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California: Carol Burris on the Great Charter School Hoax: Part 2

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2016 //
14

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and experienced educator, traveled Calofornia to learn about charter schools. What she discovered was an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds, powered by billionaires’ dough, but rife with fraudulent practices that cheat students and taxpayers.

Although Arizona was once called the “Wid West” of the unregulated charter industry, California now appears to have captured that title. Big payoffs for the adults, poor education for students.

Carol’s article appears on Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog at the Washington Post. After I read her introduction, I urged her to remember that the very worst states in relation to charters are scandal-ridden Ohio, Arizona (where nepotism and conflicts of interest are fine for charters, and for-profit charters don’t have to open their books to the public), and Michigan (where 80% of the charters operate for-profit).

This article is the second in a four-part series.

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

Kevin Ohlandt: Bill Gates and the End of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2016 //
47

Kevin Ohlandt, a parent blogger in Delaware, says that Bill Gates no longer even pretends to hide his ultimate goal: to digitize education and put all children online.

He writes:

Bill Gates wants a Federal Student Data Tracking System. That’s right. He also wants competency-based education, more career pathways programs, and personalized learning to take over public education. This is the same guy who funded Common Core. Remember that when you read the document released by the Gates Foundation today. If I had to guess, now that many education bloggers have exposed all the agendas which will lead to the Bit-Coin inspired Blockchain Initiative, the corporate education reformers (clearly led by Bill Gates) have nothing to lose by getting it all out there now. Now I know why U.S. Senator Chris Coons (Delaware) is chomping at the bit for his post-secondary legislation to get passed by Congress.

Read this. Every single word. Read between the lines. This is the endgame they have been pushing for, the complete and utter destruction of public education in anticipation of online education for all. Where you will be tracked from cradle to grave, with data allowed to be looked at through a federal database, which will track everything about you. The sad part is they play to civil rights groups by assuring more success for minorities. They screw over students with disabilities every chance they get. But their manipulation of under-served communities is at an all-time high in this document. Words like “outcome-based funding” scare the crap out of me, and it should for every single American. Look at all the footnotes in the below document. Look at the companies and think-tanks that are reaping immense profits for every bogus report they come out with. Look how embedded this already is in every single state and our national government.

This is all about the workforce of tomorrow. It has nothing to do with education, or liberal education, or liberating education.

Categories Accountability, Competency Based Education, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hoax, Technology

Massachusetts: Billionaires Ready to Pour Up to $18 Million into Charter Referendum

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2016 //
9

Jonathan Pelto reports on the big money that will flow into the Massachusetts referendum on expanding charters. Most of it will flow from the coffers of hedge fund managers, who never showed any prior interest in improving public schools but get excited by the opportunity to privatize them.

He writes:

A group of billionaires and corporate executives are using a front group called Great Schools Massachusetts and the New York based charter school advocacy group, Families for Excellent Schools, to pour an unprecedented amount of money into a campaign to expand the number of charter schools in Massachusetts.

According to published reports, the charter school industry is on track to dump up to $18 million into a record-breaking campaign in support of Massachusetts Question 2, a referendum question on this year’s ballot that would effectively lift the legislatively mandated cap on the number of charter schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter school, pro-Governor Andrew Cuomo, anti-teacher group has led a series of expensive advocacy campaigns in New York State and Connecticut on behalf of the charter school industry.

Expanding first to Connecticut and then to Massachusetts, Families for Excellent Schools has become the preferred money pipeline of choice for a group of corporate elites who seek to anonymously fund the effort to privatize public education in the United States.

Thanks to the demise of campaign finance laws at the federal and state level, Families for Excellent Schools can accept unlimited donations from those who profit from or support the rise of charter school, the Common Core and the Common Core testing scheme.

While most of the money flowing into the Massachusetts Question 2 campaign can’t be traced, public documents reveal that a handful of hedge fund managers and corporate executives donated $40,000 each to kick start the campaign aimed at diverting even more scarce public funds from public schools to charter schools.

Most of the key players in the Question 2 operation are directly or indirectly associated with a handful of hedge fund companies including, Bain Capital, the Baupost Group and Highfields Capital Management.

Leading the effort from Bain Capital is Josh Bekenstein, the managing partner at the infamous company. Bekenstein is a long-time charter supporter having donated massive amounts of money to pro-voucher, anti-teacher, pro-charter school groups including Stand for Children, Teach for America, and the KIPP and Citizen charter school chains.

In addition, Bekenstein has played an instrumental role for both New Profit, Inc. and the NewSchools Venture Fund, two of the major funders behind the charter school movement in Massachusetts and across the nation.

New Profit, Inc.’s “investments” include major donations to underwrite the faux teacher advocacy group called Educators 4 Excellence, which is actually another New York based, anti-union front group. New Profit, Inc. also funds Achievement First, Inc., a charter school chain with schools in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the Achievement Network and Turnaround for Children, two more pro-charter school lobby and public relations organizations.

Through Bain Capital, and on his own, Bekenstein’s has also helped fund and lead Bright Horizons, yet another charter school chain with operations in multiple states.

There are many more financiers and bigwigs piling on to advance privatization. Read Jon’s post to see the cast of characters.

Jon’s post was written before we learned of the $1.8 million donated by two members of the Walton family of Arkansas. I wonder why they don’t fix the low-performing schools of Arkansas instead of telling the nation’s top state how to “reform” its successful public schools by opening up a dual school system.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization

Myra Blackmon: Georgia’s “Opportunity School District” is a Hoax That Will Privatize Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2016 //
14

Myra Blackmon is one of the most astute commentators on education in Georgia. She writes often for AthensOnline. In this column,she takes issue with the advocates for an “Opportunity School District,” which is on the ballot on November 8.

http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2016-09-10/blackmon-amendment-isnt-opportunity-rescue-schools#

The proposed constitutional amendment would allow the state to take over schools with low test scores. It guts local control. As we have seen again and again, state takeovers have repeatedly failed, because the state doesn’t know more than the local school board. The Tennessee Achievement School District, which is a model for Georgia, has not produced any results in its four years of operation. The low-performing schools in the ASD are still low-performing, still eligible to be taken over yet again, but by whom? The Educational Achievement Authority in Michigan has been a disaster.

So why is Georgia following these failed examples? Well, eliminating local control is recommended by the far-right ALEC. ALEC’s goal is privatization, not “rescuing” poor kids.

The proponents of this measure claim that they will “rescue” poor kids from “failing schools,” the usual mantra of privatizers. But the claim is a hoax and a deliberate effort to deceive voters.

Blackmon writes:

These rescuers must have been living on another planet if they haven’t seen their proposed “solution,” a state takeover with no accountability, go down in shame all over the country. They tried it in New Orleans and gave up because it didn’t work. They’ve been trying it in Nashville, and the confiscated schools are doing worse than they were when their “rescue” began. They tried it in Detroit and 11 of the 14 schools that were “rescued” are still failing.

The so-called “Opportunity School District” is among the worst of a long string of dangerous ideas and policies forced on local school districts in Georgia. It is a power grab, pure and simple, moving control of local schools from those closest to them to an unaccountable gubernatorial appointee who, from on high in Atlanta, will dictate local education policies and practices.

The language both on the ballot and in the enabling legislation sounds like a plan for everyone to hold hands and happily work to improve education. But that’s a lie.

These self-styled rescuers of poor children want to turn education over to their buddies in the privatization movement. They want accountability for everyone but themselves.

Rescue, my eye. Keep our opportunities local. Vote “no” on Amendment 1.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Hoax, Privatization

Donald Cohen: The Connection Between the Election in Nashville and the Referendum in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2016 //
6

Donald Cohen is a specialist in the study of privatization. He reports regularly on his online site “In the Public Interest.”

This article appeared on Huffington Post.

He points out that pro-charter forces based in Wall Street spend more than $2 million on ads during the Olympics that were beamed to viewers in Massachusetts.
The purpose of the ads was to promote Question 2, the expansion of privately managed charters in Massachusetts.

The ads are deceptive, pretending that the vote is about improving public schools when it is about diverting funding from public schools to charters.

Cohen notes that the surprising victory of public school supporters in Nashville should give hope to their peers in Massachusetts. The same corporate forces backed a pro-charter slate in Nashville and lost, despite an overwhelming advantage in funding.

Supporters of public schools in Massachusetts, keep up your organizing and tell the public the facts about Question 2 to combat the propaganda on television. #NoOn2

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Massachusetts, Nashville, Privatization

Leonie Haimson: A Bad Week for the Charter Privateers and Their Orwellian Rhetoric

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2016 //
18

Leonie Haimson, parent activist in New York City, crusader for reduced class size and student privacy, lays waste to the charter privateers in this hilarious post!

First came the devastating resolution passed by the national convention of the NAACP, calling for a charter moratorium.

Then came the attack on charters by Black Lives Matter.

And the topper was John Oliver’s funny and accurate portrayal of charter school graft.

But the privateers (or privatizers, as I usually say) continue their assault on public education with propaganda and lies.

In Massachusetts, they claim that expanding charter schools will “improve public education,” when in fact it will drain money from neighborhood public schools and take away local control.

In Georgia, a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November authorizes the creation of a state district that will eliminate local control, like the failed Tennessee ASD, yet says it will empower communities.

This is Orwellian. That means when you say one thing but mean the opposite. Another word for lying. Like saying “reform” when you mean “privatization.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization

Steven Singer: Selling Segregation to Blacks and Hispanics

By dianeravitch
August 27, 2016 //
31

Steven Singer says that the charter school idea has been a massive swindle. It results in increased racial and ethnic segregation, yet its promoters have stealthily sold the idea to black and Hispanic parents.

He writes:

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is Unconstitutional to have “separate but equal” schools because when they’re separate, they’re rarely equal. Having two parallel systems of education makes it too easy to provide more resources to some kids and less to others.

Who would have ever thought that some minority parents would actually choose this outcome, themselves, for their own children!?

After Bloody Sunday, Freedom Rides, bus boycotts and countless other battles, a portion of minority people today somehow want more segregation!?

It’s hard to determine the extent of this odd phenomena. Charter advocates flood money into traditional civil rights organizations that until yesterday opposed school privatization. Meanwhile they hold up any examples of minority support as if it were the whole story. However, it is undeniable that large minority populations still oppose their school systems being charterized.

It’s especially troubling for civil rights advocates because black and brown charter supporters have been sold on an idea that could accurately be labeled Jim Crow. And they don’t even seem to know it.

Give credit to propaganda, marketing, false promises. Some salesmen are so good they could sell coals in Newcastle or ice in Alaska.

Categories Charter Schools, Hoax, Segregation

John Oliver Explains the Frauds and Scams in Charter World!

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2016 //
32

John Oliver, who has a regular show on HBO, devoted a big chunk of his program last night to explaining the frauds perpetrated by unregulated and unsupervised charter schools. He also reminds his viewers that the language of competition and choice is a hoax when talking about education. You will see charters opening and closing like shoe stores in a mall. You will see charter owners fattening their bank accounts at the expense of the children. You will see charter operators plagiarizing their applications from others.

Readers of this blog will see some familiar scams–in Philadelphia, Florida, and Ohio, for example–but even you might be surprised by some of the stories he shows and documents.

With enough time, he might have devoted an entire hour to the scams in California, Texas, Indiana, and elsewhere.

But the great thing about his show is that this is the first time that a major media outlet has demonstrated the bipartisan consensus that supports frauds.

Please watch and share with your friends and neighbors.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization

Audit: Finances at Tennessee’s Achievement School District Are “Chaotic”

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2016 //
19

An outside auditor of Tennessee’s famed-but-failed Achievement School District found that the group’s finances were a mess.

The Achievement School District was created to prove that ASD could take control of the state’s lowest scoring schools (in the bottom 5% of the state) and move them to the top 25% in only five years. The clock began ticking in 2012, when ASD took over half a dozen schools. An independent study by researchers at Vanderbilt University found no evidence that ASD was on track to meet that goal. Gary Rubinstein analyzed the numbers and concluded that the original schools turned over to charters were still in the bottom 5% (although one rose to the bottom 7%). Of course, they still have a year to go, so let’s not rush to judgment! (Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada are all planning to create special districts modeled on Tennessee’s ASD, which supposedly knows how to turnaround low-performing schools even though it hasn’t. But when has failure ever deterred corporate-style reformers?)

But it turns out that the ASD’s finances were a mess, according to auditors.

It’s in charge of turning around Tennessee’s failing schools, but the state’s Achievement School District now has its own flunking grade from state Comptroller watchdogs.

The just-released audit by the Division of State Audit provides a blistering critique into what auditors say the agency’s lack of internal financial controls over basic functions.

So just how bad are things at the agency that directly manages five public schools and contracts with private charter groups to operate 24 other schools falling into the bottom five percent of schools statewide in terms of student performance?

Even as Division of State Audit accountants’ examination was still underway this spring, the state Department of Education, which had allowed the ASD to operate independently, informed the Comptroller’s office in April that it had staged an intervention and seized control over the ASD’s “fiscal and federal processes.”

As a result, the functions were transferred from Memphis to Nashville with a turnover of the ASD’s financial staff. Education Commissioner Candice McQueen’s staff told auditors they were hiring a fiscal director, fiscal manager, accountant, account tech, federal programs director and federal programs manager.

Problem areas cited by the Division of State Audit ranged from loose controls over spending, travel and credit cards to insufficient monitoring of the actual schools that ASD runs or contracts out.

Specific findings include:

1) The Achievement School District’s management did not establish adequate controls over several key human resources and payroll processes

State law directs that it “shall develop written procedures, subject to the approval of the commissioner, for employment and management of personnel as well as the development of compensation and benefit plans.”

“During our audit,” watchdogs wrote, “we found seven key areas where ASD did not establish processes over key human resources and payroll functions, including segregating duties; maintaining personnel files; verifying education credentials; documenting time and attendance; completing performance reviews; documenting approvals of bonuses and pay raises; and exiting employees.

2) The Achievement School District’s management “failed to implement adequate internal controls over its expenditures, travel claims, and purchasing card purchases

“Based on our testwork,” auditors wrote, “we found several deficiencies that indicate that ASD management did not establish adequate internal controls over expenditures and purchasing card purchases. Specifically, we noted that management did not properly approve expenditures, travel claims, and purchasing card purchases, nor did they provide adequate support for some transactions.

3) The Achievement School District’s fiscal management “did not perform sufficient fiscal monitoring of its direct-run schools and charter management organizations

“Considering the problems identified in previous Tennessee Single Audits,” auditors noted, “we inquired with management to determine if ASD management conducted fiscal monitoring of ASD’s Achievement Schools and charter management organizations; we found that ASD’s main office staff do not conduct such monitoring.

In one instance, auditors discovered there were payments of $5,895 to employees who no longer even worked for ASD.

Among other things, auditors also couldn’t find six expenditure transactions for a dental insurance premium, donation, coffee supplies, and accrual calculations, totaling $131,637, and for three travel claims for a flight and expenses involving charter school operators. That totalled $4,734 and, the audit says, “management could not provide supporting documentation.”

I read this story shortly after finishing a revealing memoir called Sex, Lies, and A Charter School: The Misappropriation of Your Tax Dollars. The author, Dikombi Gite, lives in Houston, where he was born. He became an engineer, but decided that he wanted to try his hand as a teacher and “give back.” He was sure he could connect with kids because he shared their life experiences. He didn’t have any teaching credentials, so he couldn’t be hired by the Houston public schools. He was hired immediately by a charter chain, where he struggled as a teacher. The chain is not identified, but it started in Houston and has (he says) 80 charters. Within months, he was moved into the office to manage the school’s books. What he learned in his brief life at the charter school was that the place appeared swell on the surface, but it was in fact riven by strife, affairs among staff members, fights among students, cronyism, nepotism, missing money, and more chaos than he could manage. Could the same story have been written about a public school? Perhaps. But not as likely because few of the teachers were professionals, and few of the administrators were professionals. People were hired and fired on a moment’s notice, no background checks. The thing that mattered most was attendance, because the flow of money depended on the head count. It is a well-written book (self-published by the author) and very revealing about what happens when there is no supervision, no oversight, no transparency, and no accountability. Funny, another book I was reading last night repeated the reformers’ claim that the key to success was school autonomy: no restraints, no constraints, no unions, no oversight. A grand theory. This book tells a different story. The author’s address is: POB 331753, Houston, TX. 77233. His email: Dikombi@yahoo.com

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Tennessee

Hoax: The Chicago “Miracle School” That Isn’t

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2016 //
19

A credulous reporter, Rebeka Lowin, wrote a glowing article about the miraculous charter school in Chicago that sends 100% of its graduates to four-year colleges.

Urban Prep, she writes, “boasts a whopping college acceptance rate of 100%. That’s right: Each graduate has been accepted to a four-year university.”

“Boasts” is the right verb, to be sure.

According to Mike Klonsky, referring (https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&InstName=urban+prep&SchoolType=1&SchoolType=2&SchoolType=3&SchoolType=4&SpecificSchlTypes=all&IncGrade=-1&LoGrade=-1&HiGrade=-1&ID=170993005884) to US Department of Education data, “This class started with 154 freshman. 67 made it to 12th grade.”

The point of stories like this is to imply that every neighborhood could achieve the same success if they did what this school does. But Urban Prep does not have a 100% graduation rate. It is not a neighborhood school. It is not a model.

Urban Prep is noted for its amazing attrition rate. This year, less than half its first-year students made it to graduation. The graduation rate is not 100%.

Klonsky, who lives in Chicago, congratulates those who did make it to graduation, but he adds some caveats.


Once you cut through all the hype, Urban Prep is anything but a miracle. For one thing, only about half of its students even make it to their senior year. This high attrition rate is typical of charter schools and neighborhood schools alike. For another, despite its strong emphasis on test scores, UP’s reading and math scores are among the lowest in the district and usually fall below the CPS average for African-American male students.

Last year the school had its charter renewed even though it failed to meet most of its own accountability targets. Only 17 percent of Urban Prep juniors passed their state exams a year ago, far lower than the district average of 29 percent. On the positive side, that beats the 8.4 percent passing rate in many neighboring high schools. But nevertheless, nothing to write home about.

As I pointed out last year, the school’s entire graduating class has been accepted to four-year universities even though only 12% of them met the college readiness benchmark in reading and only 36% met the benchmark in English on the ACT exam. And while UP’s composite ACT score is a few (3) points higher than nearby high schools, it’s important to remember that Urban Prep ISN’T a neighborhood school. It draws its students from 31 different zip-codes in the city.

As it happened, I first debunked the claim of “miracle schools” in the New York Times five years ago. When NPR lauded this very same miracle school, I wrote another commentary, this time noting the work of Gary Rubinstein and Noel Hammatt.

Note to reporters: Before you believe the press release, please google the name of the school. Be sure to check the attrition rate. If anyone knows Rebeka Lowin, please send her this post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Hoax
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