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BREAKING NEWS: Senate Rejects Trump Budget Cuts, Reduces School Choice Requests

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2017 //
7

Education Week reports on decisions made by Senate and House committees that preserve programs targeted for deep cuts by the Trump administration and sharp rebuffs to Trump plans to expand school choice. However, the federal appropriation for charter schools was increased by $25 million, which is a big victory for DeVos and a rebuff to the NAACP.


Lawmakers overseeing education spending dealt a big blow to the Trump administration’s K-12 budget asks in a spending bill approved by a bipartisan vote Wednesday.

The legislation would leave intact the main federal programs aimed at teacher training and after-school funding. And it would seek to bar the U.S. Department of Education from moving forward with two school choice initiatives it pitched in its request for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1.

The bill, which was approved unanimously by the Senate budget subcommittee that oversees health, education and labor spending, would provide $2.05 billion for Title II, the federal program that’s used to hire and train educators. Both the House spending committee and the Trump administration have proposed scrapping the program, so it remains in jeopardy despite the Senate’s support.

The measure rejects another high-profile cut pitched by the Trump administration, $1.2 billion for the 21st Century Community Learning Center program, which helps school districts cover the cost of afters-chool and summer-learning programs. The House also refused to sign off on the Trump administration’s pitch to eliminate the program. Instead, it voted to provide $1 billion for 21st Century, meaning the program would almost certainly see some funding in the 2018-19 school year.

The panel also dealt a blow to the administration’s school choice ambitions. And the bill seeks to stop the Education Department from moving forward on a pair of school choice programs it proposed in its budget request. The administration had sought a $1 billion boost for the nearly $15 billion Title I program, the largest federal K-12 program, which is aimed at covering the cost of educating disadvantaged students. The Trump administration had wanted to use that increase to help districts create or expand public school choice programs. And it had hoped to use the Education Innovation and Research program to nurture private school choice.

The Senate bill essentially rejects both of those pitches. It instead would provide a $25 million boost for Title I, and $95 million for the research program, a slight cut from the current level of $100 million.

But importantly, the legislation wouldn’t give U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team the authority to use that money for school choice. In fact, the committee said in language accompanying the bill that the secretary of Education Betsy DeVos must get permission from Congress to create a school choice initiative with the funds.

A House appropriations panel also rejected the school choice initiatives in a budget bill approved earlier this year. Taken together, that’s a major setback for DeVos’ number one priority.

But the Senate bill does include a $25 million increase for charter school grants, which would bring them to $367 million. That’s not as high as the $167 million boost the administration asked for, or even as high as the $28 million the House is seeking.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Mike Klonsky: Voucher Deal Shows Democrats Stand for Nothing

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
68

Mike Klonsky assesses the Illinois funding bill, which set aside for $75 million for vouchers, and declares it is a total sell–out by Democrats.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2017/08/il-voucher-vote-reversal-shows-dems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+mikeklonsky+(SmallTalk)&m=1

“The passage of the IL school funding bill, which included $75M for private school vouchers, is being hailed as a “model of bi-partisanship” and “compromise” by both Gov. Rauner and Speaker Madigan. It was neither. It was instead, an exercise in duplicity on the part of state Democrats and a lifeline for a Republican governor who had become totally isolated and ripe for a 2018 election defeat after his initial veto of the same school funding bill.

“Democrats demonstrated once again that they’re a party that stands for nothing and that their campaign slogan of a “Better Deal” as opposed to resistance, is little more than a call for more opportunism. It’s a recipe for disaster in the upcoming elections where Republicans shouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

The die was cast, writes Mike, after Rahm met with the local Cardinal and with DeVos.

“There was no “compromise” to be made since the voucher deal between Chicago’s mayor and Cardinal Cupich, had been in the works for months, specifically since Rahm’s closed door meeting with Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos back in April. Monday’s two House votes were mere Madigan-choreographed theater.”

Categories Democrats, Education Reform, Funding, Illinois

Carol Burris Deciphers a Study That Falsely Claims That Charters Benefit Nearby Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
22

I am reposting this because the original omitted the link to the article. I went to the car repair shop and the computer repair shop today, and wrote this post while paising in a coffee shop between repairs. Carol Burris’s article links to the original study, which has the ironic title “In Pursuit of the Common Good: The Spillover Effects of Charter Schools on Public School Studenys of New York City.” Ironic, since charter schools have nothing to do with the common good.

Recently, a study was released that made the absurd claim that public schools make academic gains when a charter opens close to them or is co-located in their building. To those of us who have seen co-located charters take away rooms previously used for the arts, dance, science, or resource rooms for students with disabilities, the finding seemed bizarre, as did the contention that draining away the best students from neighborhood public schools was a good thing for the losing school.

The rightwing DeVos-funded media eagerly reported this “finding,” without digging deeper. Why should they? It propagated a myth they wanted to believe.

The author of this highly politicized study is Sarah Cordes of Temple University.

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and a former principal, is a highly skilled researcher. She reviewed Cordes’ findings and determined they were vastly overstated. Her review of Cordes’ study was peer-reviewed by some of the nation’s most distinguished researchers.

Burris writes:

“Cordes attempted to measure the effects of competition from a charter school on the achievement, attendance and grade retention of students in nearby New York City public schools. In addition, she sought to identify the cause of any effects she might find.”

She did not take into account the high levels of mobility among New York City public school students, especially the most disadvantaged.

But worse, her findings are statistically small as compared to other interventions:

“Upon completing her analysis, Cordes concludes that “the introduction of charter schools within one mile of a TPS increases the performance of TPS students on the order of 0.02 standard deviations (sds) in both math and English Language Arts (ELA).”

“To put that effect size in perspective, if you lower class size, you find the effect on achievement to be ten times greater (.20) than being enrolled in a school within one mile of charter school. Reading programs that focus on processing strategies have an effect size of nearly .60. And direct math instruction (effect size .61) with strong teacher feedback (effect size .75) has strong benefits for math achievement[2]. With a .02 effect size, the effect of being enrolled in a school located near a charter school is akin to increasing your height by standing on a few sheets of paper.”

Burris noted that what really mattered was money:

“Although it appears that Cordes found very small achievement gains in a public school if a charter is located within a half mile, that correlation does not tell us why those gains occurred. To answer that question, Cordes looked at an array of factors — demographics, school spending, and parent and teacher survey data about school culture and climate.

There was only ONE standout out factor that rose to the commonly accepted level of statistical significance — money.”

Burris concludes that journalists need to check other sources before believing “studies” and “reports” that make counter-intuitive claims:

“The bottom line is that Sarah Cordes found what every researcher before her found — “competition” from charters has little to no effect on student achievement in traditional public schools. It also found that when it comes to learning, money matters as evidenced by increased spending, especially in co-located schools.

“Most reporters generally lack advanced skills in research methods and statistics. They depend on abstracts and press releases, not having the expertise to look with a critical eye themselves. But it does not take a lot of expertise to see the problems with this particular study.”

Sarah Cordes’ “study” will serve the purposes of Trump and DeVos and others who are trying to destroy the common good. Surely, that was not her intention. Perhaps her dissertation advisors st New York University could have helped her develop a sounder statistical analysis. It seems obvious that the public schools that have been closed to make way for charters received no benefit at all–and they are not included in the study.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Funding, New York City, Privatization, Research

Thank You, LeBron James and Dr. Dre, for Giving Back Where It Counts!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
19

Now that charter schools are all the rage among the rich and powerful, we are accustomed to hear about celebrities who underwrite their own charter school, like Andre Agassi (whose namesake charter school in Las Vegas is one of the lowest performing schools in Nevada, Sean “Diddy” Coombs, sponsor of a charter in Harlem, and Pitbull, the misogynistic, foul-mouthed rapper who has his own charter school in Miami and speaks at national charter school conferences.

How refreshing it is to learn about two celebrities who are giving back to the public schools, which enroll the vast majority of children of color and need the help of their friends.

LeBron James and Dr. Dre are superstars in sports and music. They too could have put their name on a charter school. They didn’t.

LeBron James made a gift of $1 million to his alma mater, a Catholic School, St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, to build a new state-of-the-art gymnasium. He is also working with the Akron public schools to provide college scholarships and to open a new school for at-risk students. James has a motto: “I promise…to never forget where I came from.” The new public school for at-risk children is called the “I Promise” school.

Dr. Dre made a gift of $10 million to Compton High School in Compton, California, where he grew up. The gift will be used to build a performing arts center with a 1,200 seat theater and digital media production facilities.

LeBron James and Dr. Dre are giving back.

Categories Funding, Supporting public schools

Chicago: Special Education Funding Goes to the Whitest Schools

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
31

The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association examined district data and made a stunning discovery. The ten schools with the highest proportion of white students received over $1 million in special education funding. The ten schools with the lowest percentage of white students received $0 in special education funding.

The Association is not proposing to take money away from the schools that currently receive it. Instead, they ask that all schools receive the funding they need for students with disabilities.

Troy LaRaviere, president of the Association, writes:

The racially discriminatory behaviors of the Emanuel appointees at CPS uncovered in our analysis are profoundly disturbing. However I want to make it clear that although this report highlights disparities between resources allocated to schools serving white students and those serving black and brown students, this is not a call for people of color to protest the resources given to white students; it is a call for all people of good conscience – regardless of race and ethnicity – to voice our profound discontent with the race and class based decision-making of the Mayor’s appointees at Chicago Public Schools: In addition, the woefully inadequate base funding that created the need for the appeals process is depriving all schools of critical resources they needed to develop the full human potential of their students because it pits schools against one another to beg for a share of an artificially low pool of funds.

To say it more directly, majority white schools like Mount Greenwood and Edison Park should not be the targets of our discontent. On the contrary, it is my hope that the majority white community of Mount Greenwood will express its outrage at the denial of resources for majority black schools like Mount Vernon, and that the families at a majority white school like Edison Park will voice their discontent with the abject neglect with which CPS treats majority Hispanic schools like Hanson Park.

We must not let our political leaders pit us against one another. We must not let them set us up to fight over the scraps they throw behind for our children after doling out multi-million dollar contracts, tax breaks, and interest payments to the profit driven selfish corporate interests they serve. We must see our common destiny as families of Chicago and work to build a city and public school system that invests in the realization of the potential of every single child.

Categories Chicago, Funding, Special Education

Texas: What Matters Most in Education: Football!

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2017 //
14

In 2011, the Texas legislature cut more than $5 billion from the state’s public schools, which enroll 5.3 million children. Over the past six years, that amount was never restored, and once again this year the legislature failed to act on a funding program for the schools.

According to data from the Texas Education Agency, the majority of students of students are Hispanic and poor. Whites account for less than 30 percent of students in public schools. Is that why the Legislature doesn’t want to fund the schools?

Here is what taxpayers are willing to fund: football stadiums. The new Katy high school football stadium cost $70.3 million, making it the most expensive in the United States.

Texas is also home to other expensive high school football stadiums, including a $63 million dollar one McKinney, Texas, voters approved last year, and a $60 million stadium in Allen, Texas, according to the New York Times.

Football stadiums matter more than teachers, the arts, class size, science, mathematics, or history.

That is not a good sign for the future of Texas.

Categories Funding

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
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