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Texas: Houston Parent Says Her Child’s School is Exceptional, but State Calls It “Failing”

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2018 //
35

Sarah Becker, a parent in the Houston Independent School District, is thrilled with her child’s public school. It has exceeded her expectations. Yet the state claims it is failing. How can this be? Could it be that the ratings system is wrong? What do you think? Sarah says she will ignore the rating system but the state won’t. They might close her child’s school or even take over the entire school district for failing to do something dramatic to her school. Accountability hawks are no doubt eager to see Sarah’s school closed and handed off to a charter operator. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott would be happy to see the school closed and hand out vouchers to the students to attend a religious school. Sarah Becker says they are wrong.

A couple of weeks ago the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released their ratings of schools and school districts. I am the mother of two children at a school in Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest school district and the seventh largest district in the country. How did my kids’ school fare in this year’s accountability system? The school failed, receiving an “Improvement Required” rating.

Does that give me pause about sending my kids there? Not one bit and I’ll tell you why.

This past year was the first one my children spent at their elementary school. From the moment they set foot on campus, my children were accepted and loved. The physical environment of the school is welcoming, and they have a nice, new building with lots of natural light. And in a time when public school budgets are incredibly austere, my kids’ elementary school found a way to hire a PE teacher, an art teacher, a music teacher, a nurse and a social worker last year. To have all of those is incredibly rare in HISD-in fact, this elementary school was the only one within driving range of our home to offer those. It has a rooftop garden and a makerspace. And finally most amazingly, my children learned AN ENTIRE SECOND LANGUAGE last year. We literally dropped them into new classes having had almost zero exposure to Spanish and they ended the year speaking, reading and writing two languages. The progression has been amazing to watch. Their worlds are bigger and more beautiful because of their new school.

So how did such a great school end up being on the “improvement required” list? The system used to identify “failing” schools is unsound and inaccurate. It is based solely on how certain students perform on a single standardized test on a single day.

You have probably seen the meme floating around social media with the following quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” As cliché as that quote is, I find much truth in it when applied to our “accountability” system. If you judge every school by the standards of the TEA, some very successful schools will receive failing ratings not because they fail to educate, but because the accountability system demands that fish ride bicycles by making children conform to tests.

Which brings us back to my family’s experiences-no part of my kids’ experience at our school last year was a part of any accountability data.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that our school is not perfect—there is always room to grow—but how long do Texas students and teachers have to wait for an accountability system that is fair and looks at something other than narrow, flawed test scores which seem aimed to punish school communities that serve students in poverty? And, in an environment where the state legislature seems hellbent on increasing the stakes around standardized testing (see: state takeover of democratically elected school boards), schools are being asked to sacrifice increasingly more each year in the name of raising said test scores.

Lest I be accused of glossing over real problems, I am not suggesting that all public schools are perfect or even that our district has served all communities well. Quite the opposite. But if we focus only on bringing up test scores, we miss addressing the very real issues that are in front of us because test scores take up all the space.

Until this system is overhauled, I will continue to pay no mind to it and pay attention to the very clear evidence in front of me: my kids are excited to show up to school every morning and love their school. Their teachers are caring professionals. That is enough accountability for me.

Categories Accountability, Hoax, Houston, Parents, Texas

If a Charter Chain Owns Two Luxury Condos, Can the Students Use the Hot Tub?

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2017 //
12

 

 

The Houston Chronicle has taken note of the unusual expenditures of a small charter chain that found it necessary to purchase two condos in luxury apartment buildings for “office space” and “storage.”

I wrote about this charter “chain” yesterday.

Since Houston and Texas have been charter-crazy, this is a tiny little wake-up call about the risks of turning public money over to private entrepreneurs without accountability or transparency.

This editorial calls on the leaders of KIPP and other charter chains to join in demanding a state investigation:

“It’s easy to imagine the outrage that would ensue if Houston ISD purchased apartments in posh neighborhoods – and the inevitable electoral fallout for district trustees. With charter schools, however, voters don’t have recourse to the ballot box when problems arise.

“The public needs answers to the serious questions posed by Accelerated’s peculiar spending. TEA investigators must act quickly to ensure charter school funds are spent on behalf of students, and not to support the lifestyles of administrators.”

Start with this embarrassment, then investigate the state’s many Gulen charters, then keep going.

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Fraud, Houston, Texas

Texas: Should Charter Schools Buy High-End Condos with Public Dollars?

By dianeravitch
December 29, 2017 //
14

A small Texas charter organization has spent sizable sums to buy residential condos, claiming they are for “office space and storage.”

“Accelerated Intermediate Academy – the charter school network criticized for its purchase of a Houston condominium with taxpayer dollars – also owns a second condo in downtown Dallas where similar units have been appraised at more than $300,000.

“The network also shelled out nearly $120,000 in property taxes on the Houston property, including $45,700 in late fees and attorney costs, in 2016 after the Harris County Appraisal District denied a request for a property exemption, tax records show.The two-school charter network, which served fewer than 300 students last year at two campuses, spent $427,238 for the Houston condo and an undisclosed amount for the high-end Dallas residence, property records show. Both were purchased in June 2011…

“The property purchases and tax payments mean hundreds of thousands of dollars less for the academy’s classrooms, raising additional questions about the network’s leadership.
Accelerated Intermediate Academy has received about $55 million in taxpayer dollars since opening in 2001, producing solid academic results. It is one of dozens of charter school networks that are publicly funded and privately governed by nonprofit boards to provide parents an option in place of traditional public schools.

“A Houston Chronicle investigation last month uncovered the Houston condo purchase in 2011 and reported that the school’s superintendent, Kevin Hicks, earned more than $250,000 each of the past three years despite several parents and former teachers saying he rarely appeared on the Houston campus….

“School officials told appraisers in Dallas that the unit would be used for office and records storage, even though the school already had a 9,600-square-foot campus in the nearby suburb of Lancaster. That campus has never enrolled more than 17 students since opening in 2012, according to state reports. The Houston unit also was described as an office and storage facility.
Following both purchases, school leaders sought full property tax exemptions, which routinely are granted for charter schools. The network noted in a letter to Harris County appraisers that “the only funds we receive are state and federal funds….”

“Accelerated Intermediate Academy’s properties had high-end touches befitting their price tags, according to online real estate listings. The Dallas unit came with hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, a wine cooler, granite countertops and access to a rooftop deck with a hot tub. The 1,118-square-foot Houston condo has floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood floors and access to a pool with skyline views.

“As Accelerated Intermediate Academy has sunk money into buying properties, however, the charter network has paid teachers salaries that are well below average, payroll data shows. Most of its educators have earned about $35,000 to $45,000 in recent years. By comparison, the starting salary at traditional public school districts in the Houston area is about $50,000.

“The school also has stockpiled $12.5 million in cash, enough to cover six years’ worth of operating expenses; most schools keep three to six months’ worth of operating expenses in cash.”

Every storage space should be equipped with a wine cooler, granite countertops, and access to a rooftop hot tub.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Dallas, Education Industry, Houston, Privatization

Gary Rubinstein: Is YES Prep Failing It’s Black Students?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2017 //
4

For years, Teach for America has pointed to YES Prep charter schools in Houston as the epitome of charter success. In her most recent book, Wendy Kopp identified YES Prep as an example of the miracles wrought by charters.

But Gary Rubinstein noticed a strange anomaly in the performance of YES Prep. It doesn’t seem to know how to educate black students. All but two of its schools in Houston serve mostly Hispanic students. The two that enroll a high proportion of black students are F-rated by the state.

Its five high schools have received many plaudits. But they enroll tiny proportions of black students.

It’s founder Chris Barbic bailed out of the Tennessee Achievement zschool District when he saw he was on a track to failure.

What gives?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Houston, Teach for America

Small Houston Charter Pays Low Teacher Salaries, but Outsize Salary to Administrators

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2017 //
11

In Texas, state officials ignore charter school abuses, since these schools are supposed to be deregulated and “innovative.”

Thus comes the story of Accelerated Intermediate Academy, a tiny charter school in Houston whose superintendent is paid $275,000 a year, whose teachers are paid less than public school teachers, and which has two years of operating expenses in reserve and a luxury condo in downtown Houston. While $12.5 Million is stashed away, the children are taught in windowless trailers.

“For more than a decade, the leaders of Accelerated Intermediate Academy have run their small Houston charter school on a lean budget, paying teachers below-average salaries and educating kids in modest facilities resembling portable trailers.

“At the same time, the school’s superintendent, Kevin Hicks, has drawn an annual salary of about $250,000 – a seemingly outsized sum given its roughly 275 students and 20 employees. The school is also sitting on a condo appraised at $450,000 and recently reported $12.5 million in cash reserves, records show.

“Wow. He definitely could have put more into the school,” Kennessa Johnson, a former teacher at the charter, said of Hicks. “It was extremely basic in the school. There weren’t even any windows.”

“The school’s spending has raised questions about the management of the southwest Houston charter, which has received more than $55 million in taxpayer dollars since opening in 2001, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.”

Board members are chosen by other board members, not by election.

When questioned, board members seemed unaware of the school’s finances.

“Hicks’ salary of $265,553 last year was about $85,000 more than any superintendent of a district with fewer than 500 students, according to Texas Education Agency data. His pay also topped the salaries of the Texas education commissioner and several Houston-area superintendents running much larger school districts. Seven parents and former teachers said Hicks rarely shows up at the Houston campus, with two staff members saying they had never met him despite working at the school for several months.

“The charter in 2011 used taxpayer money to buy a ninth-floor, one-bedroom condominium in Houston’s ritzy Uptown neighborhood. School officials refused to say how much they paid, but the Harris County property appraiser this year valued it at $450,000…

“One of the school’s three governing board members, James Broadnax, was unaware of basic information about Accelerated Intermediate when approached by a Chronicle reporter last month. Broadnax didn’t offer any justification for Hicks’ compensation, saying he didn’t know all the facts. He said he knew the school had office space, but didn’t know it owned a condo…

“Accelerated Intermediate serves its 275 Houston-area children at a facility off Texas 90, near the Fondren Gardens neighborhood. The student population is mostly made up of African-American and Hispanic students, nearly all of whom are economically disadvantaged. A second campus, in the Dallas suburb of Lancaster, serves about a dozen students a year.

“Hicks co-founded Accelerated Intermediate after working as a teacher and administrator in Dallas ISD for 10 years and as principal of The Varnett Public School for two years. His founding partner, David Fuller, also worked at Varnett and would later open C.O.R.E. Academy, a south Houston charter that was shut down this year due to repeated academic failures.”

The founders of Varnett Public School, which is a charter school, not a public school, were indicted by federal authorities in 2015, for embezzling $2.5 million from the school.

A teacher who worked at the tiny charter for a year said she never met Hicks.

“The farthest we could go up the chain of command was the principal,” said Johnson, who left to teach at Houston ISD. “We were always told he was coming, he was going to be around, that you’d never know when he was coming.”

So what is the innovation at this charter: cut costs by skimping on teachers’ pay and student classrooms.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Houston, Texas

GOOD NEWS! VAM Is Dead in Houston!

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2017 //
43

After a long court fight in Houston, the school district agreed not to use value-added scores to evaluate teachers, because it was unable to explain what the algorithms for evaluating teacher performance meant or how they were calculated. The district also agreed to pay the lawyers’ fees for the Texas AFT, which fought the use of VAM.

What is the purpose of unions? To fight for the rights of teachers. No individual teacher (unless married to a lawyer) could have pursued this remedy on his or her own. The union had the resources to protect teachers from an unfair, nonsensical, illegitimate way of evaluating their teaching.

By the way, the courts in Houston were a lot wiser than the courts in Florida, which upheld the practice of evaluating teachers based on the test scores of students they do not teach in subjects they do not teach. The court in Florida said it was “unfair,” but constitutional. How can it be constitutional to have your teaching license depend on the work that others do, in which you have no part at all?


For Immediate Release
October 10, 2017

Contact:
Zeph Capo
713-623-8891
zcapo@hft2415.org

Janet Bass
202-879-4554
jbass@aft.org

Federal Suit Settlement: End of Value-Added Measures
for Teacher Termination in Houston

HOUSTON—In a huge victory for the right of teachers to be fairly evaluated, the Houston Independent School District agreed, in a settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by seven Houston teachers and the Houston Federation of Teachers, not to use value-added scores to terminate a teacher as long as the teacher is unable to independently test or challenge the score.

Value-added measures for teacher evaluation, called the Education Value-Added Assessment System, or EVAAS, in Houston, is a statistical method that uses a student’s performance on prior standardized tests to predict academic growth in the current year. This methodology—derided as deeply flawed, unfair and incomprehensible—was used to make decisions about teacher evaluation, bonuses and termination. It uses a secret computer program based on an inexplicable algorithm: = + (Σ∗≤Σ∗∗ × ∗∗∗∗=1)+ .

In May 2014, seven Houston teachers and the Houston Federation of Teachers brought an unprecedented federal lawsuit to end the policy, saying it reduced education to a test score, didn’t help improve teaching or learning, and ruined teachers’ careers when they were incorrectly terminated. Neither HISD nor its contractor allowed teachers access to the data or computer algorithms so that they could test or challenge the legitimacy of the scores, creating a “black box.” In May 2017, the federal district court in Houston issued a decision stating that, “HISD teachers have no meaningful way to ensure correct calculation of their EVAAS scores, and as a result are unfairly subject to mistaken deprivation of constitutionally protected property interests in their jobs.”

HFT President Zeph Capo said: “This victory should mark the end of a destructive era that put tests and a broken evaluation system over making sure our students leave school well prepared for college, career and life. As a practical matter, this ends the use of value-added to terminate teachers in HISD because the district does not have a contractor that is willing or able to meet the constitutional due process standards spelled out by the court.”

Daniel Santos, one of the plaintiffs and an award-winning sixth-grade teacher at Navarro Middle School who was rated ineffective by the flawed EVAAS method, was elated with the settlement.

“I have always been devoted to my students and proud of my teaching skills. Houston needs a well-developed system that properly evaluates teachers, provides good feedback and ensures that educators will receive continuous, targeted professional development to improve their performance,” Santos said.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the agreement not to use value-added measures for this purpose is the latest nail in the coffin of using tests as a punitive tool. The Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal education law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act, eliminated the emphasis on test scores.

“Testing and EVAAS don’t measure critical or analytical thinking skills, don’t allow for engaging learning, and certainly don’t improve or create joy in teaching or learning. Instead of value-added methods, let’s value what kids really need: attention to their well-being, engaging and powerful learning, a collaborative school environment, and opportunities for teachers to build their skills throughout their careers,” Weingarten said.

In addition to agreeing to restrict its use of value-added measures, including EVAAS scores, the school district agreed to create an instructional consultation panel—with representatives from the district and the faculty—to discuss and make recommendations on the district’s teacher appraisal process. The settlement also requires HISD to pay Texas AFT $237,000 for attorney’s fees and expenses related to the lawsuit.

Here is the amended summary judgment opinion.

Categories Houston, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Gary Rubinstein: “I Taught at Houston’s XQ Super School” (A MUST READ!)

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2017 //
26

This is one of Gary Rubinstein’s best posts ever.

He watched Laurene Powell Jobs’ extravaganza about her efforts to redesign the American high school into XQ Super Schools. The one where she bought time on four networks.

The one where celebrities said again and again that high schools have not changed in 100 years; Gary does a good job of shredding that myth. Yes, high schools have changed in the past 100 years, but some things should never change and will be found in high schools all over the world.

He notes that the show has had no effect. It seems to have disappeared as soon as it was on the air.

But it didn’t disappear for him because he realized that he taught at one of the XQ Super Schools, a high school in Houston that allegedly was a failing school that was miraculously transformed.

Gary shows that it was not the nightmare school that the producers claimed it to be, nor has it had the miraculous transformation that the show now boasts about.

It was a good school when he was there, even though there was a gang population in the ninth grade.

What he discovers is that the school now has a charter school on campus, which apparently serves as a dumping ground for the kids who are not going to graduate. The regular school raised its statistics by pushing out the bad kids.

No miracle there!

But the school does have a really nice garden. That’s new. That’s good. Is that what caused the claimed spike in test scores? Not likely.

He writes:

One thing that this program definitely accomplished is product placement. It seems that one feature of innovative high schools is that students use a lot of laptops and it seems like most of those laptops are Apple products. While iPads were once considered to be something that was going to be a big part of education, the thing most schools are actually using are a type of laptop called a Chromebook, which is an inexpensive Google product. Since the kids in these schools are using Apple laptops, maybe one purpose of this show was to help with Apple’s competition with Google for the education market.

One thing we did not see a lot of in this was overt teacher bashing. I suppose this is why Randi Weingarten attended and tweeted about how wonderful a program this is. Now even though there wasn’t overt teacher bashing, there was some less direct bashing like the part where celebrities were asked what they wish they learned in high school. Based on their answers, the only conclusion is that their teachers must not have taught those things to them very well.

This program didn’t really seem to resonate with anybody and most people on both sides of the education reform wars have pretty much forgotten about it already. It was a colossal waste of money and shows that being rich doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the right to dictate education policy.

I think that it is not an accident that there was no mention of evil unions or miracle charter schools or school choice in this program. My sense is that reformers realize that most of the talking points from Waiting For Superman don’t work anymore. The public has wised up. They don’t believe as much that teacher’s unions are the problem or that charter schools are the solution. So this program is an attempt to get a new rationale that the public can believe and get behind whatever reforms the reformers want to try, which of course will be more union busting and charters and vouchers. So the new thing is that schools haven’t evolved much in the past 100 years and that’s a problem. All that matters is that the public believes there is some problem, whatever it is. It doesn’t need to be the unions, but it must be something so the 100 year thing will likely be repeated a lot of over the next decade as the new villain for them to save us from.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Houston, Innovation, Privatization

A+ Rated Agencies Providing Help to Hurricane Harvey Victims

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
16

If you want to help people who have been harmed by the flooding in the Houston area, here is a list of A+ rated agencies, rated based on the percentage of finds that go to services rather than overhead.

Categories Houston

A Message from My Family in Houston

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
6

As many of you know, I was born in Houston and attended public schools there from K-12. I have a large family, and many still live there. I have been in touch with my family members and all of them are safe. Here is a list of organizations coordinating donations to help victims of Hurricane Harvey.

I just received this email from my nephew Nicholas Silvers with an up-to-the-minute report:


All,

I will try to keep this brief:

First of all I am sorry for the mass email but I bcc’d so that emails are hidden. Second, we are all fine. The outpouring of support, calls, texts, emails to me from around the globe has been amazing and is not unnoticed so thank you again.

While we are fine, the City of Houston is far from it. We have hit the 1000 year flood plain and 1,000,000+ people are going to be without their homes. Any and all help is needed. The two simplest ways are through the Red Cross (https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation) both individually or as a corporate, or if you are in the US and want to send care packages (clothes, blankets, pillows, toys/books for children), you can fed ex ground them to me (just email me back and I will send my home address) and I will get everything delivered to the shelters.

Again, thank you all for checking in. Lastly, please feel free to pass this email or my email address on to anyone you think would want to help.

Best,

Nicholas A. Silvers
713-828-2533
Sent from my iPhone
Nikko19@aol.com

Categories Houston

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Two Houston Mothers Want to Sue KIPP for Charging Fees

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2017 //
6

Dr.Julian Vasquez Heilig reports that two mothers in Houston want to sue the KIPP charter chain for collecting fees from them.

They “have been speaking out against KIPP’s ‘optional athletic fees, field trip fees, academic fees, etc and they state that these optional fees ‘have been charged as required fees at at least ten KIPP schools since 1994 and that the optional fees go into one account and are used for whatever purpose KIPP decides.’”They believe these fees violate state and federal laws.

KIPP denies that it collected fees illegally. The mothers want to know when they will be reimbursed.

Categories Houston, KIPP Charter Schools, Parents
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