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The Astonishing Cost of Ohio’s Lowest Performing School

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2015 //
16

Ohio’s most expensive failing school is ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow. It has theoqesthfaduation rate of any school in the state, yet is never held accountable. It is financed by taking funds away from much more successful schools and districts.

“The Columbus Dispatch wrote recently of the academic failures of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) where the graduation rate of 38% is among the worst of any school in the state. Among Ohio’s 613 traditional public school districts , the lowest graduation rate is 60.9%. In addition, ECOT received all Fs and one D on the state’s most recent report card.

“Despite its abysmal performance record, ECOT continues to expand. More than 14,500 children are currently enrolled, making ECOT the equivalent of the 10th largest school district in the state. The Dispatch story noted that ECOT founder William Lager has donated more than $1 million to Ohio politicians in the last five years as his school has grown exponentially.

“Information at KnowYourCharter.com helps clarify the burden that local public schools must bear to cover the costs of students who chose to attend ECOT. Kids in all 88 Ohio counties are impacted. More than 95% of school districts – 586 of 613 districts – have students and money being transferred to ECOT. As one of the state’s 9 statewide e-schools and one of the country’s largest for-profit K-12 schools, ECOT’s poor performance is exacerbated by its extraordinary financial impact on children throughout the state.”

Categories Funding, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Philadelphia Crisis: Shortage of School Nurses

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2015 //
8

Since 2011, the number of school nurses in the Philadelphia public schools has declined by 40%. At a meeting of the School Reform Commission, the appointed board that runs the district, nurses and principals testified about the dangers to children posed by the lack of nurses.

In 2013, a 12-year-old child died of an asthma attack at school; there was no nurse available that day.

In 2014, a 7-year-old child collapsed and died in school; there was no nurse available that day.

How many more children must die before the state supplies the funding to staff every school with a nurse every day?

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Philadelphia

Jerry Brown: A Real Reform Governor

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
28

Governor Jerry Brown’s Inaugural address includes the following remarks about education. Governor Brown understands that schools need adequate funding to succeed. One of his biggest challenges when he took office was to begin to restore the billions that had been cut from public schools by his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think he is wrong about Common Core, which caused California to ditch some of the best state standards in the nation and will draw hundreds of millions, if not billions, out of strained school budgets (Los Angeles was about to spend over &1 billion on iPads for Common Core testing until the deal fell apart a few months ago). But, reasonable people differ, and time will tell whether the investment in Common Core is worth it.

Governor Brown said:

“Educating the next generation is fundamental to our collective well-being. An issue that has plagued our schools for decades is the enormous barrier facing children from low-income families. When my father was governor, he sought to remedy the wide inequities among different school districts by calling for equalization of funding. His efforts were not successful.

“Now – decades later – we have finally created a much fairer system of school funding, called the Local Control Funding Formula. Under the provisions of this law, state funds are directed to school districts based on the needs of their students. Districts will get significantly more funds based on the number of students from foster care, low-income families and non-English-speaking parents. This program also breaks with decades of increasing centralization by reducing state control in favor of local flexibility. Clear goals are set, and their enforcement is entrusted to parents and local officials. This puts California in the forefront of educational reform.

“After years of underfunding and even borrowing from our local schools, the state now has significantly increased its financial support for education. Next year schools will receive $65.7 billion, a 39 percent increase in four years.

“The tasks ahead are daunting: making sure that the new system of local control works; recruiting and training tens of thousands of teachers; mastering the Common Core Curriculum; and fostering the creativity needed to inspire students. Teachers need to be held accountable but never forget: they have a tough job to do. They need our encouragement, not endless regulations and micro-management from afar.

“With respect to education beyond high school, California is blessed with a rich and diverse system. Its many elements serve a vast diversity of talents and interests. While excellence is their business, affordability and timely completion is their imperative. As I’ve said before, I will not make the students of California the default financiers of our colleges and universities. To meet our goals, everyone has to do their part: the state, the students and the professors. Each separate institution cannot be all things to all people, but the system in its breadth and diversity, through real cooperation among its segments, can well provide what Californians need and desire…..”

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Education Reform, Funding

Detroit: The Man Whose Vision Inspired the Catherine Ferguson Academy (RIP)

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2015 //
1

This article is a very interesting account of the life and accomplishments of Paul Weertz. He saved a block in Detroit by his love of agriculture and horticulture. He is of interest to readers of this blog because he was one of the leaders of the Catherine Ferguson Academy for pregnant girls in Detroit, now defunct.

 

CFA was a Detroit public school that enrolled pregnant girls. According to the article, it was incredibly successful and all of its graduates went on to college. The focus of the school that differentiated it from other schools was its agriculture program, which Paul Weertz created and nurtured. The students were very invested in raising their own food, and this was a motivating factor for the girls.

 

But despite the school’s success, the emergency manager decided to shut it down and turn it over to a charter operator (who had political connections).  At some point in this process, when it appeared the school was doomed, Rachel Maddow took an interest and reported on this situation. After a few years as a charter, the Catherine Ferguson Academy was closed permanently.

 

As the article tells the story:

 

Weertz is understandably proud of the success of his block of Farnsworth. But his other success story, his role as the teacher who helped build up the agricultural program at Catherine Ferguson Academy, ended badly. He says it had always been a struggle to justify the funding for a school that combined parent-focused teaching, day care, and an intense agricultural component, but the fact remains that all of the academy’s students went on to college, and the scholars’ children received excellent care. But instead of being imitated, it was terminated.

 

The beginning of the end came when a Lansing-appointed emergency manager stepped in and announced the school would be closed. This resulted in a battle that left the school open, but in the hands of a charter operator. The charter company, run by Blair Evans, brother of current Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, closed the school after running it for a few years.

 

“Well it’s always been ‘too much money,'” he says. “That’s why there were only five schools like that in the country. Pregnancy is the leading cause of dropout for young women. You think they’d have these at every state in the union, but it’s just a discrimination issue. You can hassle poor women or pregnant women; they’re not gonna say anything. With pregnant girls, we can somehow say, ‘It’s your fault.’

 

“It’s a sensitive issue to me because I’ve always felt like I donated a lot of my labor and material, so to speak, because it was the public. Blair Evans is a nice guy, but I’m not donating my time to him. I thought it was the public school. It’s like cleaning up a public park and finding out it’s a gated community. What happened there? So that’s the way it happened at Catherine Ferguson, and it was kind of a media frenzy. So many of us walked away like, ‘That wasn’t a victory,’ but that’s how the media presented it. ‘They’re saving the school and it’s OK!’ No one is doing a story now about what happened to the school. What is Detroit doing with their pregnant kids now?”

 

Rachel Maddow, you are needed now! Time for a follow-up story!

 

Categories Detroit, Education Reform, Funding, Joy

Jersey Jazzman on Impoverished Camden, Where Charters Always Have Money

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2015 //
10

Camden, New Jersey, is one of the poorest cities in the state of New Jersey. The public schools are dilapidated. But charter schools are not dilapidated. Jersey Jazzman tells how one entrepreneur in Camden was able to raise $10 million through a bond issue to build a state-of-the-art facility, with a new cafeteria, science labs, a fitness center, and a health clinic.

 

He writes:

 

If you know anything about Camden and its schools, you’ll know that this is quite a story — a story that shows, once again, that charter schools play by a completely different set of rules, often to the detriment of public schools.

 

Let’s start with some background: I spent a lot of time last year telling the story of Camden’s LEAP Academy University Charter School and its founder, Gloria Bonilla-Santiago. The tale is long and twisted, but let me give the quick highlights:
Despite a track record of regularly missing Adequate Yearly Progress (and academic outcomes that even today lag compared to schools across New Jersey), LEAP was always a favorite of then-Acting Education Commissioner and school privatizing guru Chris Cerf:

 

*LEAP actually lost its tax-exempt status for a while in 2013 because it failed to file its tax returns. This was serious because $8.5 million in bonds had been issued from the Delaware River Port Authority for the school’s expansion. LEAP eventually got its tax-exempt status back, but not before blaming the debacle on the IRS.
*But the failure to file taxes for three years was the least of the questionable behaviors surrounding LEAP. The school illegally recruited athletes back in 2005, leading to a severe sanction from the NJISAA. The school engaged in unfair labor practices, leading to extraordinary levels of teacher turnover. LEAP had to repay the NJDOE when it used federal funds for non-allowable expenses. A LEAP employee filed a lawsuit, claiming he had been forced to do personal work for Bonilla-Santiago at her home (I can’t find any follow-up reporting on the status of this suit).
*But perhaps the biggest scandal coming from LEAP came from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s reporting on Bonilla-Santiago’s live-in boyfriend, Michele Pastorello:
When Camden’s LEAP Academy University Charter School compelled its new food-service management company to retain the school’s executive chef and give him a $24,000 raise, LEAP also had to pay a $151,428 penalty to its previous vendor, documents show.
Including Michele Pastorello’s new $95,000 salary, LEAP has spent nearly $250,000 this school year to keep him employed as executive chef. The position typically pays about $40,000, according to industry experts.
Pastorello is the live-in boyfriend of LEAP founder and board chairwoman Gloria Bonilla-Santiago. His raise, as well as the fee paid to the previous management company, Aramark, now are under review by the school’s board of trustees. [emphasis JJ]
Not surprisingly, a subcommittee of LEAP’s board found that nothing was wrong with this deal.

 

JJ adds, with careful documentation, comparing LEAP charter school to the Camden public schools:

 

LEAP serves a substantially different student body than the Camden Public Schools. We can argue about whether that’s acceptable or not, certainly acknowledging that LEAP’s student body has far more children in economic disadvantage than its suburban neighbors. But let’s get back to those bonds…

Because what I don’t understand is why there is plenty of money ready and available for charter schools like LEAP — which serves fewer children with special needs — to expand, while its neighboring public schools in Camden have to wait years just to get enough funding to keep from falling apart.

Why is Wall Street so eager to give a school like LEAP — a school with a history of not filing taxes, engaging in unfair labor practices, and paying favored employees far more than market wages — money with which to expand? So eager that, according to this Wall Street Journal story, LEAP is getting a remarkably good deal?
The school is paying a rate of 6.3% on longer-term debt. Comparable borrowing costs in 2009 were about 7.6%, according to the Local Initiatives Support Corp., which advises charter schools on finances.
Do you think that maybe the street came to a conclusion about LEAP? That maybe it doesn’t need to jack up interest rates for their bonds, because — as the school’s history shows time and again — it simply can do no wrong? – See more at:

 

 

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/12/theres-always-more-money-for-charter.html#sthash.NcIzEwPK.dpuf

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, New Jersey, Privatization

An Astonishing Editorial in “The New York Times” about “the Central Crisis in Education”

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2015 //
40

For the past dozen years or so, the New York Times has been a cheerleader for corporate education reform, especially testing. Its editorials have faithfully repeated the talking points of the corporate reformers who slam “failing public schools” because they have low test scores.

 

But something miraculous happened today: The New York Times has a strong editorial reflecting reality. Let’s be grateful for sound logic, based on fact and evidence.

 

The editorial gives advice to Governor Cuomo, who has recently adopted the idea of charter schools as his version of reform, while threatening teachers with punitive evaluations based on junk science and threatening their pensions:

 

If he is serious about the issue [education], he will have to move beyond peripheral concerns and political score-settling with the state teachers’ union, which did not support his re-election, and go to the heart of the matter. And that means confronting and proposing remedies for the racial and economic segregation that has gripped the state’s schools, as well as the inequality in school funding that prevents many poor districts from lifting their children up to state standards.

 

These shameful inequities were fully brought to light in 2006, when the state’s highest court ruled in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York that the state had not met its constitutional responsibility to ensure adequate school funding and in particular had shortchanged New York City.

 

A year later, the Legislature and Gov. Eliot Spitzer adopted a new formula that promised more help for poor districts and eventually $7 billion per year in added funding. That promise evaporated in the recession, spawning two lawsuits aimed at forcing the state to honor it.

 

A lawsuit by a group called New Yorkers for Students’ Educational Rights estimates that, despite increases in recent years, the state is still about $5.6 billion a year short of its commitment under that formula.

 

A second lawsuit was filed on behalf of students in several small cities in the state, including Jamestown, Port Jervis, Mount Vernon and Newburgh. It says that per pupil funding in the cities, which have an average 72 percent student poverty rate, is $2,500 to $6,300 less than called for in the 2007 formula, making it impossible to provide the instruction other services needed to meet the State Constitution’s definition of a “sound basic education.”

 

These communities and others like them are further disadvantaged by having low property values and by a statewide cap enacted in 2011 that limits what money they are able to raise through property taxes. And last year the New York State United Teachers union said that the cap had been particularly harmful to poorer districts.

 

These inequalities are compounded by the fact that New York State, which regards itself as a bastion of liberalism, has the most racially and economically segregated schools in the nation. A scathing 2014 study of this problem by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, charged that New York had essentially given up on this problem. It said, “The children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood poverty and isolation.”

 

Any serious effort to improve education must direct more resources to districts that need them and must address the racial segregation in New York’s schools.

Categories Funding, New York, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Will York City Lose Public Education? Is Democracy Dead in Pennsylvania?

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2014 //
18

Last week, a judge handed the schools of York City, Pennsylvania, to a receiver, David Meckley, a businessman, to do with as he pleases. He has said he will turn the district over to a for-profit charter chain, Charter Schools, USA. There is still a glimmer of hope, as the school board is appealing the decision. 

 

The local newspaper published a terrific editorial. It asks questions that the judge never considered: What are the for-profit corporations plans for the children with special needs? How can anyone justify diverting money to “profit,” when the district is in dire financial need? Does the for-profit corporation actually have a plan for improvement? My questions: why isn’t the state responsible to assist districts whose property tax base cannot support public schools? How many more districts will be handed over to entrepreneurs? What is the purpose of public education? Does the voice of the community matter? Whatever happened to democracy?

 

This is what the local newspaper said:

 

Meckley, a Spring Garden Township businessman who has led the district’s financial recovery process for two years now, intends to convert all eight schools to charters operated by a for-profit company, Charter Schools USA.

Such a conversion has never been tried in Pennsylvania, and the company’s plan for York City appears half-baked.

For instance, in response to questions submitted by The York Dispatch, a company representative showed limited knowledge of the district’s student population and couldn’t even describe plans for the 21 percent of students with special needs.

The community clearly opposes the plan. Yet while they have no say in the matter, city property owners’ tax dollars now will be used not only for education but to boost the profits of Charter Schools USA.

Since the district is struggling financially, how can anyone justify diverting even a penny away from the students?

Unfortunately, Linebaugh, York County’s president judge, was not allowed to consider these or any other aspects of the charter conversions.

Categories Charter Schools, For-Profit, Funding, Pennsylvania

NC: What State Senator Berger Did to His Own District

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2014 //
20

Chris Fitzsimon describes what happened to the public schools in State Senator Phil Berger’s home district because of the budget cuts he pushed. Some schools can’t pay for textbooks, some can’t afford copy paper or toilet paper. Inspired by Republican and Tea Party rhetoric, voters rejected a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax.

Who cares about the children?

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, North Carolina

Lloyd Lofthouse on the Use of School Funds to Pay for Hockey Stadium in Michigan

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
14

Lloyd Lofthouse comments on a post about the decision by the State Attorney General to divert dedicated public school funds to the building of a new hockey stadium:

 

Lloyd writes:

 

 

More examples of what the corporate reformers bring to the table of teaching children.

 

1. In Los Angeles, money that was designated by the voters to repair and improve schools, was spend on iPads boosting profits for Apple and software developers.

 

2. In Michigan, the reformers take money meant to support public schools and built an arena to host ice hockey for a private-sector owned team.

 

This is an example of what will happen as the fake Pub-Ed reformers get the upper hand in cities and states across the country.

 

Who do we thank for this mess?

 

A. Bill Gates
B. the Walton family
C. The Koch brothers.
D. All of the above and a few more

 

Mike Ilitch, The owner of the Red Wings, has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion. Who else does he own? Does he own the governor of Michigan? Does he own the majority of the state legislature?

 

The team value of the Detroit Red Wings is $570 million with annual revenue of $134 million.

 

http://www.forbes.com/teams/detroit-red-wings/

Categories Funding, Michigan

Michigan Outrage: School Funds to be Spent on Arena

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2014 //
23

The Attorney General of Michigan ruled that it was appropriate to use school funding to build a new hockey arena for the Red Wings.

“Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette quietly issued an opinion that said state taxes for schools can legally be used to fund the arena’s construction. The opinion came in response to a request in October from state Rep. Rose Mary Robinson (D-Detroit), who asked if it was a constitutional use of the funds.

“In her request, Robinson pointed to a section of the Michigan Constitution, which says that money from the state School Aid Fund is to be used “exclusively” for public schools and colleges in Michigan.

“Some quick background: Robinson’s request stems from the structure of how the Red Wings arena will be financed. An estimated 58 percent of the cost to construct the arena will funded by public tax dollars, about $261 million….”

“Whether you agree that public tax dollars should be used for the project, or decry the idea of subsidizing a billionaire’s arena, the fact is that schools in Michigan could use all the help they can get. Even if it is only $15 million.

“For example, this past May, Michigan officials lowered revenue projections for state school taxes over the next year by nearly $80 million. This was seen as a big deal when the revised projections were released. And if facets of a recent state House plan to support road funding — by phasing out the sales tax on gasoline and replace it with an increase to fuel taxes — gains traction when lawmakers hash out a compromise this week, that could cost deplete school taxes of “hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to one study.

“And while Robinson hasn’t said this outright, her point speaks to a larger concern about the current revitalization in downtown Detroit: No one questions the fact that it’s a positive sign to see young millennials moving into the city. But what will those transplants do when they have children later in life and want to send them to school — in Detroit?

“I represent Detroit, and I represent the center of Detroit, the core,” Robinson told MLive. “And our priorities are our children, schools, police protection, basic essential city services. Give us that. Take your arena … it’s just not fair.”

Categories Funding, Michigan
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