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Chicago: Rahm Should Drop His Punitive High School Graduation Demands and Fund the Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2017 //
18

Miles Kampf-Lassin writes in The Chicago Reader that Rahm Emanuel’s plan to deny high school diplomas to students who don’t have a definite commitment from a college, the military, or a trade school is a farce.

He writes:

On its face, this may seem like just the kind of bold, innovative, and results-driven solution Emanuel has often said is needed to address the city’s pressing problems. But viewed within the context of a school system struggling to stay afloat, in reality it comes off as more of a Swiftian proposal that threatens the very students it’s aimed at serving.

Emanuel and CPS are calling the proposal “Learn. Plan. Succeed.” They tout it as way to get students to focus on their continued education post-high school. “If you change expectations, it’s not hard for kids to adapt,” the mayor said at a press conference Wednesday morning.

What Emanuel left out was that it’s a bit more difficult to adapt when your school is chronically underfunded and under-resourced, as is the case for the more than half of CPS students who live in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods on the south and west sides. This disparity has helped create a massive, 37-point gap in student achievement between black and white students in the city’s public schools.

Nowhere in the new initiate is there a plan to tackle this disparity, or to increase funding for crumbling schools—many of which are in such decrepit shape that principals complain about rat infestations while teachers are forced to buy basic supplies such as text books, pencils, and toilet paper.

And if their schools being mired in poverty isn’t enough motivation for students, there’s also the fact that CPS is now threatening to cut the school year short by three weeks. This follows a continued increase in furlough days in 2016-2017.

For all of the mayor’s self-praise for extending the amount of time students spend in the classroom, he never followed through on adequately funding the added time, which contributed to the growing budget crisis facing CPS. Now the system could be on the brink of taking a huge step backwards by cutting the school year nearly a month short….

While the mayor claims this will serve as motivation, it could also easily drive up drop-out rates by students who don’t have the support system they require to plan for secondary education while still in high school. CPS already has already seen a rise in layoffs of counselors due to budget cuts. Why stay in school if you might not even get a diploma upon graduating anyway?…

The plan is all but sure to be approved by the mayor’s hand picked board, another reason it’s a good idea to push for an elected school board.

But if the mayor really wants to help students succeed, he’d drop this initiative in favor of one that actually strengthens the city’s public schools. That’s something teachers, parents and students could all get behind.

Categories Chicago, Emanuel, Rahm, Funding, High School Graduation

Fred LeBrun: Charters Schools Are “a Costly Distraction”

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
8

Fred LeBrun writes a column for the Albany Times-Union on politics. He is one of the most insightful journalists in the nation on the subject of education.

The New York state budget was late this year because of disagreement over a tax break for real estate developers, whether to raise the minimum age for criminal responsibility from 16 to 18, and how much money to throw to charter schools. The State Senate will vote on the budget deal tonight. The Republicans and Governor Cuomo are in love with the charter school lobby, despite the fact that charters in the state capitol of Albany–where the Legislature meets–have been a terrible disappointment. They can see the evidence before their eyes that charters open with grandiose promises and close without a whimper. That doesn’t matter.

LeBrun writes:

In the tentative budget deal announced Friday night, all three made it through. No great surprise there. Charters were enriched by about $50 million, according to the governor. Hardly enough to call it a budget deal breaker, though. Raise the Age will be done in steps, and that’s an excellent outcome. Kudos to the governor. Real estate moguls are smiling.

But what is amusing to consider is that two out of three issues, if you want to call them that, supposedly holding up budget passage have a commonality. Reviving the expired 421-a real estate development tax credit, which admittedly drives growth and affordable housing, is also an unabashed windfall to real estate developers, who themselves are among the most generous political donors to our governor and legislature. The political donors benefit directly from the legislation.

It’s not the charter schools I referenced above that hold the power, and certainly not the 122,000 or so young New Yorkers who attend them, predominantly in New York City. It’s the relative few billionaire hedge fund investors in charters looking for the return on their investment who would have the ability to hold up our budget until they get theirs. Because they in turn have become generous contributors to the governor and the Republican Senate. Again, the political donors benefit directly from the actions the governor and senators take on their behalf.

I can hear the charter crowd screaming that they are also public schools, because it says so in the legislation creating them. That’s a lot of hooey, as Albanians certainly well know. They are private schools masquerading as public schools. And until the day comes, if ever, that you the taxpayer vote on the boards running charters funded in your school district, and yearly vote where every dollar is to be spent, as happens across the state with real public schools, then charters are bogus public schools.

At its peak, Albany taxpayers, without representation on charter school boards or budgets, were shelling out $30 million a year on these bogus public schools. Yet please show me how the charter movement benefited public education in Albany appropriate to the extra money spent.

Charters are under the protection of certain politicians. Why is simple enough, and has not much to do with “ideological” considerations. Just follow the money.

In the last election cycle, according to New York State United Teachers, the state’s powerful teacher’s union, the governor and Senate majority received $4.5 million from the charter school-oriented political action committee, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, and more than $11 million since 2014. That’s private dollar contributions to politicians in exchange for directing taxpayer dollars their way.

And as investments go, you can’t beat it. New York taxpayers shell out $2 billion a year to these private charter school investors.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan’s one-house revenue bill this year featured a half-billion dollars a year more for charters. Now, granted, there was no real expectation this bill would pass, but it does reveal intentions and a wish list. Flanagan wanted to reward charter contributors. So did the governor, whose “compromise” over charter funding was to throw an additional windfall at charters without lifting a tuition freeze that would lead to an even greater windfall. All of it is money that ought to be going to traditional, chronically underfunded public schools.

Enriching charters schools is not the direction a progressive state like New York should be following, no matter what new pressures in Washington suggest. The developing community school movement, a holistic approach to fighting under performing public schools primarily in impoverished urban districts, is a far more likely candidate. There’s only so much money for public education, and we as a state have to decide where we want to invest. Charters are nothing but an expensive distraction.

The last time state legislators got a pay raise was during Republican Gov. George Pataki’s first term. The raise was in exchange for welcoming charter schools to New York.

That was a black day that has haunted us since. What started as supposedly an “experiment,” that began as an annoyance, has graduated to a genuine irritation. Now charters are unquestionably imbedded across the country in our secondary education system and we have to learn to live with it. Do they have a place? Of course. But let those who want them pay for them, but not with my money.

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

Mercedes Schneider: The Secrets of Profiteering with “Tax Credits” for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
5

Mercedes Schneider explores a paper published by Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in which he explains how tax credits for vouchers allow the rich to cut their taxes and make a profit. With such an alluring inducement by the states and the federal government, people of great means are able to reduce their taxes and undermine public schools at the same time. And, as they do great harm to the majority of children enrolled in increasingly underfunded public schools, they will be celebrated as “philanthropists,” when they are, in reality, raiders of the public good.

Davis’ paper begins like this:

<blockquote>One of the most important functions of government is to maintain a high-quality public education system. In many states, however, this objective is being undermined by tax credits and deductions that redirect public dollars for K-12 education toward private schools. Twenty states currently divert a total of over $1 billion per year toward private schools via special tax credits and deductions. These tax subsidies are essentially backdoor voucher programs, or “neovouchers,” as they use the tax code to provide what amount to private school vouchers even when traditional voucher programs are unpopular with the public or outright unconstitutional.

Because of the ways that state and federal tax law interact, the subsidies offered in ten of these states turn the concept of a charitable “donation” on its head by offering upper-income taxpayers a risk-free profit on contributions they make to fund private school scholarships. In these cases, even taxpayers who would not ordinarily be interested in contributing to private schools may find the incentive too strong to ignore.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

Law Professor: Arizona’s New Voucher Program is a Farce

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2017 //
22

Derek Black, law professor, writes that Arizona is a state that funds its schools poorly and inequitably. It is one of the lowest-spending states in the nation on education. Worse, the kids who need the most get the least. So, instead of fixing its funding system, it has passed an expansive voucher system, which will be most helpful to students in the most affluent districts to underwrite the cost of their private and religious schools. Once again, Arizona stabs its neediest students in the back with underfunded schools. Think Arizona: Think white retirees who don’t want to pay to educate poor Latino and Native American children. Vouchers are the fix for white retirees. But not for the kids.

He writes:

The “program allows parents to take between 90 percent and 100 percent of the state money a local public school would receive to pay for private or religious education. The average student who isn’t disabled will get about $4,400 a year, but some get much more.” The funding mechanism and its expected cost to the state is murky. “The original Arizona plan was estimated to cost the state general fund at least $24 million.” Now, a revised plan and estimate are supposed to save the state $3.4 million by 2022.

What is clear, however, is that Arizona’s per pupil funding for public schools currently ranks 47 out of 50 states. To make matters worse, it distributes those meager funds unequally. The Education Law Center’s 2017 School Funding Fairness Report grades Arizona’s funding distribution as an “F.” Schools with moderate levels of student poverty receive only 88 cents on the dollar in comparison to schools with no student poverty. The comparison is even worse between high poverty school districts and low poverty school districts. In other words, Arizona spends the least on students who need the most.

That same report also shows that Arizona is doing almost nothing to fix its low funding levels or unequal distribution. Arizona ranks 49th in the nation in terms of the level of fiscal effort it exerts to fund its schools.

These background facts place Arizona’s new voucher program in a troubling light. These cold hard facts show that the state is not really interested in supporting adequate and equal education for its students. Thus, it is no surprise the state would double down and make matters worse. If gross inequity and inadequacy in public schools does not bother the state as a general principle, why would robbing those schools of more money be a problem? Why not just cap the state investment in a students’ education, send that student to private school, and tell the family and or the private school that they need to make up the difference? If things do not work out in the future, that is on the family and the private school.

These background facts also mean that the rhetoric of political leaders lacks credibility. Speaking of the voucher program, the Governor tweeted: “When parents have more choices, kids win.” If one understands the facts, one understands that this voucher program is not about helping kids in Arizona “win.” It is about raw politics and continuing the longstanding trend of depriving public schools of the resources they need to succeed. If parents in Arizona want vouchers (or charters), it is not because those policies are normatively appealing. It is because the state has been robbing them of the public education they deserve. Many families now surely believe they have no other realistic option. In short, the state has created the factual predicate of failing public schools to create the justification for its own pet project of privatizing education. The kids caught up in the mess simply do not matter.

Categories Arizona, Funding, Hoax, Vouchers

Illinois: 17 School Districts Sue the State of Illinois, Governor Rauner, and State Board for Fair Funding

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2017 //
3

Seventeen Illinois school districts have banded together to sue Governor Bruce Rauner, the State of Illinois, and the Illinois State Board of Education for failing to fund public education adequately in accord with the state constitution. The state expects all students to meet its learning standards but not provide the funding to support what is expected. This is not equality of educational opportunity.


Media Contact: Allison Ordman
319-594-4690

Illinois School Districts File Lawsuit to Hold State Accountable to Adequately Fund State Learning Standards
Seventeen districts with low-wealth property tax bases and high number of low-income students unite
to demand state not leave their students behind

SPRINGFIELD – Today 17 Illinois school districts stood up for students when they filed an unprecedented lawsuit to hold accountable the State, Governor Bruce Rauner and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to carry out their constitutional duty of adequately funding a “high quality education” for all students. The superintendents of four plaintiff districts discussed the lawsuit today at a press conference at the state’s Capitol building: Dan Cox (Staunton CUSD #6), Jill Griffin (Bethalto CUSD #8), Art Ryan (Cahokia CUSD #187) and Brad Skertich (Southwestern CUSD #9). The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County.

The plaintiffs argue the State first must use an evidence-based methodology to calculate the per-pupil extra financial aid necessary for low property wealth districts to meet the Illinois Learning Standards, and second must fund each district at that calculated level. The Illinois Constitution provides basis for this case in Article X, Section 1, which requires that Illinois “shall provide for an efficient system of high quality education.”

Under the current model, students are held accountable to meet the Illinois Learning Standards – standards that school districts across Illinois have been forced to fund on their own without additional state funding to cover those mandates.

“The 17 districts that have joined this case so far did so because we are all at a breaking point. We as school administrators and superintendents have been forced to increase class sizes, lay off qualified teachers and eviscerate social services for students, all because the State is not living up to its constitutional obligation to adequately fund the Learning Standards it mandates,” said Dr. David Lett, Superintendent of Pana CUSD #8. “Each district has gone through its budget line by line to re-allocate dollars more efficiently. But we won’t stand to see our students lose out any longer simply because of where they live.”

This lawsuit stands out from previous cases in that the State now has defined the standards of a “high quality” education and has required districts to meet those standards.

Participants in the suit include districts from these counties: St. Clair, Bond, Christian, Clinton, Fayette, Jersey, Macoupin, Madison, Montgomery and Peoria (the full list of districts is available at the end of this release). All 17 plaintiff districts spend under the state average on instructional and operating cost per pupil, primarily because their regions have less property wealth to tax. These districts comprise about 25,000 students, half of whom qualify as low-income.

In 1997, ISBE adopted the Illinois Learning Standards to hold schools (teachers, administrators, students) accountable to achieve key benchmarks. These standards were aligned with the federal Common Core standards in 2010, and after a three-year grace period, each district was “expected to fully implement curricula that meet the new standards during the 2013-14 school year” without any additional State aid.

Over time the standards increased in rigor, and meeting them required new resources such as textbooks, curriculum and professional development, for which the State provides no assistance.

Though all plaintiff districts support the establishment of and accountability for rigorous student standards, their superintendents have learned firsthand that meeting these standards consistently comes at a cost – a cost of eliminating critical teaching positions, counselors and other programs essential to student learning – because the State does not fund these mandates.

ISBE has adopted and held all school districts accountable to meet the Learning Standards, disregarding the districts that lack sufficient local finances to cover the costs of special programs, curriculum and professional development that the Learning Standards inherently require.

If the plaintiffs win in court, the State would be required to fulfill its constitutional obligation to adequately fund each district for the Learning Standards it mandates.

Each year, the General Assembly establishes a “Foundation Level” per-pupil cost (as of now $6,119), and if any district lacks the local resources to meet that level, the State is obligated to make up the difference. Lawmakers have not adjusted this “Foundation Level” in over eight years, and the level does not relate to the Illinois Learning Standards in any measurable way.

In fact, in recent years the General Assembly has failed to fully appropriate the “Foundation Level,” so instead it has prorated the funds. Under proration, the State decreases its aid to each district in a proportional manner. However, proration has a disproportionate impact on districts that have lower property wealth because those districts rely more heavily on state aid.

The State also evaluates districts based on their students’ scores on the Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exam, an exam that must align with the Learning Standards. The 17 plaintiff districts’ PARCC scores remain lower than wealthier school districts. This increasing disparity has made it even harder for students in the lower property wealth districts to compete against students from higher property wealth districts for admission at Illinois public universities and colleges.

Due to this disparity, some families have elected to move to areas with higher-performing schools or to districts that have higher state-assigned grades. This shift has further reduced the pool of local resources available to the already under-funded school districts.

The Board of each plaintiff district voted to join the suit. The 17 plaintiff districts are listed here, as well as the 14 superintendents who attended the press conference.

Bethalto CUSD #8 (Superintendent Dr. Jill Griffin)
Bond County CUSD #2 (Superintendent Wes Olson)
Bunker Hill CUSD #8 (Superintendent Dr. Victor Buehler)
Cahokia CUSD #187 (Superintendent Art Ryan)
Carlinville CUSD #1 (Superintendent Mike Kelly)
Gillespie CUSD #7
Grant CCSD #110
Illinois Valley Central CUSD #321 (Superintendent Chad Allison)
Mt. Olive CUSD #5 (Superintendent Patrick Murphy)
Mulberry Grove CUSD #1 (Superintendent Brad Turner)
Nokomis CUSD #22 (Superintendent Scott Doerr)
Pana CUSD #8 (Superintendent Dr. Dave Lett)
Southwestern CUSD #9 (Superintendent Brad Skertich)
Staunton CUSD #6 (Superintendent Dan Cox)
Taylorville CUSD #3 (Superintendent Gregg Fuerstenau)
Vandalia CUSD #203 (Superintendent Rich Well)
Wood River Hartford #15

The firm representing the plaintiffs is Despres, Schwartz & Geoghegan, Ltd.

###

Categories Equity, Funding, Illinois

Municipal Analysts Ask Whether Charter Schools Make the Grade

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
7

I received an invitation to a meeting of municipal analysts in New York City.

MID-TERMS ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER … CAN CHARTER SCHOOLS MAKE THE GRADE?

Date: Friday, April 7, 2017
Time: 11:30 am – 2:00 pm
Location: Yale Club, 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, NYC

Summary:

Can charter schools achieve investment grade status? Despite failures and successes, charter school debt has grown rapidly as facilities’ needs increase— over 5% of national K-12 students attended a charter school in 2014, with much higher percentages in certain inner cities. Investor reception remains mixed, however, in that charter schools can be closed by their authorizers or fail on their own. MAGNY presents a discussion between two experts presenting opposing views. James Lyman, Director of Research at Neuberger Berman, views all charter school debt as having below investment grade characteristics regardless of size and financial performance. Jessica Matsumori oversees about 265 charter school debt ratings as S&P Global sector lead for charter schools, with about half falling into low investment grade categories. Jessica will explain the S&P rating distribution based on S&P criteria and median ratios. After short presentations and a moderated discussion, the floor will be thrown open for questions and further discussion.

Moderator:
David Hitchcock, Senior Director, S&P Global

Presenters:
James Lyman, Director of Research, Neuberger Berman
Jessica Matsumori, Senior Director, S&P Global, sector lead for charter schools

Cost: $75 for members, $85 for non-members

Payment: Event payments are no longer accepted at the door. Register and pay instantly from our website (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Questions: Contact Stephen Winterstein at programchair@magny.org.

If you plan to go, you should be prepared with statements by Moody’s Investors Service, which rates municipal debt.

This one says that charter schools weaken the finances of urban districts.

“New York, October 15, 2013 — The dramatic rise in charter school enrollments over the past decade is likely to create negative credit pressure on school districts in economically weak urban areas, says Moody’s Investors Service in a new report. Charter schools tend to proliferate in areas where school districts already show a degree of underlying economic and demographic stress, says Moody’s in the report “Charter Schools Pose Growing Risks for Urban Public Schools.”

“While the vast majority of traditional public districts are managing through the rise of charter schools without a negative credit impact, a small but growing number face financial stress due to the movement of students to charters,” says Michael D’Arcy, one of two authors of the report.

“Charter schools can pull students and revenues away from districts faster than the districts can reduce their costs, says Moody’s. As some of these districts trim costs to balance out declining revenues, cuts in programs and services will further drive students to seek alternative institutions including charter schools.

“Many older, urban areas that have experienced population and tax base losses, creating stress for their local school districts, have also been areas where charter schools have proliferated, says Moody’s. Among the cities where over a fifth of the students are enrolled in charter schools are Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Nationwide about one in 20 students is in a charter school.

“One of the four risk factors Moody’s identifies as making a school district vulnerable to charter school growth is that the school district is already financially pressured and grappling with weak demographics.

“A second factor is having a limited ability to adjust operations in response to a loss of enrolment to charter schools.

“Shifts in student enrollment from district schools to charters, while resulting in a transfer of a portion of district revenues to charter schools, do not typically result in a full shift of operating costs away from district public schools,” says Moody’s Tiphany Lee-Allen, the Moody’s Associate Analyst who co-authored the report. “Districts may face institutional barriers to cutting staff levels, capital footprints and benefit costs over the short term given the intricacies of collective bargaining contracts – leaving them with underutilized buildings and ongoing growth in personnel costs.”

“A third risk factor for a school district is being in a state with a statutory framework promoting a high degree of educational choice and has a relatively liberal approval process for new charters and few limits on their growth, as well as generous funding.

“For example in Michigan, the statutory framework emphasizes educational choice, and there are multiple charter authorizers to help promote charter school growth. In Michigan, Detroit Public Schools (B2 negative), Clintondale Community Schools (Ba3 negative), Mount Clemens Community School District (Ba3 negative) and Ypsilanti School District (Ba3) have all experienced significant fiscal strain related to charter enrollment growth, which has also been a contributing factor to their speculative grade status.”

That was in 2013. Last year, Moody’s wrote that the decision by Massachusetts’ voters not to expand the number of charter schools was a “credit positive” for the state.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/16/moody-calls-charter-school-rejection-credit-positive/Z7Eb1Xu8PGDJKMj1EIntLP/story.html

“Moody’s Investors Service said Massachusetts voters’ decision to reject Governor Charlie Baker’s charter school expansion plan is “credit positive” for the state’s urban governments, freeing them from potential financial pressures had the proposal been approved.

“In an announcement this week, the bond rating agency said the history of charter schools shows they drain money from city governments’ education budgets, citing Boston, Fall River, Lawrence, and Springfield in particular.

“A city that begins to lose students to a charter school can be forced to weaken educational programs because funding is tighter, which then begins to encourage more students to leave which then results in additional losses,’’ the Moody’s report said.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Funding

New York: Victory for Parents and Children in Court!

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2017 //
6

EDUCATION LAW CENTER

NEW YORK APPEALS COURT ORDERS CUOMO ADMINISTRATION TO RELEASE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT GRANTS

In a major victory for parents, a New York appeals court has ordered the State Division of Budget to immediately release over $37 million in improvement grants to 20 needy schools across the state. A year ago, the grants were frozen by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Budget Director, Robert Mujica, triggering a lawsuit by parents of students in three of the affected schools.

“I am most happy for the children who would benefit from these funds as it shows them that there are people other than their parents who care about their future,” said Curtis Witters, a parent plaintiff in the lawsuit. “I hope the schools will utilize these funds to help our students be as successful and progressive as possible.”

Education Law Center represents the parents of students in the three schools: Hackett Middle School in Albany, Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, and JHS 80 Moshulo Parkway Middle School in the Bronx.

In an order issued today, the appeals court “vacated,” or lifted, a “stay” of a December 28, 2016, decision by Judge Kimberly O’Connor in Albany finding Mr. Mujica had acted illegally in withholding the grants. Judge O’Connor directed the Budget Director to immediately release the impounded grant funds.

An appeal of by the Cuomo Administration triggered an automatic stay of Judge O’Connor’s ruling. The parents then asked the appeals court to lift the stay, citing the urgent need to release the funds so needed programs could be implemented in the upcoming (2017-18) school year. Today’s order clears the way for the funds to be released so the schools can begin their planning process.

“We are pleased the Appellate Division ordered the immediate release of the grant funds,” said Wendy Lecker, ELC Senior Attorney. “These grants were frozen illegally, forcing the schools to discontinue vital academic and support services in the current school year. These schools can now plan to restore these programs to improve performance and help their students succeed.”

“Mr. Mujica had no legal basis for impounding these grants in the first place,” said ELC Executive Director David Sciarra. “It’s tragic that the Cuomo Administration would waste time and money to defend their illegal action in court, rather than working cooperatively with local educators to improve outcomes for vulnerable children.”

In addition to vacating the stay, the appeals court also granted the parents’ motion to expedite consideration of the merits of the appeal, placing it on the court’s May 2017 calendar.

For more information about Cortes v. Mujica, visit these pages on the Education Law Center website.

Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Categories Accountability, Cuomo, Andrew, Funding, New York

Jeff Bryant: The Big Lie Behind Trump’s Budget Proposals for Education

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2017 //
13

Jeff Bryant spells out the Big Lie embedded in Trump’s budget proposal for education. He plans to cut programs that directly aid poor kids while bolstering charters and vouchers, pretending they are equivalent. They are not. Yet much of the mainstream media has fallen for the Trump-DeVos bait-and-switch.

“Public school supporters are angry at President Trump’s budget proposal, which plans to cut funding to the Department of Education by 13 percent – taking that department’s outlay down to the level it was ten years ago. But the target for their anger should not be just the extent of the cuts but also how the cuts are being pitched to the public.

“Trump’s education budget cuts are aimed principally at federal programs that serve poor kids, especially their access to afterschool programs and high-quality teachers.

“At the same time, Trump’s spending blueprint calls for pouring $1.4 billion into school choice policies including a $168 million increase for charter schools, $250 million for a new school choice program focused on private schools, and a $1 billion increase for parents to send their kids to private schools at taxpayer expense.

“The way the Trump administration is spinning this combination of funding cuts and increases – and the way nearly every news outlet is reporting them – is that there is some sort of strategically important balance between funding programs for poor kids versus “school choice” schemes, as if the two are equivalents and just different means to the same ends. Nothing could be further from the truth….

“The message being spun out of Trump’s education budget is that it takes money away from those awful “adult interests” – like, you know, teachers to actually teach the students and buildings so students have somewhere to go after school to play sports, get tutored, or engage in music and art projects – in order to steer money to “the kids” who will get a meager sum of money to search for learning opportunities in an education system that is increasingly bereft of teachers and buildings.

“Even competent education reporters are falling for this spin, writing that education policy is experiencing a “sea change in focus from fixing the failing schools to helping the students in the failing schools.”

“However, there’s evidence that federally funded efforts like afterschool programs and class size reduction tend to lead to better academic results for low-income children, while the case for using school choice programs to address the education needs of poor kids is pretty weak.

“The Weak Case For Choice

“School voucher programs, like the ones Trump and DeVos seem intent on funding, are particularly ineffective ways to address the education problems of poor kids. Indeed, these programs seem to not serve the interests of poor kids at all.

“Studies of voucher programs In Wisconsin, Indiana, Arizona, and Nevada have found that most of the money from the programs goes to parents wealthy enough to already have their children enrolled in private schools.

“Voucher programs rarely provide enough money to enable poor minority children to get access to the best private schools. And a new comprehensive study of vouchers finds evidence that vouchers don’t significantly improve student achievement. What they do pose is greater likelihood that students who are the most costly and difficult to educate – low-income kids and children with special needs – will be turned away or pushed out by private schools that are not obligated to serve all students.

“Charter schools, another program the Trump budget wants to ramp up funding for, also don’t have a great track record for improving the education attainment of low-income students.

“Perhaps the best case made for using charter schools to target the needs of low-income students comes from a study on the impact of charters in urban school systems conducted by research outfit CREDO in 2015. The study indeed found evidence of some positive impact of charters in these communities. But as my colleague at The Progressive Julian Vasquez Heilig points out, the measures of improvement, in standard deviations, are .008 for Latino students and .05 for African American students in charter schools.

“These numbers are larger than zero,” Heilig writes on his personal blog, “but you need a magnifying glass to see them. Contrast that outcome with policies such as pre-K and class size reduction which are far more unequivocal measures of success than charter schools. They have 400 percent to 1000 percent more statistical impact than charters.”

“Indeed, choice programs in all their forms, at least in how they are being promoted by the Trump administration and its supporters, seem more interested in diverting money away from public schools than they are intent on delivering some sort of education relief to the struggles of poor families.”

School choice will actually harm children by diverting money from public schools that now enroll 90% of America’s students to provide choices for a few children. Most of those choices will be for schools with uncertified teachers and a Bible-based curriculum.

This may satisfy billionaire Betsy DeVos but it won’t be good for children.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Lies, Poverty, School Choice, Vouchers

Allen Weeks: Our Texas Schools Are Broken, It’s Time for a Change

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2017 //
17

Allen Weeks writes in the Austin American-Statesman that Texas schools are broken. They are desperately underfunded by a legislature that cut $5.4 billion from the state school budget in 2011. When the economy improved, instead of restoring the money they took from the schools, they cut business taxes. Now, the leadership thinks they can substitute vouchers and choice for the damage done by budget cuts. The courts in Texas say the legislature is wrong. So does common sense.

“Last year, the Texas Supreme Court called our state’s school funding system awful, inadequate and basically a mess – yet still ruled that it met some minimum standard for Texas students. When I asked one legislator to explain this, he said that only three or four people in Texas understood the school finance system — and he wasn’t one of them. Another legislator told me that it’s not about the funding, because if a teacher is good, he or she could just teach “under an ol’ shade tree.” Neither conversation inspired confidence.

I’ve talked with many Texans about school funding, and here’s what they say:

• We underfund Texas schools.

• The system for sharing it is totally screwed up.

• Property taxes are way too high.

“So let’s sit together under the shade tree and examine these points.

“Not enough funding. You need more than a shade tree to prepare students for today’s economy. But if you get what you pay for, Texas is clearly shortchanging its future.

“In 2011, Texas cut $5.4 billion from public education that was never fully restored. Since 2006, statewide enrollment has increased by 16.8 percent, though funding increases lag at 7.4 percent. In 2015, the state cut business and other taxes by $4 billion, resulting in a self-made budget crisis this session. With possible federal budget cuts looming, the situation for Texas students is dire.

“Texas is 43rd in the country in per-pupil funding, though it invests heavily in incarceration. Massachusetts is similar to Texas in student diversity, immigration and other demographics, but its superior investment in education — seventh from the top — has paid off with the nation’s highest academic ranking and one of the lowest incarceration rates. If we’re to stay competitive, Texas can and must do better.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Texas

Betsy DeVos’s Super PAC Contributed to Defeat of Teacher Candidates in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2017 //
29

In Oklahoma, the public schools are under-funded, and teachers are buying their own supplies in many schools. Last fall, a number of teachers ran for legislative seats. Needless to say, none of them was lavishly funded. But their opponents had the backing of Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children. How AFC can be “for” children when they oppose funding their schools and paying their teachers a decent salary is a mystery.

Oklahoma Watch reports that DeVos’ AFC PAC contributed at least $180,000 to defeat teachers running for the legislature.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding, Oklahoma, Teacher Pay
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