profit, Funding

Virginia: DeVos Funds Republican Candidate in Governor’s Race

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2017 //
18

In Virginia, the governor’s race will determine the future of public schools in the Commonwealth. Teachers unions are supporting Dr. Northam, who is currently Lt. Governor and also a pediatrician. Dr. Northam is a graduate of public schools in Virginia. The unions spend their members’ dues, the dues of people who work in classrooms daily. The billionaire DeVos family has spent money for Gillespie, a Republican operative and lobbyist with no experience in education or elected office.

“The Democratic Candidate Dr. Ralph Northam is a strong supporter of public schools. His opponent Ed Gillespie wants to introduce school choice with privately managed charters and public funding of religious schools.

“The outcome of Virginia’s race for governor, the country’s marquee statewide election this year, will have widespread significance for the state’s roughly 1.29 million schoolchildren, political observers and education experts say.

“The governor’s race matters a whole lot for what public education will look like in Virginia in the days ahead,” said Sally Hudson, an assistant professor of public policy, education and economics at the University of Virginia.

“The contest pits Republican Ed Gillespie, who has received more than $100,000 in donations from the family of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, against Democrat Ralph Northam, who has accepted at least $465,000 from teachers unions.

“Gillespie and Northam both want to boost teacher pay — Virginia ranks 32nd in the nation in that category — support more workforce training and rework the state’s Standards of Learning tests, a measure for school accountability and student achievement.

“But they diverge sharply when it comes to public charter schools and using tax dollars to help parents pay tuition at private schools.

“Gillespie wants to expand the state’s charter schools beyond the eight in operation. As a state senator Northam voted against loosening restrictions that govern the establishment of charter schools, and as a candidate for governor he has advocated investing in traditional public schools.”

When Betsy DeVos says she wants to leave decisions to the states, she forgets to mention that she is trying to buy control of States that have not yet turned red.

The good news: Dr. Northam is leading in the polls. Virginia parents are alert to the threat to their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Virginia

Bruce Baker: How Arne Duncan and John King Killed Rigorous Research into School Finance

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2017 //
24

Bruce Baker at Rutgers University is one of the most eminent scholars of school finance in the nation.

In this post, he remembers the days when states insisted upon rigorous research to understand funding equity and inequity.

That kind of research, on which he cut his teeth, died, and he knows why.

“These were the very types of analyses needed to inform state school finance polices and to advance the art and science of evaluating educational reforms for their potential to improve equity, productivity and efficiency. But these efforts largely disappeared over the next decade. More disconcerting, these efforts were replaced by far less rigorous, often purely speculative policy papers, free of any substantive empirical analysis and devoid of any conceptual frameworks.

“This shift was largely brought about under the leadership of Arne Duncan. Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado and I explained first in a report for the National Education Policy Center and subsequently in shorter form in the journal Educational Researcher, that Secretary Duncan had begun to give lip service to improving educational productivity and efficiency, but accompanied that lip service with wholly insufficient resources. Kevin Welner and I explained that:

“the materials provided on the Department’s website as guiding resources present poorly supported policy advisement. The materials listed and recommendations expressed within those materials repeatedly fail to provide substantive analyses of the cost effectiveness or efficiency of public schools, of practices within public schools, of broader policies pertaining to public schools, or of resource allocation strategies.” [ix]

“Among other issues, the materials provided on the web site failed to acknowledge even the existence of the relevant conceptual frameworks and rigorous empirical methods which had risen to prominence in state supported and federally documented research in the years prior.”

John King, then the state commissioner in New York, quickly followed Duncan’s lead. The top researchers sat in the audience while Duncan’s favorites presented misleading graphs.

Thus did the field die.

Categories Funding, Research

National Education Policy Center Releases New Study of Wisconsin Vouchers

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2017 //
8

Professor Ellie Bruecker of the University of Wisconsin at Madison completed a study of the fiscal impact of the statewide school vouchers in Wisconsin. It was published by the National Education Policy Center.

Here is the executive summary:

“Executive Summary

“In 1989, Wisconsin created the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the nation’s first publicly funded private school voucher program. Over the next two decades, the Milwaukee program was steadily expanded, but remained the sole voucher program in the state. In 2011, Wisconsin added a voucher program in Racine (RPCP), and in 2013 it created the statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). Initially the statewide program was limited to 500 students and 25 schools in its first year and 1,000 students and 50 schools in its second. In 2015, the state legislature lifted the cap on participating schools and students, but limited student participation to a percentage of district enrollment—currently 2% for the 2017-18 school year. The cap will gradually increase by 1% each year until it is eliminated in 2026. Wisconsin Act 55 (2015) additionally amended the funding of the WPCP.

“Previously funding had been provided by a state general purpose revenue allocation; Act 55 generates voucher funding for incoming students by deducting the cost of a student’s voucher from the state aid allocated to the school district in which a student resides.

“As a result, the program now shifts millions of dollars from public school districts to private schools. The fiscal impact of the statewide voucher program, however, is not evenly distributed across Wisconsin’s public schools.

“This policy memo describes how the statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program alters the relative share of public education spending borne by the state and by local districts and estimates the differential fiscal impact of the program on Wisconsin school districts. The analysis finds that school districts could lose a substantial portion of their state aid as participation in the voucher program grows, and that small districts would be the most negatively affected.

“Currently, participation rates in the statewide program are low and students in some districts lack access to voucher schools. Nevertheless, this analysis finds that the majority of students currently eligible to participate in the program live within range of a voucher school and that, even given low participation rates, the program will have a significant effect on the fiscal support the state provides to local school districts. As more states enact or expand their voucher programs, the case of Wisconsin demonstrates that one-size-fits-all statewide programs have the potential to exacerbate funding disparities in the public system.”

You can read the report here .

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Where Betsy DeVos Is Spreading Federal Funds for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
31

Thanks to Leonie Haimson for assembling this information about the US ED plans to spread charter money.

US ED announces more funding for charter schools nationwide, including 5 NYC charters, & yet another $3.2M for Success which has received many millions already from the feds as well as from private sources.

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-awards-253-million-grants-expand-charter-schools

more info here: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/charter-schools-program-grants-for-replications-and-expansion-of-high-quality-charter-schools/

and https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/

Charter apps and reviewer comments here: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/charter-schools-program-grants-for-replications-and-expansion-of-high-quality-charter-schools/awards/

U.S. Department of Education Awards $253 Million in Grants to Expand Charter Schools

September 28, 2017

Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that The Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Program (Charter Schools Program or CSP) has awarded new grants this week to fund the creation and expansion of public charter schools across the nation, totaling approximately $253 million.

“These grants will help supplement state-based efforts to give students access to more options for their education,” said Secretary DeVos. “What started as a handful of schools in Minnesota has blossomed into nearly 7,000 charter schools across the country. Charter schools are now part of the fabric of American education, and I look forward to seeing how we can continue to work with states to help ensure more students can learn in an environment that works for them.”

The following grants slates were awarded:

The State Entities program awarded approximately $144.7 million in new grants to nine states.

The Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools program awarded approximately $52.4 million in new grants to 17 non-profit charter management organizations.

The Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities program awarded approximately $56.25 million in new grants to six non-profit organizations and two state agencies.

These grants are awarded to state educational agencies and other state entities, charter management organizations (CMOs) and other non-profit organizations and represent the first cohort of new awards under the program’s new authorizing statute, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Please see below for the list of grantees, first year grant amounts and total recommended funding (contingent on future Congressional appropriations).

State Entity Grantees:

Grantee Name FY 17 Funding (Year 1 and 2 Funding) Total Recommended Funding

Indiana Department of Education $24,002,291 $59,966,575

Maryland State Department of Education $5,490,859 $17,222,222

Minnesota Department of Education $22,381,611 $45,757,406

Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board* $4,240,819 $15,000,000

New Mexico Public Education Department $6,358,693 $22,507,805

Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, Inc.* $4,264,870 $16,499,722

Rhode Island Department of Education $1,953,000 $6,000,000

Texas Education Agency $38,034,535 $59,164,996

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction $37,954,114 $95,777,775

Total $144,680,792 $331,896,501

* Eligible applicants under this program are state entities. A state entity is defined under ESSA as a state educational agency; a state charter school board; a Governor of a state; or a charter school support organization.

CMO Grantees:

Grantee Name State** FY17 Funding Total Recommended Funding

Ascend Learning, Inc. NY $3,661,357 $9,484,885

Brooke Charter Schools MA $353,747 $836,136

Eagle Academy Public Charter School DC $449,066 $812,885

East Harlem Tutorial Program NY $542,640 $2,781,280

Environmental Charter Schools CA $566,063 $900,000

Family Life Academy Charter Schools, Inc. NY $739,260 $900,000

Fortune School of Education CA $1,350,600 $2,043,100

Freedom Preparatory Academy, Inc. TN $1,451,301 $4,297,000

Great Oaks Foundation, Inc. NY $1,958,400 $3,834,000

Hiawatha Academies MN $1,121,400 $1,875,000

IDEA Public Schools TX $26,316,168 $67,243,986

New Paradigm for Education, Inc MI $2,365,400 $5,084,100

Rocketship Education CA $5,090,134 $12,582,678

Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. NY $3,225,240 $6,130,200
The Freedom and Democracy Schools Foundation, Inc. MD $603,003 $1,533,528
University Prep Inc. CO $1,360,730 $3,734,750

Voices College-Bound Language Academies CA $1,258,415 $2,699,999

Total:

$52,412,924 $126,773,527

**State reflects where the organization is based; school expansion sites funded under this grant may differ.

Credit Enhancement Grantees:

Grantee Name State** FY17 and Total Project Funding

Building Hope…A Charter Schools Facilities Fund DC $8,000,000
California School Finance Authority CA $8,000,000

Center for Community Self-Help NC $8,000,000

Charter Schools Development Corporation MD $5,000,000

Hope Enterprise Corporation MS $8,000,000

Low Income Investment Fund CA $8,000,000

Massachusetts Development Finance Agency MA $8,000,000

Raza Development Fund AZ $3,250,000

Total

$56,250,000
**State reflects where the organization is based; school expansion sites funded under this grant may differ.

Additional information regarding these grant programs and awards, including copies of grantee applications, may be found at: https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/

I hope we won’t hear from any of the “progressives” who agree with DeVos about charters. She knows exactly what she is doing. Funding schools to compete with and undermine community public schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Good News! Kansas Supreme Court Rules That Legislators Are Not Funding Schools Equitably

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
10

Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas nearly bankrupted the State with his theory that cutting taxes would cause a huge economic boom. Taxes were cut but there was no boom. Meanwhile, the schools of Kansas were underfunded.

The state Supreme Court ordered the legislature to fix school funding. The legislature tinkered. Back and forth. Yesterday the Kansas Supreme Court ordered the legislature again to meet their constitutional obligation to fund the schools.

“The ruling also ordered a fairer distribution of state funding, to ensure that students in poor districts have the same educational opportunities as their peers in wealthier communities.

“The majority of justices supported giving the Legislature until June, but no more time than that, for a final fix on state funding of schools.

“That will give lawmakers, who will reconvene in January, a full regular session to try to come up with a school-finance law that meets court requirements, negating the need for a special session.

“The court is ordering that a new funding law be crafted before April 30 so there’s time for the justices to review it before the annual budget and the schools’ money runs out.

“Once legislation is enacted, the State will have to satisfactorily demonstrate to this court by June 30, 2018, that its proposed remedy brings the state’s education financing system into compliance with Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution regarding the violations identified, i.e., both adequacy and equity,” the court ruling said.

“After that date we will not allow ourselves to be placed in the position of being complicit actors in the continuing deprivation of a constitutionally adequate and equitable education owed to hundreds of thousands of Kansas school children.”

“Three of the seven justices – Lee Johnson, Eric Rosen and Dan Biles – wrote or joined in dissents saying they want the Legislature to have to move faster.

“I would direct the State to tell us no later than the end of this year precisely how the legislature intends to fix its years-long breach of the Kansas Constitution,” Johnson wrote.

“The case, called Gannon v. Kansas, has been going on since November of 2010.

“On Monday, the court specifically held that a school-finance law the Legislature passed earlier this year is unconstitutional.”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article176605486.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Equity, Funding, Justice, Kansas
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