Archives for category: Funding

Recently the Education Justice Center named Nevada as one of the states where funding was most inequitable and inadequate. Teacher Angie Sullivan in Nevada sends out the following news:

Just to be clear . . .

There were one billion in cuts to education under Democratic leadership and the Governor of Reno. We have not restored that money.

Our schools are starving.

No one has the guts to fund public schools in Nevada. Our scores have declined as our funding has declined.

Our schools are starving.

Now the state is going to participate in wholesale union-busting which affects how many under-funded schools? And how many under-supplied professionals? Take Over?

Our schools are starving.

Nice to see some failing charters that further siphon tax payer money on the list too – but what did you think would happen without regulation and oversight. Twice the cost and not able to produce.

Our schools are starving.

The state is going to “take us over”. Who is that? The state will love my at risk students more than I do?

Our schools are starving.

Does that mean sell us to a corporation – like Edison? Remember that Edison Corpirate experiment on kids? $10 million later there was no improvement. What a failure – sad to think we might do that again.

Our schools are starving.

This state can blame teachers who are on the front line all it wants. Go on a witch-hunt again. Waste time and money without addressing the community issues of poverty and racism and disenfranchisement.

Our schools are starving.

You get what you pay for and you wanted to starve the schools – and look what happened.

Our schools are starving.

Tell me this is not union-busting plain and simple. Tell me this is not about punishing women who teach kids to read. Tell me it’s not the already impoverished schools with at-risk populations that will be sold to the highest bidder.

Our schools are starving.

If you keep looking for solutions from a CEO who refuses to acknowledge the real issues – you will continue to fail. Public schools are not about return on investment – they are investment in community, democracy, and opportunity.

Our schools are starving.

O God hold your children in your hand. Where will kids go to school if they privatize them all. Please do not allow experiments without research to kill our schools and hurt our most vulnerable children.

Angie

http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/education/nevada-mulling-dramatic-crackdown-low-performing-schools

NEVADA MULLING DRAMATIC CRACKDOWN ON LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS

By TREVON MILLIARD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Nevada’s underperforming public schools are about to feel the squeeze from state education officials who have long identified the chronic strugglers but have done little more than watch them.

Plans are in the works at the Nevada Department of Education in Carson City to tighten the state’s grip on struggling schools that receive extra support, taking action if they fail to improve, say state Deputy Superintendent for Student Achievement Steve Canavero and members of the State Board of Education.

“We would all like to make nice, and we would all like to have the grownups get along,” President Elaine Wynn told her fellow state board members Nov. 6. “But I would remind you of the mood we had at our last meeting, when we were horrified at the results.”

Those results: 51 public schools labeled low-performers, with few making substantial improvements often requiring urgent and disruptive changes instead of the small, incremental steps commonly seen in Nevada education, Canavero said.

Of the 51 low performers, 29 schools are in Clark County.

The state has identified nine “priority schools” on the 51-school list. All but one shared in $34 million in federal School Improvement Grants over the past three years, but none improved their standing in the state’s one-to-five-star accountability system ratings.

“We obviously can’t go back and fix the past,” said board member Allison Serafin, calling for an accounting of how the grant money was spent and any effect it had.

Wynn asked the board to “send a very clear signal” that it won’t passively accept the status quo.

“We’re here not to have meetings once every six weeks. We’re here to make a difference in how our kids learn and achieve,” said Wynn. “What is the evolving role of the state board?”

The state department and board have never used their power to regularly monitor underperforming schools and mandate improvement plans, which can include choosing principals and other school leaders and prescribing curriculum.

Canavero said he doesn’t see the state choosing a curriculum for schools, which harkens to the concern of board member Alexis Gonzales-Black. She said the state needs to be careful to not micromanage schools.

The state also can turn chronically underperforming schools over to management organizations, which usually run charter schools, or close them and send students elsewhere.

That far-reaching power came to the state board in 2012, when the federal government offered states a chance to opt out of certain provisions of No Child Left Behind, the federal accountability system implemented under the George W. Bush administration in 2002.

The state submitted an alternative accountability plan to the U.S. Department of Education, creating the school star-rating system and granting more autonomy to high-performing schools while setting in place more state power over underperforming schools.

In that waiver from No Child Left Behind, Nevada defined low-performing as schools that fit in one of three designations: focus, priority and those schools earning one star.

Focus schools are those with the largest achievement gaps for certain groups of students, such as poor or minority students who lag far behind their peers.

Priority schools are the bottom 5 percent in terms of student achievement, as determined by annual state test scores.

But an impending extension to the three-year waiver may increase that number from nine to about 38 priority schools, due largely to the inclusion of high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent, Canavero said.

“I think we have plenty of accountability,” said Canavero, referencing the powers granted by the waiver. “What we have yet to do is build the system to exercise that accountability.”

He advocated a more prescriptive process for spending, especially at priority schools. That would entail a memorandum of understanding between the state and local schools laying out improvement needed to be removed from the underperformers list, as well as what the state will do if nothing changes.

“It’s a very thick, muddy place that we’re in,” said Wynn, re-emphasizing her question to the state board. “Are we ready to assume more responsibility for what’s happening in our state’s schools? I am very supportive of putting the pieces in place.”

Canavero and department staff have continued to draft the tighter controls and is expected to detail its next step later this month.

Contact Trevon Milliard attmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard.

UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOLS

(* Clark County schools)

NEVADA PRIORITY SCHOOLS

Canyon Springs High School*

Chaparral High School*

Del Sol High School*

Desert Pines High School*

Mojave High School*

Valley High School*

Western High School*

Amargosa Valley Elementary School

Washoe Innovations Academy High School

NEVADA FOCUS SCHOOLS

Numa Elementary School

Craig Elementary School*

Diaz Elementary School*

Fitzgerald Elementary School*

Kelly Elementary School*

Lowman Elementary School*

One Hundred Academy*

Paradise Elementary School*

Petersen Elementary School*

Reed Elementary School*

Roundy Elementary School*

Squires Elementary School*

West Preparatory Academy Secondary*

Tom Williams Elementary School*

Owyhee Elementary School

Owyhee Middle School

McDermitt Elementary School

Caliente Elementary School

Lovelock Elementary School

Pershing Middle School

Corbett Elementary School

Hug High School

Robert Mitchell Elementary School

McGill Elementary School

Categories Funding, Nevada

Nevada: Legislators are Finished Throwing Money at the Schools

By dianeravitch

December 1, 2014 //

As the previous post shows, the Education Justice Center declared that Nevada has one of the worst funded and most inequitable school systems in the nation. However, the new Republican majority in the State Legislature has a new agenda that does not involve funding:

School prayer. The right to carry weapons on college campuses. End collective bargaining. Vouchers. Merit pay. Firing “bad” teachers. The new majority doesn’t like unions because teachers get too much money and that causes budget problems. Probably the legislators figure if they pay teachers less, they can recruit better teachers. The Governor wants vouchers, but he would have to get the voters’ approval to change the state constitution. Voters have never approved vouchers in any state, so legislators will probably come up with “opportunity scholarships” to subsidize private school tuition.

Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, said that without question improving public education is the top priority of the caucus.

“We will see what the governor wants to do,” he said. “He leads our party and our state. Parental choice is the biggest issue but not the only one. We need to reward good teachers and get rid of bad teachers. We need to see if we can streamline school district administration.

“Obviously throwing money at it isn’t working,” Wheeler said. “We need parental involvement.”

Wheeler has requested a school prayer bill, and said the motivation is to ensure that students are not punished for engaging in prayer, such as making the sign of the cross after a touchdown in a high school football game.

Categories Funding, Nevada, Unions, Vouchers

Which State is Among the Most Inequitable in Funding Its Schools? One Guess.

By dianeravitch

December 1, 2014 //

If you guessed Nevada, you are right!

According to the Education Justice Center, Nevada ranks among the very worst state in supporting the education of its children adequately and equitably.

Because the state distributes aid unfairly and fails to use a reasonable amount of its economic capacity to support its public schools, Nevada’s funding system ranks among the worst in the U.S.

The State needs to design and implement a new school funding system that provides the opportunity to learn to all students.

On the National Report Card, the state receives an “F” in funding distribution, which measures the extent to which the state’s funding system is structured so that higher poverty districts receive more aid than lower poverty districts. In Nevada, the pattern is actually regressive with higher poverty districts receiving, on average, only about 69 cents for each dollar their wealthier counterparts receive. Such a skewed funding system thwarts efforts to improve achievement and close achievement gaps.

Nevada receives another “F” for state fiscal effort, measured as the proportion of the state’s economic productivity that is spent on education. Nevada’s ranking dropped this year. Furthermore, the state’s overall funding levels are below average compared to other states, when adjusted for regional wages, economies of scale, and other factors.

Nevada will need to increase “effort” if it is to improve funding distribution and raise the overall funding level enough to support student achievement. For example, the state funds only a few small pilot programs for students learning English, even though 19% of Nevada students are English learners.

Legislators recently voted a $1.3 billion subsidy to lure a Tesla battery factory to the state. But nothing for the children.

Categories Funding, Nevada

The Business Plan to Liquidate Public Education?

By dianeravitch

November 30, 2014 //

“Reformers,” as we all know, want to raise standards and improve education. Or so they say. To reach their goals, they say our schools are failing, our economy and national security are at risk, and our educators are rotten apples. their propaganda war against public education is relentless and has the financial support of the U. S. Department of Education, the Gates Foundation, the far-right Walton Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, the Helmsley Foundation, the Fisher Foundation, and many more.

“Reformers” close community public schools, fire teachers and principals, insist on tests that most students fail, and create constant disruption. Eventually the public realizes that they must choose a charter school or voucher school because there is no neighborhood school or its best students have been lured away by charters.

What’s going on?

Brett Dickerson explains that there is a carefully orchestrated plan to liquidate public education.

He writes:

“Plans are under way for investment corporations to execute the biggest conversion – some call it theft – of public schools property in U.S. history.

“That is not hyperbole. Investment bankers themselves estimate that their taking over public schools is going to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, if they can pull it off….

“There are very clear plans being made for just such a thing.

“The plan has been and still is to execute the complete conversion or liquidation of public schools property built up at taxpayer expense for generations.

“It involves raiding pensions that have been hard-won from years of legislative work by teachers and their unions. I reported on ideas being floated in Oklahoma along these lines in this piece that I did for Red Dirt Report earlier this year.

“It will all be done through the control of legislatures that have been mostly compliant with lobbying efforts due to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that allowed huge corporate money, mostly unidentified, to flow into elections. The Andre Agassi Foundation is just one of many who have worked this angle for their own return on investment….

“Offer to buy out a profitable company that has little or no debt.

“Silence the work force by tricking them into thinking life will be better with the new owners.

“Once the purchase is complete, fire the workforce.

“Liquidate the pension fund.

“Liquidate the company for the cash value of its paid-for property.

“Leave the host community in financial ruins.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Funding, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Arizona Court Rules Against Equal Funding for Charters

By dianeravitch

November 28, 2014 //

Twenty five years ago, when charters were a brand-new idea, advocates said they would cost less and get better results than public schools. Now, however, charter schools are suing for equal funding. The Arizona appellate court just ruled that the state is not obliged to provide equal funding to charter schools and public schools.

The Education Law Center reports:

AZ COURT RULES STATE CAN FUND CHARTER SCHOOLS LOWER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

At the beginning of the charter school experiment, charter school advocates touted their ability to provide a superior education at a lower cost than traditional public schools. Now, we are seeing the charter lobby abandon that claim and turn to the courts to demand equal funding for charter schools. In Texas, charter school advocates recently lost their claim for equal funding. In New York, charter school advocates have sued for equal facilities funding. In a ruling that may have wide ramifications, last week an Arizona appellate court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the differential funding systems for public and charter schools do not violate Arizona’s constitution.

In Craven v. Huppenthal, parents of children in Arizona charter schools sued the state, claiming that Arizona’s school funding scheme was unconstitutional because it caused “gross disparities between charter public schools and other public schools.” The lower court had granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and defendant-intervenors the Arizona School Boards Association and Creighton Elementary School District No. 14. The plaintiff-parents appealed.

The appellate court first noted that charter schools are free from many of the regulations governing public schools. For example, Arizona charters are exempt from statutes governing teacher hiring, firing and management. Arizona charter schools may limit enrollment to a certain age group or grade levels. Their curriculum may emphasize a certain philosophy, style or subject area. The court also pointed out that charter schools are funded differently than public schools as well. Unlike public schools, charters receive additional state funding, and may accept grants and donations to supplement their funding. Charter schools owned by non-profits may receive funds obtained through certain facility bonds. Charter schools are also entitled to stimulus funds for start-up and certain facility costs.

The plaintiffs contended that the different funding schemes of charters and public schools violated both the general and uniform education clause of Arizona’s constitution and its equal protection clause. The court, affirming the lower court’s decision, rejected both claims.

Prior rulings of Arizona’s Supreme Court interpreted the general and uniform clause to require that the state provide a public school system that is adequate. The plaintiff-parents in this case admitted that their children were receiving an adequate education at the charter schools. In fact, parents testified that the charter schools had “quality academics” and an “exceptional education.” Thus, the court concluded that the state did not violate the general and uniform clause.

The court also rejected the equal protection claim, noting with approval the reasoning of a New Jersey appellate court, in J.D. ex rel. Scipio-Derrick v. Davy, 2 A.3d 387, 397-98 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2010), in a similar equal protection case brought by charter school parents. In that case, the New Jersey court pointed out that children’s attendance at a charter school is purely voluntary. They could withdraw at any time and enroll in their local public school; the school they claimed was funded adequately. Consequently, the court ruled that “the voluntariness of the program vitiates any asserted deprivation of a right to receive an education at a school that is fully funded to the same extent as other Newark public schools,” because the children in the charter school have the “unabridged option” to attend their district public school. The Arizona court applied this reasoning to this case, ruling that since the charter school students can at any time attend their district public school, they are not being treated differently than other students.

In a footnote, the Arizona court noted that the plaintiffs conceded that charter and public schools are not similarly situated, but claimed that those distinctions are irrelevant because the plaintiffs were attempting to focus on the treatment of the children in the charter schools. However, the court pointed out that it was the schools that received the different funding, not the students. Because the students themselves were free to attend their district public schools, their equal protection rights were not violated.

This ruling makes clear that the very nature of charters, as voluntary alternatives to public schools and free from some of the regulations constraining public schools, permits the state to treat charters differently than public schools in matters of funding. The reasoning of the Arizona court can and may very well be applied in future cases as we see charter school advocates across the country appealing to courts to force states to fund them on par with public schools.

Education Justice Press Contact:
Wendy Lecker, Esq.
Senior Attorney, Education Law Center
email: wlecker@edlawcenter.org
voice: (203) 329-8041
http://www.edlawcenter.org
http://www.educationjustice.org

Education Justice Initiative | c/o 60 Park Place, Suite 300 | Newark | NJ | 07102

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Funding

Zephyr Teachout: The Hunger Games

By dianeravitch

November 26, 2014 //

Zephyr Teachout, who ran against Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary and won 1/3 of the vote despite no money and no name recognition, has written a brilliant column in The Daily Beast, warning that the millionaires and billionaires who bought the State Senate now are aiming to take over public schools.

She compares their strategy to “The Hunger Games.”

“The same hedge-fund managers who bought the New York State Senate now want to take over public education in the state and strip it bare, while they celebrate excessive wealth in high style. They’re pushing for a special session in Albany this December to cement the takeover of education policy….”

“In New York’s Hunger Games, just like in the books and movies, those in the Capitol live in a very different reality than the rest of us. In our Capitol, Albany lawmakers enjoy a flood of money, personal accounts, and protection for incumbents against attacks. In the Districts—the cities and towns of New York—the reality is bleaker. Citizens must work to survive and make do with the limited resources afforded to them by the Capitol….”

“Like President Snow, who starves the Districts, tests the residents with the Hunger Games competition, and then sets out to destroy them, the hedge-funders want to take over our schools with the same three steps: Starve, Test, Destroy. Budgets are cut severely, tests reveal “poor performance,” and then public schools, having been thus gutted, are replaced by privately managed charters.

First, the starvation: The state of New York is being sued again for funding public schools below constitutional levels. Cuomo’s budgets have stripped grade schools of art, music, sports, and counselors. Without money, classrooms grow so large no teacher can manage them, and kids can’t learn. Billionaires benefit as the money “saved” by not funding schools goes to tax breaks for the rich….”

“Second, the testing: Children are subject to a ridiculous battery of tests that lead to huge profits by corporations like the testing company Pearson but does little to improve the lives of the children. We’re talking about high-stakes, high-stress testing, including testing of the controversial Common Core. These tests prod and poke the children, creating lots of anxiety and taking away from the joy of learning.”

“Third, the destruction: These hedge-fund managers want to eliminate all limits and oversight of charter schools. They want to take control of New York City schools away from Mayor Bill de Blasio and let privatization run rampant. And they want billions in new funding from taxpayers to build new charter schools everywhere across the state, taking even more resources away from hard-pressed public schools.”

Read it all. It is amazingly insightful.

Categories Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, Funding, New York

Michigan Court: State Has No Obligation to Provide Quality Public Education

By dianeravitch

November 25, 2014 //

In a shocking decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the state has no legal responsibility to provide a quality education to every child. The case centered on the Highland Park school district, where achievement was lagging; the state turned the entire district over to a for-profit charter operator that had no track record of improving low-performng schools. The American Civil Liberties Union had filed the suit.

In a blow to schoolchildren statewide, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 7 the State of Michigan has no legal obligation to provide a quality public education to students in the struggling Highland Park School District.
A 2-1 decision reversed an earlier circuit court ruling that there is a “broad compelling state interest in the provision of an education to all children.” The appellate court said the state has no constitutional requirement to ensure schoolchildren actually learn fundamental skills such as reading — but rather is obligated only to establish and finance a public education system, regardless of quality. Waving off decades of historic judicial impact on educational reform, the majority opinion also contends that “judges are not equipped to decide educational policy.”

“This ruling should outrage anyone who cares about our public education system,” said Kary L. Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Michigan. “The court washes its hands and absolves the state of any responsibility in a district that has failed and continues to fail its children.”

The decision dismisses an unprecedented “right-to-read” lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Michigan in July 2012 on behalf of eight students of nearly 1,000 children attending K-12 public schools in Highland Park, Mich. The suit, which named as defendants the State of Michigan, its agencies charged with overseeing public education and the Highland Park School District, maintained that the state failed to take effective steps to ensure that students are reading at grade level.

“Let’s remember it was the state that turned the entire district over to a for-profit charter management company with no track record of success with low performing schools,” said Moss. “It is the state that has not enforced the law that requires literacy intervention to children not reading at grade level. It is the state’s responsibility to ensure and maintain a system of education that serves all children.”

In a dissenting opinion, appellate court judge Douglas Shapiro accused the court of “abandonment of our essential judicial roles, that of enforcement of the rule of law even where the defendants are governmental entities, and of protecting the rights of all who live within Michigan’s borders, particularly those, like children, who do not have a voice in the political process.”

MEAP test results from 2012 painted a bleak picture for Highland Park students and parents. In the 2013-14 year, no fewer than 78.9 percent of current fourth graders and 73 percent of current seventh graders will require the special intervention mandated by statute. By contrast, 65 percent of then-fourth graders and 75 percent of then-seventh graders required statutory intervention entering the 2012-13 school year.

At the time the state of Michigan decided to privatize the Highland Park schools and turn them over to the Leona Group, some saw it as a last-ditch effort to save the district from its debt.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2012:

Phoenix-based Leona will receive $7,110 per pupil in state funding, plus an as-yet-undetermined amount of federal funds for low-income and special education students. In addition, the Highland Park district will pay Leona a $780,000 annual management fee.

Unions have been sidelined after the district’s entire professional staff was laid off, as allowed by the state emergency law, but teachers can apply for jobs with Leona. Leona has budgeted about $36,000 a year for Highland Park teachers on average, the company said—compared with almost $65,000 a year the teachers received in the 2010-11 school year.

In a typical school it takes over, Leona has hired back about 70% of the teachers, the company said. Leona also will lease the Highland Park district’s buildings.

Under the five-year contract with Leona, the new city charter board will monitor the company’s progress in improving student performance.

Leona runs 54 schools in five states. Students in almost half of them fail state academic benchmarks. But of its 22 Michigan schools, 19 meet the mark, Leona officials said.

Leona Chief Executive William Coats said the company had no incentive to cut corners in Highland Park. “As we build equity, we give that back to the schools,” he said during Wednesday’s meeting when an audience member raised doubts about the for-profit approach. “We’re trying to manage this so you [the district] stay in business.”

Highland Park is where Henry Ford opened his first assembly line and Chrysler Corp. built its original headquarters. It has suffered the same ills as Detroit, its larger neighbor: an exodus of auto jobs, depressed housing stock and a surge in crime.

The city, which spreads across three square miles, lost nearly 30% of its population from 2000 to 2010, according to the latest U.S. Census. Nearly half of the 11,776 residents live below the poverty line.

Students and parents complain of dirty classrooms, exposed wiring in the schools, rationed textbook and swimming pools—once used by powerhouse swim teams—that now sit drained of water.

John Holloway, the school board president, said the problems became a “runaway train that we could not stop.”

As the situation worsened, the state gave the district a $4 million loan in July 2011 and advanced it $450,000 more earlier this year just to meet its payroll.

A union-backed initiative that could go to voters statewide in November seeks to repeal the emergency-manager law under which Ms. Parker was appointed to run the district. The law had been strengthened in 2011 by the governor.

Glenda McDonald, a Highland Park resident and laid-off teacher, said that the problem was not entirely the fault of the community. “The disinvestment in our communities led to the disinvestment in our schools, and that’s why people left,” she said. “We had nothing to offer them.”

After Leona took over, things did not go well. Enrollment dropped sharply. The company closed the district’s high school. It agreed to waive its fee for one year because of a lingering deficit.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Funding, Michigan

Alan Singer: Time to Act Against Racism in East Ramapo, New York

By dianeravitch

November 23, 2014 //

Alan Singer says it is time to protest the inequitable conditions in East Ramapo, NewYork, where Orthodox Jews control the school board. The school board starves the public schools of resources, but is very generous to the private religious schools their own children attend.

He writes:

“Nine thousand Black and Latino children attending East Ramapo, New York public schools are warehoused in over-crowded, under-funded failing schools because a school board controlled by a White religious group is using public school dollars to subsidize their own children who attend religious schools. District school budgets have been defeated four of the last five years and eight of the last eleven, the highest rate of budget rejection in New York State. Meanwhile Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York State, Merryl Tisch, the Chancellor of the State Board of Regents, the governing body for education in New York, and John King, the Education Commissioner, have all remained silent. That is why it is time to march against racism in East Ramapo…..

“The district is now bankrupt because of all the money channeled to private religious schools despite major cuts in public education spending…..”

The state-appointed monitor, Hank Greenberg, “Prior to delivering his report to State Education, Greenberg told reporters he did not believe the East Ramapo school board acted “out of base or venal motives.” Rather, their concern about the children from their own religious group had “blinded them to the needs of the entire community.” This is surprising language from a lawyer given that Greenberg’s job was to investigate legal and financial impropriety, not determine whether the school board was moral but blinded by good intentions. However, I am not a lawyer. Greenberg found the district’s funding pattern to be “unique” in New York State and charged the faction in control of the East Ramapo school board of “abysmal” fiscal management and noted the district was teetering “on the precipice of fiscal disaster.” This is an example of institutional racism, whether school board members think they are acting in good faith to meet the needs of children from their own religious community. That is why it is time to march against racism in East Ramapo.

“Since 2009, the non-venal majority in control of the East Ramapo school board has eliminated 245 public school positions, including special education teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, and elementary school assistant principals. It replaced full-day kindergarten with half-day, eliminated instrumental music for younger children, ended transportation for field trips, reduced athletic and extra-curricular activities by fifty percent, closed the summer school, and depleted the district’s emergency reserves, money it is legally required to maintain for insurance, liability and unanticipated costs. That is why it is time to march against racism in East Ramapo.

“Meanwhile, district spending on programs benefiting private religious school students have increased substantially. From 2006-7 to 2013-14, district spending on transporting private school students specifically increased nearly 77 percent. From 2010-11 to 2013-14, the cost of providing special education for students enrolled in private religious schools increased by 33 percent. More than 23,500 students are transported daily to private religious schools in East Ramapo, 18,000 by private companies that are essentially subsidized by the school district. Special education students receive services in forty different religious schools, which are also essentially subsidized by the school district. These subsidies to families that send their children to private religious schools make up over one-third of the district budget.”

The state may be reluctant to intervene because it has poor record of taking over entire districts (e.g., Roosevelt in Long Island), but the state should take over to protect the children from a school board that doesn’t care about them.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Alan Singer when he wrote about the district, the East Ramapo board sold a closed school for use as a religious school at what appears to be less than its fair market value. The state did not object.

Categories Funding, New York

How the Good Citizens of Marion County, Florida, Are Supporting Their Public Schools

By dianeravitch

November 19, 2014 //

Colleen Wood of 50thNoMore in Florida sent me this message. Colleen is a member of the board of directors of the Network for Public Education:

Diane – I wanted to share this with you:

http://www.yesformarionschools.com/about

This effort was started by Ray Seaman, a constant supporter of public education and a progressive leader in Florida, and is proof of what local communities can accomplish when public school supporters work together across party lines.

Marion County is extremely conservative, but the grassroots leaders have been building support for public education over the last 6 years or so. It has paid off. This referendum will bring 1 mil of funding ($14 – $16 million) to their schools and it was the motion to put it on this November’s ballot passed unanimously by the School Board and the all-Republican County Commission.

They’ve put in countless hours of work to try to combat the attacks coming out of Tallahassee, and they have rallied the community to support their public schools.

Thank you!
Colleen

PS: the referendum passedproducing another $14 million for the public schools of Marion County.

“Marion County voters gave a rousing yes to a property tax aimed at bringing an additional $14 million annually to the county’s public school system for the restoration of art, music and physical education programs, the hiring of teachers, and reduction of class sizes.”

Categories Florida, Funding

Colorado Court Rejects State’s Effort to Dismiss Funding Case

By dianeravitch

November 15, 2014 //

About Us | More News

COLORADO COURT DENIES STATE’S MOTION TO DISMISS SCHOOL FUNDING CASE

November 14, 2014

On November 12, 2014, the Denver District Court brought the State of Colorado one step closer to fulfilling the promise of increased per pupil education funding that Amendment 23 in the Colorado Constitution requires.

In Dwyer v. State of Colorado, the Court denied the State’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which means the Court will now hear and rule on the merits of whether the State has violated Amendment 23 by cutting K-12 education by $1 billion each of the last four years. Added to the constitution by the voters in 2000, Amendment 23 requires the state to adjust annually the statewide base per pupil funding proportional to the rate of inflation.

On hearing the news, lead plaintiff Lindi Dwyer said, “This is a good start and a good day for Colorado. The voters made a promise in 2000 that the state would increase funding and provide educational opportunities to all students. The promise is in our constitution and today takes us one step closer to fulfilling that promise.”

Judge Herbert Stern, III ruled that, “Amendment 23 prescribes minimum increases for state funding of education.”

As explained by the plaintiffs’ counsel, the Dwyer suit “alleges that the General Assembly violated Amendment 23 by slashing education funding by over a billion dollars through a gimmick the State calls the Negative Factor.” In 2010, the legislature adopted the negative factor in a statute in an attempt to override its Amendment 23 responsibilities. 　

Nevada Plans Crackdown on Underfunded, Low-Performing Schools

Nevada: Legislators are Finished Throwing Money at the Schools

Which State is Among the Most Inequitable in Funding Its Schools? One Guess.

The Business Plan to Liquidate Public Education?

Arizona Court Rules Against Equal Funding for Charters

Zephyr Teachout: The Hunger Games

Michigan Court: State Has No Obligation to Provide Quality Public Education

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