AOC asks Mark Zuckerberg: Is it okay to post ads that you know are lies?
https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-mark-zuckerberg-video-congress-facebook-questioning-2019-10
Archives for category: Lies
A new movie will be released in a few days, telling the story of the D.C. voucher program.
The movie is called Miss Virginia, and the purpose of the movie is to persuade movie goers to love the idea of vouchers as a way to escape their”failing” public schools.
This is a bit reminiscent of the movie called “Won’t Back Down,” that was supposed to sell the miracle of charter schools. It had two Hollywood stars, it opened in 2,500 movie theaters, and within a month it had disappeared. Gone and forgotten. No one wanted to see it.
Mercedes Schneider doesn’t review the movie. Instead she reviews the dismal failure of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program [sic].
She guesses that movie won’t mention any of the abysmal evaluations of the D.C. voucher program.
Surely, Miss Virginia thought she was helping her children by encouraging Vouchers. She made the mistake of trusting the rich white men like the Koch brothers, the Waltons, and Milton Friedman.
As Schneider shows, the D.C. voucher program is regularly evaluated, and the results are not pretty.
DC VOUCHERS HAD NO IMPACT ON STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
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There were no statistically significant impacts on either reading or mathematics achievement for students who received vouchers or used vouchers three years after applying to the program.
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The lack of impact on student academic achievement applied to each of the study’s eight subgroups of students: (1) students attending schools in need of improvement when they applied, (2) students not attending schools in need of improvement when they applied, (3) students entering elementary grades when they applied, (4) students entering secondary grades when they applied, (5) students scoring above the median in reading at the time of application, (6) students below the median in reading at the time of application, (7) students scoring above the median in mathematics at the time of application, and (8) students below the median in mathematics at the time of application.
DC VOUCHERS DO NOT PROVIDE GREATER PARENTAL SATISFACTION
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The program had no statistically significant impact on parents’ satisfaction with the school their child attended after three years.
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The program had a statistically significant impact on students’ satisfaction with their school only for one subgroup of students (those with reading scores above the median), and no statistically significant impact for any other subgroup.
DC VOUCHERS DO NOT PROVIDE A GREATER SENSE OF SCHOOL SAFETY FOR PARENTS
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The program had no statistically significant impact on parents’ perceptions of safety for the school their child attended after three years.
DC VOUCHERS DO NOT INCREASE PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
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The program had no statistically significant impact on parents’ involvement with their child’s education at school or at home after three years.
DC VOUCHERS DO NOT PROVIDE MORE CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION TIME OR SCHOOL-WIDE RESOURCES
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The study found that students who received a voucher on average were provided 1.7 hours less of instruction time a week in both reading and math than students who did not receive vouchers.
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The study found that students who received a voucher had less access to programming for students with learning disabilities and for students who are English Language Learners than students who did not receive vouchers.
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The study also found that students who received vouchers had fewer school safety measures in place at their schools than students who did not receive vouchers.
DC VOUCHER SCHOOLS ARE PREDOMINANTLY RELIGIOUS AND THE VAST MAJORITY CHARGE TUITION ABOVE THE VOUCHER AMOUNT
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The study found that 62% of the schools participating in the voucher program from 2013-2016, were religiously affiliated.
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The study found that 70% of the schools participating in the voucher program from 2013-2016 had published tuition rates above the maximum amount of the voucher. Among those schools, the average difference between the maximum voucher amount and the tuition was $13,310.
MANY STUDENTS REJECT THE VOUCHER OR LEAVE THE PROGRAM
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The study found that three years after applying to the voucher program, less than half (49%) of the students who received vouchers used them to attend a private school for the full three years.
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The study also found that 20% of students stopped using the voucher after one year and returned to public school, and 22% of students who received vouchers did not use them at all.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have opened an impeachment inquiry because a whistleblower warned that the president offered to release $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine if its government investigated Joe and Hunter Biden. The whistleblower’s warning was verified when the White House released the contents of a conversation in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as to investigate whether Ukraine—not Russia—hacked the 2016 election. This would enable him to discredit the leading Democratic candidate and to discredit the findings of the CIA and the Mueller report.
Trump insists the conversation included no “quid pro quo.” He has said repeatedly that it was a “perfect” conversation.
What is a “quid pro quo”?
Definition:
quid pro quo
/ˌkwid ˌprō ˈkwō/
noun
A favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.
“the pardon was a quid pro quo for their help in releasing hostages”
Another definition:
In common law, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. A contract must involve consideration: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of value.
The following article appeared on the Brookings website. It was written by Steven Pifer, the former ambassador to Ukraine.
Editor’s Note: Steven Pifer’s takeaways from what we’ve learned about President Trump’s approach to Ukraine’s Zelenskiy administration through the White House record of a presidential phone call, a whistleblower’s complaint to Congress, and diplomats’ published text messages. This piece originally appeared on FSI Stanford’s Medium.
Over the past two weeks, a CIA whistleblower’s complaint, a White House record of a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and texts exchanged by American diplomats have dominated the news and raised questions about the president’s handling of policy toward Ukraine. Here are five observations:
First, President Trump was not doing the nation’s business on July 25. Trump has described the call as “perfect,” but the memorandum of conversation shows that he did not seek to advance U.S. interests. He did not ask Zelenskiy about progress in ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. He did not propose steps to facilitate more American trade. He did not raise how U.S. liquified natural gas might strengthen Ukraine’s energy security (something of interest to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, whom Trump now says instigated a call that he did not want to make).
Instead, Trump posed two requests to his Ukrainian counterpart: check CrowdStrike (even though nothing suggests a Ukrainian link to the company that examined the Democratic National Committee’s servers in 2016), and investigate a thoroughly-debunked charge that Vice President Joe Biden sought to have a Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect his son, Hunter Biden. Neither ask advances U.S. national goals. Both are about Trump’s personal interest in undermining his potential Democratic rival in 2020.
Second, the president sounds poorly briefed on Ukraine. The fact that Trump did not raise any issues of interest to the United States — as opposed to issues of personal interest — suggests he took no briefing from National Security Council staff before the call. He raised discredited stories similar to those that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been peddling for months on cable news. Giuliani seems to have received much of his information, including his claim about the Bidens, from a former Ukrainian prosecutor general who held a grudge against the U.S. embassy in Kyiv — and who has since recanted or denied most of the stories he fed Giuliani.
Third, there was a quid pro quo. The president claims there was no quid pro quo in his call to Zelenskiy. From texts released late on October 3, however, senior U.S. diplomats believed there was. Consider the following text exchanges:
- July 25 text from Ambassador Kurt Volker (U.S. special envoy on Ukraine) to Zelenskiy aide Andrey Yermak (just prior to the Trump-Zelenskiy call): “Heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”
- August 9 text from Ambassador Gordon Sondland (U.S. representative to the European Union) to Volker: “To avoid misunderstandings, might be useful to ask Andrey [Yermak] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover.”
- From August 13 text from Volker to Sondland describing possible Ukrainian statement: “Special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians. I [Zelenskiy] want to declare that this is unacceptable. We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma [the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat] and 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the resurgence of this problem in the future.”
- August 13 text from Sondland in response to above Volker text: “Perfect.”
In his statement to the House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs on October 3, Volker said that he and Sondland talked with Giuliani on August 16. In that conversation, Giuliani had noted that a more generic anti-corruption statement offered by the Ukrainians was insufficient and should specifically mention Burisma and 2016.
Ambassador William “Bill” Taylor, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006–2009 and currently the charge d’ affairs in Kyiv, was clearly uncomfortable with all this:
- September 1 text from Taylor to Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?”
- September 9 text from Taylor to Sondland: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to hold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
It is hard to read these texts and conclude that there was no quid pro quo. To his great credit, Taylor questioned the very idea and in a separate text even suggested that he would resign (full disclosure: Taylor is a former colleague and good friend whom I admire).
Tim Jackson is a parent with children in the Little Rock School District and an active member of Grassroots Arkansas, which has been fighting for the restoration of democratic control of the LRSD public schools. He is also a film-maker. He attended the state school board meeting that theoretically restored local control.
He wrote this account:
ARKANSAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING – 10.09.19
Yesterday’s meeting of the Arkansas State Board of Education was another exercise in futility for the true stakeholders in the Little Rock School District. Don’t believe the headlines that local control of the district has been returned or will be retuned anytime soon to an elected school board. All the State Board did yesterday was trash an ill conceived and inequitable framework for reconstituting the district that it announced last month but could not sustain in the face of political and public opinion headwinds.
Board Chairman Diane Zook made it clear – much to the chagrin of Board members who were trying to appear conciliatory – that nothing changed yesterday. And Zook has no intention for things to change until the District is recreated in the image of the prevailing “business knows best” education model that bedevils American public education. As if American public education needed another self-important, self-entitled, shortsighted, external force bedeviling it.
I sat on the front row at yesterday’s meeting for eight hours until I was invited to leave by the Arkansas State Police who were brought in as a show of force by the board. Chairman Zook – whose personal animus toward the Little Rock School District is both unreasonable and inexhaustible – read twice from a prepared statement that anticipated more public outcry to what she knew was coming later in the meeting. We were told yesterday that 1) Police officers would escort anyone who spoke out of turn from the building. 2) Anyone who was escorted from the building yesterday would be banned from speaking in future meetings. 3) The Chairman would decide what constituted “out of turn.”
One of Ms. Zook’s frequent rebuttals when we cry “taxation without representation” over the State’s heavy-handed and demonstrably underhanded takeover is to remind us that we have a Community Advisory Board. Under the terms of the State takeover the Community Advisory Board of the Little Rock School District has no authority, no public accountability, and members serve solely at the pleasure of the State’s Education Commissioner, Johnny Key – a man so unqualified for the job that the Arkansas Legislature had to reduce the qualifications for the job in order for Governor Asa Hutchinson to appoint him.
An influential member of that Citizens Advisory Board stood in the parking lot of the Arkansas Education Building a month ago and told me that the nine members of the State Board of Education are the Governor’s choice for overseeing public education in Arkansas. This CAB member elaborated that under the Arkansas Constitution those nine appointed people don’t owe the people of Little Rock “a vote, a voice, or an explanation for anything they do.” I was told that if I didn’t like, I should go change the Arkansas Constitution.
So, that’s our representation. That’s what Diane Zook wants us to feel good about.
The State Board never fails to create chaos at the end of its meetings – at least at meetings in which the Little Rock School District is on the agenda. Yesterday was no exception. In a flurry of confusion and a complete flaunting of acceptable procedure the Board voted 9-0 to cease recognition of the Little Rock Educators Association as the sole contract negotiator for teachers and other full time support staff in the Little Rock School District. The LREA has been under attack since the State takeover and FOIA requests bear out that the Board’s plan for the LREA hasalways been death for the union by a thousand cuts. Yesterday the Board twisted the knife.
This action did not kill the union. But it is another serious attack and clear evidence that Zook and Company do not have a plan for the Little Rock School District but they do have a vision for it. It’s a vision that values the haves and patronizes the have-nots while expanding a privatized system of public education that we will pay for as a society for the next 50 years.
Tim Jackson | tjackson@category-one.com
As I have mentioned more than a few times here, my favorite daily reading is Teresa Hanafin’s “Fast Forward” in the Boston Globe. She always begins with some kernel of wisdom from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Today, she says that the Almanac has a children’s edition every other year and she includes sample pages that show kids how to whistle. Very important information. She updates Boston sports news, then offers nuggets on the latest madness from Trumplandia. More obstruction of justice. Plus, the Supreme Court will hear a case on whether it is okay to fire someone because they are LBGT. The Trump administration, despite his many claims to the contrary, is siding with the anti-gay side of the argument. Are you surprised? He has to keep his evangelical base happy.
Today:
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Peter Greene fact-checked Betsy DeVos’s “back to school” speech at a religious school in Milwaukee and discovered that all of her facts were wrong. But facts, in DeVos’s worldview, are tiresome and unnecessary.
Perhaps most egregious was her paean of praise to Polly Williams, an African American state legislator who supported school choice until she realized she had been duped. DeVos ignores Williams’ change of heart and pretends that she was a true believer until the end. The reality in Milwaukee was that the voucher program was bankrolled by the far-right Bradley Foundation, which used Polly Williams. She eventually became disillusioned.
Peter Greene writes:
DeVos…chose to invoke Annette “Polly” Williams, the mother of school choice in Wisconsin. The Democratic politician and activist wrote the first school choice legislation in the country (adopted in 1989) and became a popular speaker on the issue, particularly to conservative audiences.
But Williams became disenchanted with the school choice movement. Her original legislation did not include religious schools, but was expanded to do so five years later. Williams took to calling the voucher program a “Catholic movement.” She expressed displeasure with some of the folks, like Lamar Alexander and Bill Bennett, who swooped in to speak. She accused leaders of exploiting black and poor families, and of leaving poor families behind with the program expansion. 75% of voucher recipients were not escaping the public system, because they had never been in it. She was critical of education measures taken by Governor Scott Walker, whose supporters have included the DeVos family.
Williams told an interviewer, “Our intent was never to destroy the public schools.” When accused of drifting away from the movement, she would reply, “I haven’t changed. The people around me have changed.”
It’s an odd choice for DeVos to invoke Williams, who seems to have viewed folks like DeVos as having hijacked the charter movement. But DeVos seems determined to launch, or at least lay a foundation for,a national voucher program, and she’s going to paint a favorable picture with whatever brush she has handy.
William J. Gumbert has posted a series of analyses of charter school performance and demographics in Texas, based on public data compiled by the state. This is a summary of earlier posts. You may recall from an earlier post about Houston that the state commissioner of education is threatening to take control of the Houston Independent School District because of the persistently low rest scores of one school, Wheatley High School. Please check out its demographics in the chart below.
By: William J. Gumbert
Ever since the “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” report was released in 1983, corporate education reformers and privately funded, “public policy” organizations have promoted the “privatization of public schools”. In 1995, the Texas Legislature gave in to the political rhetoric and authorized privately-operated charters (“charters”) to open and independently operate public schools with taxpayer funding. As a result, taxpayers are funding a “dual education system” that consists of locally governed, community-based school districts and State approved charters.
Charters promised to improve student results by transferring the control of public schools to private organizations that had more autonomy to expend taxpayer funding without community oversight. However, charters have not fulfilled their promise. Despite the State funneling over $22.5 billion of taxpayer funding to privately-operated charters over the last 24 years, charters have not to produced better student outcomes than community-based school districts. Most recently, 86.2% of community-based school districts received an “A” or “B” rating pursuant to the State’s 2019 Academic Accountability Ratings. In comparison, only 58.6% of charters received an “A” or “B” rating. In addition, almost 1 of every 5 charters received a “D” or “F” rating from the State.
Despite the Perception – Charters Serve a Different Student Population: Charter advocates have consistently promoted that charters serve a higher percentage of “economically-disadvantaged” and “minority” students from underserved communities. But charters have also routinely stated that their student populations closely correlate with the school districts they choose to operate within. In this regard, Houston ISD and Dallas ISD collectively have over 75,000 students enrolled in State approved charters and both districts serve student populations that are at least 80% “economically-disadvantaged” and “minority”. Thus, it is fair to say that both charters and school districts serve a high percentage of “economically-disadvantaged” and “minority” students. However, the similarities in the types of students served by charters and school districts stop here.
The reality is that charters “underserve” many of the student subgroups that the “No Child Left Behind Act” identified as having potential achievement, opportunity or learning gaps in comparison to their peers. The Texas Education Agency (“TEA”) tracks the performance of student subgroups in Texas public schools and while “economically-disadvantaged” and “minority” students are identified as subgroups, so are “at risk”, “special education”, “disciplinary” and “mobile” students.
With the needs of each student being unique, it is important to emphasize that a student can be included in more than one subgroup. For example, a student can be identified solely as “economically-disadvantaged” or a student can be “economically-disadvantaged”, “at risk” and “mobile”. The more subgroups that are applicable to a student, the more challenging it becomes to ensure that student is successful. I highlight that “challenging” is not referenced as an excuse for schools to have low student performance, but rather to recognize the additional time, effort, care and resources that are required to help certain students overcome adverse circumstances and obtain a quality education.
A review of the student subgroups reported by TEA shows that privately-operated charters enroll a significantly lower percentage of “at risk”, “disciplinary placement” and “special education’ students than community-based school districts. TEA data also demonstrates that charters enroll students with significantly lower “student mobility”. Why? It is hard to definitively say. But these types of students have proven to be more costly to serve, require the most effort to achieve good “test scores” and are the least likely to continue on the “road to college”. It may also be that charters do not actively recruit students in these subgroups. Either way, here are the facts.
“At Risk” Students: Students identified as “at risk” of dropping out are performing below academic standards and/or are confronting other challenges. TEA’s definition of “at risk” includes a student that:
- Did not perform satisfactorily on a readiness or assessment instrument;
- Has a grade below 70 in 2 or more subjects in the foundation curriculum for the preceding or current school year;
- Is of limited English proficiency;
- Was not advanced from one grade level to the next for one or more school years; and
- Has been placed in an alternative education program in the preceding or current school year.
As shown below, despite having a large presence in each of the 5 urban school districts listed below, some of the largest charters enroll 19.3% fewer “at risk” students. In other words, for every 1,000- seat school campus, the school districts serve 193 more students that have been identified as “at risk” of dropping out. While it may be surprising to some, the listed charters also serve a lower percentage of “at risk” students than the statewide average.
| Privately-Operated Charter | “At Risk”
Students |
School District | “At Risk”
Students |
| IDEA Public Schools | 45.9% | Houston ISD | 71.7% |
| Harmony School of Excellence – Houston | 43.5% | Dallas ISD | 63.2% |
| KIPP, Inc. – Houston | 46.7% | Austin ISD | 51.3% |
| Uplift Education | 54.8% | San Antonio ISD | 73.5% |
| YES Prep. | 50.2% | Fort Worth ISD | 77.8% |
| Average – 5 Charters | 48.2% | Average – 5 School Districts | 67.5% |
| 5 Charters: Avg. Per 1,000 Seat Campus | 482 Students | 5 Districts: Avg. Per 1,000 Seat Campus | 675 Students |
| State Average: | 50.8% or 508 Students |
Disciplinary Placements: TEA data shows that 73,713 students have been identified as “Disciplinary Placements” in public schools. These are students that have previously had behavioral issues or been placed in a District Alternative Education Program (“DAEP”). By law, privately-operated charters can exclude enrollment to this student subgroup and most charters do. In fact, charter proponents have previously stated that many charters are not prepared and could not afford to serve these students. As such, the responsibility to deploy the educational services and resources needed to serve “disciplinary” students resides mostly with school districts. Once again, despite having a large presence in the same 5 school districts, the same charters served only 11 “disciplinary” students and the school districts welcomed 6,532 “disciplinary” students.
| Privately-Operated Charter | Discipline
Students |
School District | Discipline
Students |
| IDEA Public Schools | 0 | Houston ISD | 1,996 |
| Harmony School of Excellence – Houston | 0 | Dallas ISD | 1,843 |
| KIPP, Inc. – Houston | 0 | Austin ISD | 1,140 |
| Uplift Education | 0 | San Antonio ISD | 879 |
| YES Prep. | 11 | Fort Worth ISD | 674 |
| Total – 5 Charters | 11 | Total – 5 School Districts | 6,532 |
Special Education: Students identified with physical or learning disabilities comprise an average of 9.1% of all students in Texas public schools. But at the same charters listed below, only 6.2% of students are identified by TEA as “students with disabilities”. The enrollment gap for “student with disabilities” among certain charters and school districts can be alarming, especially since it is permitted to occur with the State’s blessing. For example, IDEA Public Schools is rapidly expanding in Austin ISD, but Austin ISD welcomes more than double the percentage of “students with disabilities”. For every campus with 1,000 students, IDEA only serves 52 students with “special needs” and Austin ISD serves 109 students with “special needs”. If Austin ISD served the same percentage of “students with disabilities” as IDEA, it would serve an estimated 4,500 fewer students with “special needs”.
| Privately-Operated Charter | Special Education Students | School District | Special Education Students |
| IDEA Public Schools | 5.2% | Houston ISD | 7.1% |
| Harmony School of Excellence – Houston | 6.3% | Dallas ISD | 8.2% |
| KIPP, Inc. – Houston | 6.3% | Austin ISD | 10.9% |
| Uplift Education | 7.0% | San Antonio ISD | 10.3% |
| YES Prep. | 6.1% | Fort Worth ISD | 8.3% |
| Average – 5 Charters | 6.2% | Average – 5 School Districts | 9.0% |
| State Average: | 9.1% |
Student Mobility: TEA defines “student mobility” as the percentage of students that were enrolled at a campus for less than 83% of the school year. In other words, the “student mobility” rate refers to the volume of students that were not consistently enrolled in a charter/school district throughout a school year. With an inconsistent learning environment, students that regularly change schools are faced with unique social and educational challenges in comparison to other students. For example, Education Week has reported that: “various studies have found student mobility – and particularly multiple moves – associated with lower school engagement, poorer grades in reading (particularly in math), and a higher risk of dropping out of high school”.
As summarized below, the “student mobility” rate of the listed school districts is a challenging 20.3%, while the “student mobility” rate of the charters is only 6.3%. As such, for every 1,000-seat campus, the school districts must meet the unique challenges of educating 203 “mobile” students during a school year. In comparison, the charter campus has a much more stable population with only 63 “mobile” students.
| Privately-Operated Charter | Student
Mobility Rate |
School District | Student
Mobility Rate |
| IDEA Public Schools | 7.0% | Houston ISD | 19.2% |
| Harmony School of Excellence – Houston | 10.0% | Dallas ISD | 19.9% |
| KIPP, Inc. – Houston | 4.5% | Austin ISD | 17.9% |
| Uplift Education | 5.5% | San Antonio ISD | 23.6% |
| YES Prep. | 4.4% | Fort Worth ISD | 21.1% |
| Average – 5 Charters | 6.3% | Average – 5 School Districts | 20.3% |
| 5 Charters: Avg. Per 1,000 Seat Campus | 63 Students | 5 Districts: Avg. Per 1,000 Seat Campus | 203 Students |
| State Average: | 16.0% or 160 Students |
Comparison of Campuses Located Within 3 Miles of Each Other: While each student subgroup presents unique challenges, schools that are primarily comprised of students in multiple subgroups have the most challenges to consistently achieve high student performance. In this regard, it is not a coincidence that many school district campuses labeled as “low performing” by the State are comprised of students included in multiple subgroups.
The table below further illustrates the disparities of the student populations enrolled at State approved charters and school districts by comparing the student populations of 7 charter campuses that are located within 3 miles of a school district campus. In each comparison, the charter campus competing for students with a nearby school district campus served fewer “at risk”, “disciplinary”, “special education” and “mobile” students. It most cases, the differences were substantial. On average, for each 1,000-seat campus, the comparisons revealed that the charter campuses served:
- 325 fewer “at risk” students;
- 65 fewer “special education” students;
- 199 fewer “mobile” students; and
- No charter campus enrolled a student with a “discipline placement”.
| Campus | “At Risk” | Discipline
Placement |
Special Education | Student Mobility |
| Wheatley H.S. (Houston ISD) | 88.1% | 36 | 19.0% | 31.2% |
| YES Prep. – 5th Ward | 51.1% | None | 7.6% | 4.4% |
| Travis H.S. (Austin ISD) | 77.1% | 46 | 14.2% | 30.3% |
| IDEA Allan College Prep. | 53.7% | None | 10.4% | 8.6% |
| Morningside M.S. (Fort Worth ISD) | 88.0% | 2 | 14.1% | 25.9% |
| Uplift Mighty M.S. | 67.8% | None | 10.7% | 2.9% |
| Sharpstown H.S. (Houston ISD) | 90.2% | 39 | 9.7% | 30.9% |
| KIPP Sharpstown College Prep. | 52.2% | None | 5.4% | 4.4% |
| Douglass Elem. (SAISD) | 78.5% | 6 | 9.6% | 28.7% |
| IDEA Carver Academy | 17.4% | None | 5.1% | 9.5% |
| Andress H.S. (El Paso ISD) | 66.3% | 51 | 21.1% | 18.0% |
| Harmony School of Excel. – El Paso | 49.4% | 0 | 8.5% | 12.1% |
| Carter H.S. (Dallas ISD) | 70.7% | 20 | 11.8% | 24.0% |
| Uplift Hampton Prep. H.S. | 39.5% | None | 6.4% | 7.6% |
| Average – 7 School District Campuses | 79.8% | 26 | 14.2% | 27.0% |
| Average – 7 Charter Campuses | 47.3% | None | 7.7% | 7.1% |
| Average Charter Difference – Per 1,000 Seat Campus | 325 Fewer Students | — | 65 Fewer Students | 199 Fewer Students |
Conclusion: The “A Nation at Risk” report started the false narrative that our public schools were failing and the attack on school districts has continued ever since. These strategic attacks have served to fuel the “privatization of public education agenda” of corporate reformers and society-controlling billionaires that persuaded the Legislature to provide privately-operated charters with the freedom to expand in local communities with taxpayer funding.
The State has provided privately-operated charters with many educational advantages to produce better student outcomes than community-based school districts. These advantages include less taxpayer oversight; greater instructional, staffing and enrollment flexibility; and the ability to stop serving students by closing campuses. Privately-operated charters are also permitted to underserve certain student subgroups that have been identified as having potential achievement, opportunity or learning gaps, such as “at risk”, “disciplinary”, “special education” and “mobile” students.
With all the educational advantages afforded to State approved charters, common sense tells us that charters should be outperforming school districts by a wide margin. But despite these advantages and 24 years of experimentation, the State’s 2019 Academic Accountability Ratings document that privately-operated charters continue to produce lower student outcomes than locally governed school districts!
It is time for the State to apologize to school district teachers, support staffs, administrators and Boards of Trustees across the State and admit that “privatization” was a misguided experiment. It is time for the Legislature to apologize to taxpayers for increasing the costs of public education by diverting over $22.5 billion of taxpayer funding to privately-operated charters that have failed to consistently improve student outcomes in local communities. It is time to implement education policies that are based upon the facts, not political charades or charter advertisements. The future of young Texans is counting on it!
DISCLOSURES: The author is a voluntary advocate for public education and this material solely reflects the opinions of the author. The author has not been compensated in any manner for the preparation of this material. The material is based upon information provided by the Texas Education Agency, TXSchools.gov and other publicly available information. While the author believes these sources to be reliable, the author has not independently verified the information. All readers are encouraged to complete their own review and make their own independent conclusions.
William J. Gumbert has prepared statistical analyses of charter performance in Texas, based on state data.
Charters boast of their “success,” but the reality is far different from their claims. They don’t enroll similar demographics, their attrition rate is staggering, and their “wait lists” are unverified.
Their claims are a marketing tool.
They are not better than public schools.
They undermine and disrupt communities without producing better results.
Yet Texas is plunging headlong into this strategy that creates a dual system but benefits few students.
Texas Charter Schools – Perception May Not Be Reality
Part 5: The State’s Efforts to “Privatize” Public Education in Local Communities is “Simply Indefensible”
By: William J. Gumbert
If you are a parent residing in an urban or suburban area of Texas, it is likely that you have received promotional materials recruiting your child to enroll at a privately operated, charter school (“charters”). Charters are taxpayer funded, private organizations that the State approves to independently operate schools in community-based school districts. Despite it being your students, schools, tax dollars and communities, the State has unilaterally decided that a “dual education system”, consisting of locally governed, community-based school districts and State approved, privately governed charters, is best for local communities. The State has also conveniently and unilaterally decided to share the public education funding of local communities with privately governed charters.
To conclude this series on Texas charter schools, Part 5 uses the lyrics of Robert Palmer’s hit song “Simply Irresistible” to demonstrate that the State’s politically driven and orchestrated efforts to “privatize” public education in local communities is “Simply Indefensible”. Since the song was a hit in 1988, feel free to click on the YouTube video of the “Donnie and Marie Show” below to remember the vibe.
“How Can It Be Permissible”:
Without the approval of taxpayers and local communities: State approved charters:
- ▪ Transfer the control and governance of public schools from local communities to privately-operated charters;
- ▪ Divert funding from community-based school districts to privately-operated charters. The State has already provided charters with over $22.5 billion of taxpayer funding;
- ▪ Increase the debt burden of taxpayers as charters are free to incur long-term bond debt without taxpayer approval;
- ▪ Increase the segregation of students attending public schools in certain communities; and
- ▪ Reduce the quality of schools in many community-based school districts as 20.4% of all charter campuses are rated as “low performing” (rated equivalent of “D” or “F”) by the State’s 2018 Academic Accountability Ratings.
“She Compromise My Principle – Yeah, Yeah”:
Every community has a fundamental responsibility to provide a quality public education that equally serves the unique needs of every student. As public servants, community-based school districts embrace this responsibility as all students are welcome and no student is turned away. If there is not room, community-based school districts hire more teachers and make room. In comparison, the State’s deliberate intervention in local communities allows privately-operated charters to:
- ▪ Serve a limited number of students and NOT enroll all students;
- ▪ Recruit the targeted students and families they desire to serve;
- ▪ Deny enrollment to students with “discipline histories”;
- ▪ Serve a lower percentage of “students with disabilities”;
- ▪ Serve a lower percentage of students “at risk” of dropping out; and
- ▪ Disrupt the education of over 12,800 “economically-disadvantaged” students due to charter closures in the last 5-years.
“That Kind of Love is Mythical”:
The promotion of charters is primarily coordinated by charter advocacy organizations that are intended to support and grow the charter school movement. Although not all-inclusive, these organizations train charter administrators, teachers and parents to be advocates, they assist organizations to start new charters, and they coordinate the political strategy to secure favorable support from the Legislature. But it is not publicized that these advocacy organizations are funded by private donors and fueled by privately funded “public policy” organizations that desire to “privatize” public education across Texas.
To demonstrate parent demand and to garner political support, charter advocacy organizations have notoriously publicized a “wait list” of students. But charters do not publicize the alarming 33.8% attrition rate of students in grades 7-12 that decided to transfer to another Texas public school to start year 2017/18. Charters also do not publicize that the desires of families on “wait lists” are a lower priority than the desire of charters to expand in other regions of the State. By charters expanding in other regions, without expanding current schools to serve students on “wait lists”, charters are choosing to have families “stuck” on the wait list”. In addition, charters strategically attempt to maintain a “wait list” to ensure that their taxpayer funding is preserved as existing students transfer to community-based school districts or another Texas public school in the future.
In Texas, the promoted (unverified) “wait list” is 141,000 students. However, taking a deeper dive, a more realistic estimate is closer to 75,000 students or an amount that is very similar to the 73,713 disciplinary students that are intentionally denied service by charters. This estimate was derived from certain enrollment statistics in a study funded by the KLE Foundation entitled: “An Analysis of Austin area Charter School Waitlists and Enrollment”. It is important to note that the KLE Foundation is also funding the expansion of charters in Austin.
“She’s Anything But Typical”:
In comparison to community-based school districts, charters serve the unique needs of students by:
- ▪ Employing teachers with lower experience;
- ▪ Deploying higher class sizes;
- ▪ Having higher teacher turnover
- ▪ Spending less on “student instruction”;
- ▪ Offering fewer co/extra-curricular activities;
- ▪ Having limited career and technical training; and
- ▪ Closing 108 charters
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“She’s a Craze You’d Endorse, She’s a Powerful Force”:
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The charter movement is coordinated by “public policy” and “education reform” organizations that circumvent the voice of local taxpayers by strategically controlling our elected officials at the State and Federal levels. In politics, money is power and the rich and powerful support the charter school movement. As a result, many elected officials are politically motivated to endorse and support the “charter craze”. The following quote from the Texas Charter Schools Association, an advocacy organization to support and expand charters, provides an indication of the movement’s focus on political patronage:
“Generally speaking, we have a broad enough bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate that largely will prevent anything existential happening to charters” – CEO of TCSA
“You’re Obliged to Conform, When There’s No Other Course”:
It is interesting that the Legislature continues to increase the transparency requirements of community-based school districts to enhance the involvement of taxpayers, but at the same time, the State forces charters upon taxpayers by unilaterally controlling the expansion and taxpayer funding of charters. In this regard, taxpayers do not receive public notice of the charters that the State approves to operate in local communities. The State does not notify taxpayers of the public funding it provides to charters and the State has ensured that taxpayers cannot prohibit or limit the bond debt incurred by charters to finance the construction of new charter schools in local communities (charters are granted the ability to incur bond debt without voter approval). Lastly, with charters having “privately appointed boards”, the State has also ensured that taxpayers cannot democratically elect the governing boards of charters and in fact, the State does not even require charters to meet in the communities they serve.
“She Used to Look Good to Me, But Now I Find Her”:
The original purpose of charters was to improve the educational opportunities of “economically-disadvantaged” students in urban areas and to develop and share instructional innovations to enhance the education of all students. However, the charter school movement has evolved into an aggressive, strategic and “non-cooperative” movement that is coordinated by “special interests” to “privatize” and “control” the public education system in local communities. Since charters have introduced “private business practices” into public education, the charter movement could be characterized as a “hostile takeover” of public schools and the tax dollars of Texas communities.
“Simply Indefensible” … “There’s No Tellin Where the Money Went”:
The charter facts are “irrefutable”;
Charter expenditures are “inscrutable”;
Special interests have made charters politically “irresistible”; and
By the State providing privately governed charters with taxpayer funding, “there’s no tellin where the money went”.
With the education of children and taxpayer funding at stake, the State’s deliberate and politically-motivated actions to “privatize” public education in local communities is:
“Simply Indefensible”
DISCLOSURES: The author is a voluntary advocate for public education and this material solely reflects the opinions of the author. The author has not been compensated in any manner for the preparation of this material. The material is based upon various sources, including but not limited to, the Texas Education Agency, Txschools.org; Texas Academic Performance Reports, tpeir-Texas Education Reports, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, KXAN and other publicly available information. While the author believes these sources to be reliable, the author has not independently verified the information. All readers are encouraged to complete their own review of the charter school movement in Texas, including the material referenced herein and make their own independent conclusions.
This is a fascinating investigation by ProPublica of the life and exaggerations of the webmaster behind the Trump campaign. Brad Parsquale is a Trumpian figure who is running Trump’s re-election campaign and is paid big bucks to market his life story of rags to riches. But it ain’t necessarily so.
Think dirty politics, think North Carolina.
Yesterday, while some Democratic legislators and Governor Roy Cooper attended a 9/11 memorial service, the Republican legislators called a snap vote to override the governor’s veto of the state budget. They had repeatedly assured the Democrats that no votes would be recorded that morning, but they lied. If the full body of representatives had been present, the governor’s veto would have stood.
Cooper vetoed the budget because it did not include Medicaid expansion, which he favors but the Republicans oppose. Thanks to the Republicans, 634,000 citizens in the state will not have health coverage.
This article includes an interview with Democratic representative Chaz Beasley, who explains what was at stake.
He said,
North Carolinians sent us up to Raleigh to have a voice and a say in how we spend $24 billion. And what we’ve seen throughout this process is that many of us were not at the table when whole swaths of the budget were negotiated and settled upon. The governor has made it clear what he would like to see in the budget. One thing he’d like to see is Medicaid expansion in there.
But problems with the budget go beyond the fact that it doesn’t expand Medicaid for 500,000 North Carolinians. We still underpay our teachers. We still have schools that lack the resources to be successful. We still haven’t given a large enough pay increase to our state employees, or a cost of living adjustment to our retirees. Instead, the budget includes things like expanding programs for virtual charter schools that do not have good ratings for how they’re teaching our kids.
Virtual charter schools, we know, are a cash cow for big out-of-state corporations, and they are noted for terrible academic performance, high attrition, and low graduation rates.
The only mildly amusing comment in the article comes from a Republican who said that it was important to take a vote on 9/11 “so that the terrorists didn’t win.” He didn’t explain why it was necessary to take the vote when members of the Democratic party had been assured there would be no vote that morning. When you lie, cheat, and steal to get your way, you undermine democracy. When you betray democracy in your pursuit of power, the terrorists win.
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