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Kansas: Legislature Enacts Funding Plan Under Pressure from Court

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2016 //
2

Under court order, the Kansas Legislature enacted a funding bill for the schools. The state’s highest court threaten to shut down the schools entirely if the legislature didn’t take action. Despite grumbling about the “activist” court and threats to pass legislation to rein it in, the legislature did the right thing and actually allocated money to the public schools. Parents might wake up if the schools closed, and they would know who was to blame: not the court, but the legislators.

Governor Sam Brownback has consistently underfunded the public schools.

Kansas needs parents and educators to run for the legislature to make sure it meets one of the most fundamental responsibilities of the state: the education of its children.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Kansas

LEAKED: The Draft of the Democrat Party Platform

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2016 //
116

Several members of the Democratic party’s platform committee sent me the draft of the platform. It is linked below so we can all reflect on what is being considered. This is a draft so it can be changed. Please read it and send your best ideas.

The section on education contains a lot of reformer lingo. Zip codes. Options. Accountability. The Democratic party favors “high academic standards.” Who favors “low academic standards?” The party opposes too much testing; who favors too much testing?

The rhetoric about “high academic standards” brings echoes of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Wouldn’t it have been refreshing to see a statement about meeting the needs of all children? Or ensuring that all schools have the staff and resources they need for the children they enroll?

And then there’s the section on charters. The party is against for-profit charters: so far, so good, but how about saying that a Clinton administration will stop federal funding of for-profit schools and colleges, because they are low-quality and predatory, with profit as their top priority?

The party favors “high quality charters.” Does that mean corporate charter chains like KIPP, Achievement First, and Success Academy? Probably. How about a statement opposing corporate replacements for neighborhood public schools? How about a statement insisting that charters accept English language learners and students with disabilities at the same rate as the neighborhood public school? How about a statement opposing draconian disciplinary policies and suspensions?

How about a clear statement that the Clinton administration will no longer permit school closings as academic punishment? How about a clear signal that the Clinton administration intends to protect and strengthen our nation’s essential traditional public schools, which serve all children. How about signaling a new direction for federal education policy, one that promises to support schools and educators, not to punish them.

Please read and share yours reactions. I will pass ideas along to platform committee members.

See the entire pdf here.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, For-Profit, Funding, Support for public schools, U.S. Department of Education

Oklahoma: Teachers Fight Back! 40 Run for Office!

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2016 //
8

NPR reported on a new, smart wave of activism in Oklahoma: 40 teachers are running for office this year. They are running because they want to increase funding for the public schools. Most are Democrats, but some are Republicans and Independents. One of the candidates is Oklahoma’s Teacher of the Year for 2016.

This is great news! The best way to change the legislature is to run for a seat at the table.

Getting elected to the State Senate or Assembly (or whatever it is called in your state) is far more powerful than posting a petition on change.org or holding a rally to get the attention of the legislators.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, and change the face of the legislature.

Go, Oklahoma teachers!

Categories Funding, Oklahoma, Teachers

BOMBSHELL: Dark Money and the Fight to Defund Public Schools in California!

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2016 //
20

In 2012, Californians voted on Proposition 30, which raised taxes on the richest citizens in order to raise funding for public schools and charter schools. The measure passed, despite a well-funded effort to defeat it.

A group of unions and progressive activists released a list of nearly 80 wealthy Californians who secretly funded the campaign to defeat Proposition 30. One of them was billionaire Eli Broad, who publicly supported Prop 30 but donated either $500,000 or $1 million to the effort to defeat it.

The progressive activists–called California Hedge Clippers–dug into records to show where the money came from to fight the temporary tax to aid schools.

Individuals named in the group’s report include Silicon Valley tech and investment executive John H. Scully ($500,000), investor and Hyatt Hotel heir Anthony Pritzker ($100,000), developer Geoff Palmer ($100,000) and private equity investor Gerald Parsky ($50,000).

Donors, regulators concluded, contributed money to an out-of-state organization, which circulated funds through a series of other groups and eventually back to California. By then, the identity of the donors was beyond the reach of disclosure laws.

As the money was channeled to California, some transfers were not properly disclosed and therefore violated the law, officials said. Well after the election, a California investigation resulted in $16 million in fines to some of the groups as well as the disclosure of some donors, including Broad, who either gave $500,000 or $1 million, depending on how the source documents are interpreted. The donors were not fined….

Among the names to emerge in the California research is Nils Colin Lind ($50,000), who was at the time an executive at Blum Capital, the firm he co-founded with Richard Blum, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband. The larger contributions include $800,000 from machine-tool manufacturer Gene Haas. The researchers also uncovered additional money from the Fisher family, heirs to the Gap fortune and among the most generous supporters of charter schools; their revised total is $10 million.

The list also includes leaders of the charter school movement, such as Scully and Tony Ressler ($25,000), a former longtime board member of the charter group Alliance College-Ready Public Schools.

Like other public schools, charters reaped huge financial benefits from Proposition 30 after it passed in 2012. School officials across the state hope voters in the November election will extend the tax on the wealthiest 2% of earners….

The donors’ money traveled a circuitous path. They contributed to Americans for Job Security, a Virginia trade association. This outfit then passed the money to the Center to Protect Patient Rights in Arizona. The center next sent $11 million to a Phoenix group, Americans for Responsible Leadership, which provided it to the Small Business Action Committee. That committee spent the money on the California campaigns.

In another relay, the Center to Protect Patient Rights provided more than $4 million to the America Future Fund in Iowa, which passed the money to the California Future Fund for Free Markets, a campaign committee supporting Proposition 32.

Not all of the donated money made it back to California. About $10 million was captured by groups in other parts of the country, the researchers said.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Mississippi: Yes for Charters, No for Funding

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2016 //
2

Last year, the people of Mississippi had a chance to increase the funding for their woefully inadequate public schools, and the legislature and governor did everything in their power to reject the proposal, even creating an alternative measure designed to confuse voters. Act 42, which would have compelled equitable funding was voted down. Act 42 failed to win approval. Here is the background.

The legislature’s answer to school improvement: charter schools. These are the schools of choice that segregationists have wanted since the Brown decision.

Some in the legislature want to take the next step and authorize vouchers, to thoroughly undermine public schools.

The first two charters in Jackson are finishing their first year: one is struggling, the other is part of a corporate chain and is off to a good start.

Categories Charter Schools, Equity, Funding, Mississippi, Privatization

Chris Christie Punches Poor Children in the Face

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2016 //
32

Governor Chris Christie made a budget proposal for “fair funding” that attempts to pit middle-class taxpayers against the poor.

He proposes to give the same amount of school aid to every child in the schools, whether they are in an affluent or a poor district. He is selling this as property tax relief for the middle class, who will get a boost, but will result in cuts to poor kids in poor districts.

Russ Walsh calls this “punching poor children in the face,” as Chris Christie once said he would like to do to the teachers’ unions. Walsh writes:

He proposes a flat rate of aid in the area of $6,599 for every student in New Jersey whether they live in leafy, affluent Montgomery Township or cash strapped, property tax poor Camden. This “every one gets the same money plan” would provide a windfall to wealthy districts, many of which would see a dramatic increase in state aid to schools (and a reduction in property taxes) and conversely a death sentence to urban districts who would see their budgets reduced by tens of millions of dollars.

Daniel Katz says that Christie is pulling a reverse Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. He says, “A good way to approach almost any education proposal from Chris Christie is to simply assume that it will cause far more harm than good and then try to gauge just how far along the harmful spectrum it will actually be.”

Mark Weber (aka Jersey Jazzman) says that Christie’s plan is so absurd that it makes building a wall on the Mexican border look reasonable by comparison.

Even Christie’s friends at Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), the hedge fund pro-charter group, cried foul.

“Fair funding” is one of those far-right ideas intended to pave the way for vouchers, a backpack full of cash, and strapping the money to the kids’ back. It is intended to generate support among middle-class and affluent people who object to high property taxes. Call it class warfare. Whatever it is, it is not fair to the kids with the greatest needs.

Categories Funding, New Jersey

What’s the Matter with Kansas? Parents Fight Back Against Massive Budget Cuts to Their Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2016 //
12

Parents in Kansas are disgusted with Governor Sam Brownback’s massive budget cuts. The cuts were inevitable after Brownback and the legislature enacted the biggest tax cuts in the state’s history in 2012 and 2013. They must have been following the Reagan playbook of trickle-down economics, but it didn’t work. The State Supreme Court ordered the legislature to enact an equitable and adequate plan to finance the public schools.

And now parents are gearing up to fight for their public schools.

The struggle over school funding in Kansas reached a new crisis point when the State Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Republican-dominated Legislature had not abided by its constitutional mandate to finance public schools equitably, especially poorer districts with less property wealth. The court, in an effort to force legislative action, reiterated a deadline that gave the state until June 30 to fix the problem or face a school shutdown.

The ruling exacerbated tensions over budgets enacted by Mr. Brownback and the Legislature that education officials say have led school districts to eliminate programs, lay off staff members or even shorten the school week….

Of even greater concern to many parents is a sense, they say, that the state leadership does not support the very concept of public education.

“People are saying, ‘This is not the Kansas I know,’ and ‘This is not the Republican Party I know,’” said Judith Deedy, who helped start the group Game On for Kansas Schools.

As in other states, the effect of reduced funding varies from one district to another. In poorer districts like Kansas City and Wichita, students are crammed into deteriorating buildings with bloated class sizes. One district in southeast Kansas, facing a budget shortfall, recently pared its school week to four days.

Parents who are Republicans feel betrayed by Governor Brownback and some plan to run against their incumbent representatives.

Educators are struggling to meet the needs of their students:


In Kansas City, school officials say they have been shortchanged by tens of millions of dollars over the past five years because the Legislature has not taken into account their needs when financing poorer districts like theirs. Ninety percent of the students in the Kansas City school district qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and 40 percent are nonnative English speakers.

Cynthia Lane, the superintendent of schools in the Kansas City district, said preparations were underway in case schools are shut down, as the Supreme Court has threatened. Schools are usually busy during the summer months, with administrators and members of staff preparing for the upcoming academic year, she said. The first day of school is scheduled for Aug. 15.

“If we can’t pay bills, how do we keep our utilities on, how do we keep our security system on?” she said. “Folks are really frustrated and embarrassed that Kansas is the butt of jokes across the nation. He continues to say things are fine, when they are not fine.”

The Wichita School Board voted on May 18 to eliminate more than 100 jobs and to close an alternative high school, as part of efforts to trim about $18 million from the district’s budget.

At that meeting, Mike Rodee, the vice president of the board, blamed state officials for forcing budget cuts. “We need to look at all the people that are doing it to us,” he said at the school board meeting. “Our legislators, our government, our governor — we are the ones who are fighting to keep the schools alive, and they are fighting to close them.”

Some school principals say they are resigned to making do with what money they have. At Welborn Elementary School in Kansas City, classes are held in two aging buildings and students dash back and forth during the day. Teachers keep a watchful eye on them as they cross an active parking lot between the buildings.

“I don’t need much,” said Jennifer Malone, the principal, one recent afternoon. “I just want a building.”

Governor Brownback has called a special session of the legislature to enact a new funding formula. Just hope that he doesn’t fund the schools by cutting the universities or other public services.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Kansas, Parents, Resistance

EduShyster: What the “Reform” Movement Doesn’t Know about Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2016 //
14

In this post, EduShyster gives a lesson to corporate reformers who want to reorganize the education system that has made Massachusetts first in the nation on every national and international test.

Their view of the Bay State’s schools is warped by their ignorance. They see Massachusetts as a model of “the first way” (i.e., public schools). Then, “reform” was jump-started by the charter schools added in 1993 (all 25 of them for the whole state). And now, they believe, Massachusetts needs to go “the third way.” Apparently the third way is to make Massachusetts look a lot like Denver (which readers of this blog know is no model).

What they don’t know is that the 1993 legislation increased school spending dramatically, by one-third. In its wake came tests for new teachers, uniform standards and assessments for the state, and early childhood education. The goal was to equalize funding among the best and worst funded districts.

But what is this Third Way. Read the article to find out, but expect to see a blurring of the lines between public and private, plus many opportunities for inexperienced teachers and for entrepreneurs.

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

Koch Brother Learns the Difficulty in Opening a New School: Allegations of Favoritism, Waste, Fraud, Sexual Harassment, and High Staff Turnover

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2016 //
18

Bill Koch, one of the famous billionaire Koch brothers, decided he wanted to open a great high school, an example for the nation. He created Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the sky was the limit in terms of spending.

 

He recruited the chief financial officer of the U.S. Naval Academy as its headmaster by offering him a financial package worth more than $1 million a year.

 

Koch’s goal was excellence:

 

That’s the aim of Oxbridge Academy, whose roster of teachers and administrators recruited from around the country aspires to the highest of academic ambitions for their 580 students, who populate a sprawling West Palm Beach campus and engage in extracurricular activities that range from horseback riding to sailing and flight simulation and boast a football team that rarely loses.

 

Tuition is $31,500 a year, though many students receive financial aid as part of Chairman Bill Koch’s desire to maintain a diverse student body elevated, as his industrialist father was decades ago, by the generosity of others. Koch, a Palm Beach energy industry billionaire, antiquities collector and America’s Cup winner, founded the West Pam Beach high school in 2011 and estimates he has invested $75 million to $100 million to make Oxbridge one of the finest in the nation.

 

But curtained behind the wooded grounds and low-slung buildings at Military Trail and Community Drive, say past and present employees, exists a working environment led by President and CEO Robert C. Parsons that’s fraught with firings, high turnover, accusations of sexual harassment and an emphasis tilting from academics to athletics….

 

What worries employees is the frequency of firings, the swiftness of departures and absence of explanation. One day a colleague is there and the next, gone.

 

That has been the pattern, not with just teachers but high-level administrators with top credentials, who came attracted by the excitement of creating an innovative, high-powered school only to find themselves out the door, sometimes in a matter of months.
Neen Hunt, for example, came before the school’s opening, to organize operations as academics chief. Hunt, a Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, had earned a Master of Arts in Education and a Doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She came to Oxbridge from New York’s prestigious Calhoun School, where she was head of school.

 

She was gone before the first day of class….

 

Of the inaugural group of 17 teachers that started in fall 2011, many who Hunt recruited from around the country, eight were told in February 2012 their contracts wouldn’t be renewed but that they were expected to finish the term.

 

 

“It was such a horrible atmosphere and so unprofessional,” said one instructor who wasn’t fired. “They wanted me to come back but there was no way I was going to let my career be ruined by those people. The atmosphere felt evil and very controlling. It was one of the most disturbing places I have ever worked in under the guise of being an educational environment. It was shocking.”

 

When interviewed, Bill Koch said the high turnover didn’t bother him, because he works under the Jack Welch philosophy that the bottom 10 percent should be fired every year. Apparently, he didn’t notice that more than the bottom 10 percent were leaving every year.

 

Koch is now paying for an investigative team to get to the bottom of numerous allegations. Several top officials have been placed on paid leave, including the employee who was a whistle-blower.

 

Staff turnover has been amazingly high, considering the seemingly idyllic working conditions:

 

Mark Bodnar, the school’s former second-in-command, said he left the stress of working in that environment to hike trails in Arizona. He estimated that more than 120 people have been fired or quit, some after having left prestigious schools and moving their families cross-country to work at Oxbridge. Another source put the number at 135, including part-timers.

 

The school’s public relations manager, Carey O’Donnell, said that from 2011 to now, 96 employees left, 34 of them fired.

 

In the past two or three months, the school’s treasurer/chief financial officer, an accountant who was out on family leave and its baseball coach were fired and its security director demoted to security guard, according to current employees.

 

Be sure to read the comments on the original story in the Palm Beach Post. Some are from current or former employees.

 

When a reporter from the New York Times called to ask me about this story, in preparation for writing about it, I said that at least Bill Koch is paying for implementing his ideas instead of expecting the public to pay for them, as Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, John Arnold, and many other billionaires are doing. Wouldn’t it be great if all of them opened their own private schools and tried out their educational ideas using their own money, instead of imposing them on other people’s children and demanding public support?

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Florida, Funding

NonProfit Quarterly: The Gates Foundation Has Not Learned from Its Failures

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2016 //
25

Martin Levine, writing in NonProfit Quarterly, reviews the latest statement by the President of the Gates Foundation, Sue Desmond-Hellman, and concludes that the foundation is unwilling to learn from its mistakes.

 

After Bill Gates had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in creating small schools, he abruptly abandoned that idea and moved on, with little reflection.

 

“The foundation’s lessons learned from this experience did not result in any questioning of their core belief that the answer to building a more equitable society would be found within our public schools. They just shifted their focus to increasing the number of charter schools, creating test-based teacher evaluation systems, improving school and student data management, and setting universal standards through the common core curriculum. Each has struggled, and none appear to have been effective.

 

“In 2014, the BMGF supported InBloom, an effort to create a national educational data management system, shut down after parents protested the collection and storage in the cloud of data on their children. Various states withdrew their support, and NPQ reported last September on the failure of one of these Gates-funded initiatives, Empowering Effective Teachers.

 

“Desmond-Hellman has led the foundation as it has invested heavily in the effort to create a national set of learning standards, the Common Core Curriculum. Despite over $300 million in foundation funding, alliances with other large foundations, and strong support from the U.S. Department of Education, the effort has drawn bitter opposition and decreasing support. The strong push that the DoE gave states to implement the Common Core was seen as an unwanted intrusion of federal power into local schools. The use of Common Core to build a testing regimen for students and teachers was seen as disruptive and ineffective. Test data show little impact on bridging the inequity gap in states using Common Core.

 

“Would not an organization that seeks to be a learning organization want to step back and consider whether their core assumptions are on target in light of their difficult experiences? Perhaps, but not the Gates Foundation. Desmond-Hellmann remains “optimistic that all students can thrive when they are held to high standards. And when educators have clear and consistent expectations of what students should be able to do at the end of each year, the bridge to opportunity opens. The Common Core State Standards help set those expectations.” Not a word about the impact of poverty, or the trauma of community violence, or systemic racism as even small considerations.”

 

In a display of smugness, the Gates Foundation blames public resistance to the Common Core on the critics, not on their assumptions about school reform.

 

What the Gates Foundation has thus far demonstrated is the inability to say, “We were wrong.”

 

 

 

Categories Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Poverty, Segregation
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