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Moody’s Informs Urban Districts in Massachusetts that Rejection of Charters is “Credit Positive”

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2016 //
8

The credit rating agency Moody’s informed cities in Massachusetts that the recent vote not to add more charter schools was good for their credit ratings and will help key their borrowing costs lower. Voters defeated Question 2 by 62-38%. It won approval only in a few urban districts. The vote against the proposal was highest in districts with charters, where funding for public schools had decreased.

“The decision of Massachusetts voters to reject a ballot question expanding charter schools is “credit positive” for urban cities like Springfield and Boston, the rating agency Moody’s said Tuesday.

“The result is credit positive for urban local governments because it will allow those cities and towns to maintain current financial operations without having to adjust to increased financial pressure from charter school funding,” Moody’s wrote in a report.

“The ballot question would have allowed state officials to approve up to 12 new charter schools a year outside of an existing cap. The current cap ensures that school districts spend no more than 9 percent of their budgets, or 18 percent in low-performing districts, paying for student tuition to charter schools. That limits the number of charter schools that can grow or expand in urban areas like Boston and Springfield, resulting in waiting lists.

“A central part of the debate over charter school expansion was funding. When a child attends a charter school, the state money to educate that child goes to the charter school, although the district gets reimbursed for the first years to smooth over the transition costs. Opponents of charter school expansion say the funding formula took money from the traditional public schools, hurting struggling districts, even though the loss of students did not affect the schools’ fixed costs.

“Moody’s wrote in its report that since 2010, cities like Boston, Fall River, Lawrence and Springfield have seen charter school spending grow by 83 percent even as overall spending on public education in the state grew by only 15 percent.”

Categories Accountability, Boston, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization

Jonathan Pelto: Charters Pose a Fiscal Risk to Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2016 //
17

Jonathan Pelto, writing at thehill.com, warns of the fiscal burden that charter school pose to states, school districts, and public education.

In most states, charters have little or no oversight, even though they are funded by taxpayers. Charters have gone to court to fight public audits.

It is time for charters to demand accountability and fiscal oversight, lest they be overcome by scandals in their own backyard.

While the subprime mortgage crisis remains the epitome of what occurs when greed and corruption go unchecked, a growing number of experts and observers are warning that a new economic scandal is taking shape in the United States.

In an article published earlier this month, Business Insider observed: “We just got even more evidence supporting the theory that charter schools are America’s new subprime mortgages.” The magazine wrote: The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released the results of a damning audit of the charter school industry which found that charter schools’ relationships with their management organizations pose a significant risk to the aim of the Department of Education.

The findings in the audit, specifically in regard to charter school relationships with CMOs, echo the findings of a 2015 study that warned of an impending bubble similar to that of the subprime-mortgage crisis one of the authors, Preston C. Green III, told Business Insider.

With more than 6,700 charter schools spread across 42 states and the District of Columbia, fraudulent activities associated with the publicly funded, but privately owned, charter school industry have become the fodder for almost daily news stories.

According to an October 2015 investigation conducted by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the federal government has spent more than $3.3 billion over the past two decades on the creation and maintenance of the charter school industry.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Massachusetts: Stripping the Mask from Corporate Reformers

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2016 //
10

Last week’s election was both a victory and a defeat for corporate education reform. On one hand, Donald Trump won with a strong commitment to school choice and privatization, which is the highest goal of corporate reformers. He will very likely appoint a Supreme Court justice (or justices) hostile to unions, another priority of the so-called reformers. Maybe now, they can give up their pretense of being Democrats and hail the new regime in D.C.

On the other hand, voters in two very different states–Massachusetts and Georgia–were asked if they wanted to “improve” their schools by turning them over to the charter industry, and both states answered with a resounding NO.

In Georgia, despite a deceptively worded constitutional amendment, a bipartisan majority voted 60-40 against allowing the governor to create a special district where low-scoring schools could be converted to charters.

In Massachusetts, the corporate financiers bundled $26 million, mostly from out of state donors, to promote Question 2, which would add 12 new charters every year. The advertising campaign tried to sell Question 2 as a civil rights issue. They promised it would not defund public schools. They swore it was only “for the kids.” Question 2 lost overwhelmingly by 68-32%. Two-thirds of the voters did not believe the promises.

Here is the big news: The largest vote against charters in the Massachusetts vote came in communities that already had charters. The voters knew that charters were taking money from their public schools. They didn’t like what charters were doing to their communities.

“Almost all of the fiercest Question 2 opponents were cities and towns whose public schools are losing money to charter schools.

“Easthampton topped all Massachusetts municipalities in the strength of its opposition — 76.2 percent voted ” No,” or 7,324 against 2,290 “Yes” votes — and that city will lose $940,000 to its charter school, Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School, in fiscal 2016.

“It comes right off the top,” Easthampton Mayor Karen Cadieux said Thursday. “If you’re saying it doesn’t cost us anything, then you need to explain why I’m $940,000 short.”

“Hadley and South Hadley also followed the pattern, voting “no” to the tune of 73.7 and 68.9 percent. South Hadley contains Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School and Hadley houses Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School.

“Despite being located in Eastern Massachusetts, where opposition to Question 2 was not as high as in the rest of the state, Somerville also voted strongly against Question 2, with 71.2 percent of voters opposed. The city houses Prospect Hill Academy Charter School.

“Greenfield, where Four Rivers Charter Public School makes its home, voted against Question 2 by 71 percent. In Holyoke, which contains Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School, 66 percent opposed.”

Despite the millions of dollars in Dark Money, despite the big buy on television, despite the civil rights rhetoric, Question 2 was rejected.

The best part of this election, other than the victory of public education, was that opponents of Question 2 were fully informed about the threat that privatization posed to public education in General and to their public schools in particular. Only a handful of affluent districts supported the measure. The rest understood that they were repelling an existential threat to a democratic institution that belongs to their community: their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization, Supporting public schools

California Charter School Files for Bankruptcy Protection

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2016 //
12

You may recall the Livermore Charter Schools in Livermore, California. In August, some 500 students fled the charters and returned to the public schools in the district.

Now the company that runs the charter schools has filed for Chapter 11 protection in bankruptcy proceedings. This enables them to default on their bonds and save money while they reorganize financially.

The two Livermore charters recently had seen a mass exodus of students to the local school district. On Nov. 14, the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District plans on opening a satellite elementary school for more than 300 students coming from the charter school. In August, about 400 students from both the K-8 charter and high school left the charter schools for district schools.

A TVLC spokesman at the time denied the amount of students, and claimed that the district was inflating the numbers.

TVLC interim CEO Lynn Lysko said in a statement to parents on Tuesday that filing for bankruptcy was the first step in debt reorganization for the company.

Lysko said TVLC will continue to operate while “an agreement to reorganize their debit is negotiated with creditors and approved by the Federal Court.”

The company will have 120 days to propose a plan of debt reorganization, she said.

“TVLC’s action today is the next step in the organization’s work to clean up its fiscal house and directly address the concerns of the districts,” Lysko said.

The Bond Buyer reported (behind a paywall):

In a letter posted to the company’s website, interim chief executive officer Lynn Lysko explained that she inherited a multi-million dollar deficit when she took the interim CEO job six months ago and that the school has already made drastic cutbacks including a 70% management staff reduction.

Bondholders are the ones that stand to take a hit in the reorganization, because the school has already settled up with nearly all other creditors including the state pension plan.

The company has about $42 million of outstanding bond debt issued in 2012 and 2015 through the California School Finance Authority, according to financial documents filed on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA website, and it is that debt that the company hopes to reorganize.

“The vast majority of TVLC’s debt relates to the 2012 bonds and a 2015 lease agreement for school site renovation that were incurred under previous management,” Lysko wrote. “The present restructuring will allow TVLC to reorganize that debt in a responsible manner.”

Charters are a risky investment.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Who Is Voting NO on 2 in Massachusetts? This Video Answers the Question!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
7

This short video was made by parents in Boston.

It shows who is standing together to oppose Question 2, which would authorize 12 new charter schools a year in Massachusetts, every year for the indefinite future.

More charter schools means more budget cuts for the public schools that enroll the vast majority of students. Charters do not enroll the same proportion of students with disabilities and English language learners as public schools.

Massachusetts now has the best performing state school system in the nation. Why disrupt it?

Watch the video, share it, and send it to your friends in Massachusetts.

The billionaires are using $20 million or more to spread their pro-charter message on television and to pay campaign workers.

The parents have no money, and they need our help.

Save public schools in Massachusetts.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization

Pennsylvania State Rep. Compares School Boards to Hitler

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2016 //
3

Peter Greene, who teaches in Pennsylvania tells us about the educationally-challenged state representative who compared democratically elected school boards to Hitler. Hitler’s blamed everything on the Jews, and local school boards blame everything on charter schoools. Got that?

Greene writes:

“Brad Roae’s district is just up the road from me and just down the road from Erie, where the schools have made some headlines with their economic issues, to the point that their board was seriously considering closing all of its high schools. Erie is one of several school districts that highlight the economic troubles of school districts in Pennsylvania. It’s a complex mess, but the basic problems boil down to this.

“First, Pennsylvania ranks 45th in the country for level of state support for local districts. That means the bulk of school district funding comes from local taxpayers, and that means that as cities like Erie with a previously-industrial tax base have lost those big employers, local revenue has gone into freefall, opening up some of the largest gaps between rich and poor districts in the country.

“Second, Pennsylvania’s legislature (the largest full-time legislature in the country, one of the most highly paid, and one of the most impressively gerrymandered) decided in the early 2000s that they would let local districts skimp on payments to the pension fund because, hey, those investments will grow the fund like wildfire anyway. Then Wall Street tanked the economy, and now local districts are looking at spectacularly ballooning pension payments on the order of payments equal to as much as one third of their total budget.

“Oh, and a side note– the legislature also periodically goes into spectacular failure mode about the budget. Back in 2015 districts across the state had to borrow huge chunks of money just to function, because Harrisburg couldn’t get their job done.

“Third, Pennsylvania is home to what our own Auditor General calls the worst charter laws in the country. There are many reasons for that judgment, but for local districts the most difficult part is that charter school students take 100% of their per-capita cost with them.

“So Erie City Schools, despite some emergency funding from the state, will run up as much as a $10 million deficit this year, with a full quarter of their spending going to charter and pension costs. Meanwhile, the legislature is trying to phase in a new funding formula (or, one might say, its first actual funding formula). This is going to be a painful process because, to even things out, it will have to involve giving some cities a far bigger injection of state tax dollars than richer communities will get. Politicians face the choice of either explaining this process and making a case for fairness and justice, or they can just play to the crowd and decry Harrisburg “stealing our tax dollars to send to Those People.” Place your bets now on which way that wind will blow.

“Oh, and that formula is supposed to get straightened out over the next twenty years!!

“Meanwhile, guys like Roae want to blame teachers and school districts. You can’t give teachers raises and benefits. If Erie (and school districts like it) want state aid, then they should cut costs and stop blaming charter schools. Meanwhile, Roae has been lauded by the PA cyber industry as a “champion of school choice.”

Roae, who graduated from Gannon in 1990 with a business degree and worked in the insurance biz until starting his legislative career, ought to know better.

“When hospitals throughout Northwest PA wanted to cut costs, they didn’t open more hospitals. If you are having trouble meeting your household budget, you do not open a second home and move part of your family into it.

“Education seems to be the only field in which people suggest that when you don’t have enough money to fund one facility, you should open more facilities. Charters are in fact a huge drain on public schools in the state. If my district serves 1,000 students and 100 leave for a charter school, my operating costs do not decrease by 10% even if my student population does. In fact, depending on which 100 students leave, my costs may not decrease at all. On top of that, I have to maintain capacity to handle those students because if some or all come back (and many of them do) I have to be able to accommodate them.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Pennsylvania, Pensions, Privatization

Los Angeles: Why Won’t the California Charter School Association Debate the UTLA about Charters and Privatization?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2016 //
33

The United Teachers of Los Angeles invited the powerful California Charter School Association to debate the issues surrounding the explosive growth of charter schools and their lack of accountability. The CCSA refused.

Here are the issues that CCSA doesn’t want to talk about:

Lack of financial accountability; lack of transparency; cream-skimming the students they want; bias against students with special needs and English language learners; the loss of funding for public schools that enroll all students; fraud, self-dealing, profiteering.

Why is CCSA afraid to debate?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization

Katy, Texas, Spending $71 Million on a New Football Stadium, But Can’t Afford a New Elementary School

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2016 //
5

The public schools of Katy, Texas, are overcrowded. The district needs a new elementary school, but it can’t afford to build one.

But the city officials know what really matters in Texas: they are spending $71 million for a new football stadium.

Please, let us not hear any rhetoric from Texas elected officials about how they love the children, how they want the state to attract new businesses by having great schools, how they are planning for the future. The legislature never fully restored the $5 billion in cuts to public schools that they extracted in 2011.

The only investment the politicians are willing to make is in charter schools–and if Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has his way–vouchers. That, of course, is not new money. Charters and vouchers take money from existing public schools and transfer it to entrepreneurs and home schoolers and those who prefer a religious education. There is no new money.

Texans are being scammed. There is no investment in children. There is no investment in public schools.

But there will be a super stadium in Katy.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Texas

What Kind of a School Fines a Departing Teacher $6,087 for “Liquidated Damages”?

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2016 //
25

EduShyster knows the answer: A popular suburban charter school in Massachusetts called the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School. This is a school that was created by a group of friends and families that wanted the equivalent of a private school at public school prices. It makes up its own rules. It has very high test scores. And the state has received scores of complaints about the school.

She writes:

So what were parents complaining about?

Special education services, denial of;

English Language Learners, complete lack of;

Teachers, high turnover of;

Property all over Malden, snapping up of (in cash, which seems, um, kind of strange);

Open meeting laws, ignoring of;

Friends and family of founders, hiring of/preferential treatment of;

Admissions lottery, odds-defying nature of, especially when concerning founders, friends and family of;

Communication with board, difficulty of;

Spending priorities, nature of (see $12 million athletic facility, building of)

Student club and athletic team fees, high cost of;

Day-to-day management of the school, interference in

Parents and students who complained, repercussions against, nudging towards door of

In which we pause briefly to consider one downside of the charter model

Let’s pause here briefly to consider why these parents have been deluging state officials with their complaints. You see, because charter schools are autonomous, overseen by their hand-picked boards, parents who have issues with the school and its management have no choice but to bring their complaints to the friends-and-family-esque Board of Directors. Which can be *awkward,* not to mention difficult, because of the board’s penchant for conducting much of its business out of view of the public. The state, meanwhile, doesn’t have much leverage either. While it can step in when the law is being broken or non-complied with, there is no statutory penalty for what might best be described as *dick-ish-ness.* Add in the fact that Mystic Valley is awash in the very treasure that the state most treasures these days—high MCAS scores and a long wait list—and, well, you see where this is not going. As for those unhappy parents, they have a choice: suck it up or *vote with their feet.*

The founders treat the school as their private school, funded by taxpayers. No one cares about the complaints of parents or teachers. The state provides no supervision. What will happen if the charter cap is lifted and more such publically funded, unaccountable, elite charters pop up?

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

Los Angeles: Study Reveals the Real Cost of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
8

The United Teachers of Los Angeles hired an independent research firm to analyze the true cost of charter schools to the school district.

The firm, MGT of America, was free to reach its own conclusions.

Its report concluded that charters are costing the Los Angeles Unified School District nearly $600 million a year in lost revenue.

A report by MGT of America, an independent research firm, reveals that LAUSD has lost an astonishing $591 million to unmitigated charter school growth this year alone. If costs associated with charter school expansion are not mitigated with common sense solutions, the district will face financial insolvency, according to an analysis of the report.

As the number of independent charter schools continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important for LAUSD to quantify, forecast, and manage the costs associated with independent charter expansion. LAUSD oversees more charter schools than any other district in the country. Charters are privately managed despite relying heavily on district and taxpayer funding.

Taken together, the findings in the report paint a picture of a system that prioritizes the growth opportunities for charter school operators over the educational opportunities for all students.

As Massachusetts and Georgia voters prepare to vote on whether to expand the number of charters, they should be fully informed that more money for charters means budget cuts for public schools. Budget cuts for public schools mean larger class sizes, fewer teachers, fewer programs for the schools that serve the majority of students.

As the charter sector continues to expand, because of false promises to parents about their “success” (even before the school opens), the public school system that has been a foundational element in American democracy is threatened by loss of funding and privatization.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization
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