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EduShyster: How Citizens Defeated the Charter Movement in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2016 //
31

EduShyster (aka Jennifer Berkshire, a resident of Massachusetts) explains here how a coalition of parents, teachers, students, and civil rights activists defeated Question 2.

Question 2 was a measure on the ballot to expand the number of charter schools in the state by 12 every year, indefinitely. Opponents of the measure said it would drain money from the existing public schools, which enroll 96% of the children in the state. Advocates said it would not. Advocates claimed that they were fighting for opportunity for poor kids to escape failing public schools. Opponents didn’t buy it.

Support for Question 2 came mostly from out-of-state people of great wealth. These people, such as the Waltons and Michael Bloomberg, put up at least $26 million to advocate for more charters. I thought the charter advocates had put up $22 million, but Jonathan Pelto reported yesterday that they had actually spent $26 million. The opposition raised about $12 million, mostly from teachers’ unions and individual small contributions by teachers and parents.

For a billionaire to drop $2 million into a ballot issue in Massachusetts or anywhere else would be akin to one of us sending a dollar to the March of Dimes. They won’t miss it. At some point, however, if they keep losing, they might get bored and find a different hobby.

The election was a battle royal over the future of public education in Massachusetts, and large numbers of people mobilized to save their public schools. Support among black voters was the same as among white voters.

Question 2 was defeated by a vote of 62% to 38%. It was a knock-out punch for the billionaires and the many financiers whose names were hidden from public view because of arcane campaign finance laws that enable “dark money” to be spent without identifying its source.

Berkshire writes:

I could give you a long list of reasons why Question 2 went down in flames. It was a complicated policy question that should never have made it onto the ballot. Yes on 2, despite outspending the ‘no’ camp 2-1 couldn’t find a message that worked, and was never able to counter the single argument that most resonated with voters against charter schools: they take money away from public schools and the kids who attend them. #NoOn2 also tapped into genuinely viral energy. The coalition extended well beyond the teachers unions that funded it, growing to include members of all kinds of unions, as well as social justice and civil rights groups, who fanned out across the state every weekend. By election day, the sprawling network of mostly volunteer canvassers had made contact with more than 1.5 million voters.

Question 2 had not only unprecedented funding, it had the support of the Governor and the state’s Secretary of Education, James Peyser, who is a longtime advocate for charters and a member of the board of Families for Excellent Schools, the same organization that bundled money in New York and elsewhere to push for charters.

Berkshire writes that when people who had no particular interest in charters or public schools began to see who was behind Question 2, she realized that Question 2 was in big trouble:

Do you know why hating on the Yankees is such a popular pastime in Massachusetts? Because they’re regarded as rich, entitled assholes from New York. Which is why the decision to rely so heavily on well, rich, entitled assholes from New York to fund the Yes on 2 campaign puzzles one so. By the final tally before the election, Families for Excellent Schools, reduced to serving as a conduit for the offerings of rich Wall Street-ers, had gifted more than $17 million to the cause. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, kicked in an additional $250,000 on top of the $240,000 he contributed back in August. To average voters, unfamiliar with the reform trope of the billionaire changemaker, the outsized role being played by rich New Yorkers was utterly incomprehensible. It’s not enough to field the richest baseball team money can buy, now they want our schools too?

The Yes on 2 team insisted that the public schools would not lose any money if there were more charters, but school committees called out their lie:

By October it was clear that the Question 2 ship was beginning to list. The original claim, debuted in a massive ad buy during the Olympics, that expanding charter schools would actually increase funding for public education, had failed to resonate with voters, and so it was off to the next argument. It turned out that charter schools didn’t *drain* or *siphon* money away from district schools as team #NoOn2 kept insisting—and here was a press release about a study to prove it. But once again, Question 2’s proponents, including editorial page editors at the Boston Globe, which ran a prominent *no draining, no siphoning* editorial, ran into the buzzsaw of a whole bunch of people all over the state who actually knew stuff.

Those school committees, which just would not stop passing resolutions against the ballot question, could tell you exactly how much money their city or town was spending on charter schools. The Mayor of Northampton, which is about as far from Boston as you can get, pointed out that his town spends more to send kids to the specialized charter schools favored by affluent parents—a subspecies never mentioned during the campaign—than on an entire elementary school. Meanwhile, cities that are already home to the largest number of charters and would be most affected by the passage of Question 2, began tallying how much charters were already costing them. Lowell, for example, has seen a drastic spike in its charter school bill and now spends more than $16 million on a parallel school system, money that’s being diverted away from *extras,* like paving the roads in Mill City. The charter waitlist in Lowell, by the way, is dwarfed by the number of kids waiting to get into district schools.

The privatization movement lost in both Massachusetts and Georgia, where Governor Deal wanted to change the state constitution to allow the state to take over low-performing schools and give them to charter organizations. The lesson is that it is cheaper and easier to make campaign contributions to elect pro-charter candidates to state boards and state legislatures than to take a risk on a popular vote. In the case of Georgia, Governor Deal could not eliminate local control without changing the state constitution. And the voters said no, by a vote of 60-40.

Read the article. The defeat of Question 2 proves that big money can be beaten when citizens are informed, organized, and prepared to defend their public schools against privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Massachusetts, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Unions

A Letter from a Parent in Massachusetts Who Fought Question 2

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2016 //
26

This came in my email this morning:

For a short while in Boston last night, we were ecstatic. We beat the privatizers on Question 2, and we beat them across the state, with every demographic – except for the whitest, wealthiest towns. As Barbara Madeloni said from the stage at campaign headquarters, “We beat their money with our democracy.”

Our coalition victory against the privatizers was hard-earned and sweet. Our brave and beautiful young people were inspirational. Barbara Madeloni was electrifying. We were the righteous students, parents, and union members.

And then, as the national results started coming in and it became clear that Clinton was in trouble, DFER was spotted in the back of the hotel ballroom. As was Marty Walz, former state legislator-turned-paid-shill for the charter industry.

Some of us – those who’d been door-knocking, who had made calls, created charts, sent tweets, educated our neighbors, debated on stage – became angry. The Yes on 2 campaign, funded by so-called Democrats with zero history of being on the side of working people and the disenfranchised, had forced us to focus on a state measure, for months and months and months, at the exclusion of the presidential campaign. Not a single one of my comrades working themselves to exhaustion – unpaid – to defeat the ballot measure was also volunteering for Hilary. We couldn’t be in two places at once, and we rightly felt the urgency of defeating Question 2. We were also keenly aware that our colleagues in other parts of the country were counting on us to stop the charter tide in Massachusetts.

DFER and Marty Walz heard from us loud and clear last night. We let them know that their support for an expensive, divisive, diversionary campaign will not be forgotten.

Question 2 and the charlatans behind it went down in flames last night. Our bright spot on this dismal morning.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization

Three (No, Four) State Elections that Turned Out Well–and Our Plans for the Future

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2016 //
21

Voters in Massachusetts rejected Question 2, which would have authorized a dozen new charter schools every year. The margin, at last word, was 62-38%.

Voters in Georgia rejected Amendment 1, which would have allowed the Governor to take over low-scoring schools and put them in an “Opportunity School District,” a district of charter schools, whether for-profit or non-profit. Georgians apparently didn’t like the idea of abolishing local control of their schools. The vote was similar to Massachusetts, 60-40%. Voters were not fooled by the deceptive language.

Voters in Washington State re-elected the Supreme Court judges who declared that charter schools are not public schools, rejecting the judges supported by Bill Gates.

Our fight for public education continues. Now, with Donald Trump as President, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) works in our favor. He will turn over federal funds to the states without strings, and we will fight in every state to make sure that those funds are allocated to provide a better education for all children. From the results in Massachusetts and Georgia, we know that the majority is on the side of public schools.

We will win some, we will lose some, but we won’t give up. We will do what is right for children. We will defend teachers and the teaching profession. We will defend democratically-controlled public education. We will protect the public good.

Do not despair. Join the Network for Public Education. Plan to join us next October in Oakland, California, and help us plan for the future.

*PS: Wendy Lecker, civil rights lawyer, points out in the comments that voters in Kansas retained all the judges who ruled in favor of full funding for public schools, rebuffing Governor Brownback.
http://kcur.org/post/all-kansas-supreme-court-justices-retained

Categories Education Reform, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Supporting public schools, Washington State

Good News on a Gloomy Night: Question 2 in Massachusetts Fails Overwhelmingly

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2016 //
204

All the Presidential polls were wrong. Clinton appeared to be headed for a big victory until FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that he had discovered a new trove of emails. He decided there was no problem on the Sunday before the election. I can’t help but think that she was never able to revive the momentum after Comey’s intervention. And so we have a President-elect who has never held public office, has no governmental experience, has made statements that are racist, misogynist, andxenophobic. His party will control Congress. He will select at least one and possibly two or three Supreme Court justices.

On the subject of education, he has shown little interest. He held one press conference at a for-profit charter school in Ohio and promised $20 billion in federal funds for charters and vouchers, transferred from existing programs. He has shown no interest in public education.

But there is a piece of good news in the midst of a dark night for public education.

Voters in Massachusetts overwhelmingly defeated Question 2, by a margin of about 62%-38%. Question 2 would have permitted the addition of 12 charter schools every year into the indefinite future.

A vibrant coalition of parents, educators, and students withstood a barrage of dark money and won. They organized, mobilized, knocked on doors, rallied, and they won. More than 200 school committees passed resolutions against Question 2. None supported it.

The bottom line that unified opponents of the measure was that charters would drain funding from the public schools.

Proponents spent at least $22 million, most of it from out of state donors. Big givers were billionaires and hedge fund managers.

This was the first contest over charter schools in which the key issues became public: the billionaire funding from out of state; the deceptive advertising that flooded the airwaves; the opponents’ recognition that the charter movement was an assault on public schools, an effort to privatize them.

On a sad night for the nation, it is heartening to see that the people defended their public schools…and won.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization

Andrea Gabor: Dark Money Targets Massachusetts Voters

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2016 //
3

Andrea Gabor posted today an update on the Dark Money behind Question 2 in Massachusetts.

https://andreagabor.com/2016/11/07/update-how-long-time-charter-funders-are-upping-the-ante-in-their-bid-to-blow-the-bay-states-charter-school-cap/

She begins:

“On October 24, I posted the story below about dark money–much of it from out-of-state–flowing into Massachusetts to support a “yes” vote on a pro-charter-school ballot question known as Question 2. In the days just before the election, those funds have increased dramatically, making Question 2 the most expensive charter-school ballot initiative in the country, ever. In Massachusetts, which has the most highly rated public schools in the nation, more has been spent by proponents of Ballot 2 than both sides spent on any other ballot initiative in state history, and more dark money has flowed to the initiative than to any state or federal election. Here are the latest totals via Peggy Wiesenberg, attorney, activist and public-school parent who did the analysis for the original post:

—Families for Excellent Schools, $15.6 million

—Other dark-money donors $2 million

–Hedge fund and other investment managers $1.9 million

–Jim and Alice Walton $1.8 million

–Other donors, $1.3 million, including a total $490,000 from Michael Bloomberg

By contrast, union spending in opposition to Question 2, was about $11 million.”

The people of Massachusetts will decide tomorrow who owns their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization

Latest Poll on Question 2 in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
39

Here is the latest poll on Question 2 in Massachusetts, whether to expand the number of charters by 12 a year indefinitely. See page 11.

Question 2 is losing in every demographic category except older Republicans.

Whites and blacks oppose Question 2 by similar proportions.

Younger voters (ages 18-39) overwhelmingly oppose it, by 71-21.

If the trends hold, this will be a massive and humiliating defeat for the corporate reformers, who have spent more on this election (at least $22 million) than on any education referendum anywhere. They won’t miss the $22 million, but they will have sustained a major setback in their plans for privatization.

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

Massachusetts Educator: Vote NO on Question 2! No More Charters Needed!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
33

A veteran educator explains why she will vote NO ON Question 2.

My background and position as a high school administrator have led people to ask me about Question 2, the ballot proposal that would allow expansion of Massachusetts charter schools. I have been around public education my entire life. My father was a Superintendent of Schools in Pittsfield, Brockton, and Weston. My husband taught English at Brockton High School for almost 40 years. I was a practicing attorney for 25 years, changed careers, and am now the very proud principal of Falmouth High School, which my own three children have attended.

With that as a backdrop, I remain baffled as to how charter schools are considered public schools, and how they can take taxpayer money to run smoke and mirrors operations.

I do not pretend to know all charter schools in the Commonwealth, but I do know the one in Hyannis, Sturgis Charter School, which has garnered not only local, but national recognition as a tip top so-called “public” high school.

This is where I get confused. I would like someone to explain how charter schools are “public” schools when the one in my neck of the woods allows for the following:

• None of its teachers are required to be licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) which oversees all of the state’s public schools, and mandates licensure of public school teachers.

• Its teachers are not subjected to the same public school educator evaluation regulations (603 CMR 35.00) that every other public school teacher is bound by (http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=8004).

• Although it claims to admit students by public lottery, it gives applicants priority status if they have a sibling attending the school, it reviews discipline records of applicants before deciding to admit them, and it outright refuses to admit students in grades 11 and 12.

The Sturgis website proudly proclaims that given its lottery admissions process, “All students who wish to attend . . . have an equal chance of getting in.” How is this possible when the enrollment policy clearly states that the number one priority for admission is whether an applicant has a sibling who attends the school? And Sturgis gets to exclude students who want to apply in grades 11 and 12? What other public high school gets to do that?

Moreover, despite the statement on its website that Sturgis “is a tuition-free, public high school [see footnote below] that accepts students through public lottery regardless of past academic records,” Sturgis nevertheless exercises discretion to condition admission upon the review of an applicant’s discipline record. That is some lottery. Indeed, I thought “lottery” meant everyone who plays has an equal chance of winning.

The Sturgis brand of lottery sure sounds more like a stacked deck than a lottery.

Sturgis is a top “public” high school that is not required to follow any of the hiring, licensing, educator evaluation, and admissions practices required of every other public high school in Massachusetts.

And Sturgis is run by a principal, excuse me, an “Executive Director,” who touts the school’s high MCAS scores – why wouldn’t he when the scores are statistically skewed due to cherry-picked students?

Indeed, according to the most recently available DESE data, Sturgis has ZERO English Language Learner students, has almost half the number of High Needs and Economically Disadvantaged students as Falmouth High School, and doled out discipline to just 12 students in the 2014-2015 school year.

I am proud of what we do at Falmouth High School, where we have been able to maintain our Level 1 status for several years now without having to resort to elitist and exclusionary admission practices. Falmouth High School students are regularly awarded top prizes in state science, history, math, foreign language, writing, music, and art competitions.

We have AP Scholars and National Merit Scholars, and our athletic teams can boast regional, state, and even national titles. Falmouth High School students have been admitted to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Middlebury, Amherst, Wellesley, Smith, MIT, Williams, Columbia, University of Chicago, the Air Force Academy, Northwestern, and a slew of other top tier colleges and universities. According to its own 2015-2016 school profile, from 2002 to 2015, it appears not a single Sturgis graduate had been accepted to Harvard or Yale — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/ProfileWest.pdf — nor to Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, or Middlebury, the top four liberal arts colleges in the country.

In its 2016-2017 school profile, Harvard was finally added to the list — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/2016ProfileEast.pdf. Nevertheless, hidden deep within the Sturgis website is a veiled warning that colleges do not always look so kindly on the school’s International Baccalaureate Programme (http://www.sturgischarterschool.org/guidance/IBCollege.html). So it runs a “Programme” with two “m’s” and an “e” at the end, that despite its fancy, pretentious sounding name, may hinder a student’s ability to enter a top college? I’d like to see that disclaimer on the website of any real public high school.

But what is most important, most impressive, is that Falmouth High School is a public school where nobody is turned away. Nobody. We don’t have the right to exclude anyone, and we don’t want that right — because we are a public school. We take every child, whatever his status or ability, and still we retain our Level 1 standing and our sense of dignity. This is what real public schools do, all of them.

As a taxpayer, I am outraged.

As a school administrator, I am angered that not only must we fight for every dollar, but we must fight to keep families from being bamboozled by so-called “public” charter schools. It is nose-on-the-face plain that charter schools are not public schools. Real public schools do not participate in elitist and exclusionary admissions practices that are axiomatically antithetical to the meaning of public education. Go ahead and let charters do what they want, but let’s stop pretending they are public schools, and let’s stop funding them as such. Please vote no on Question 2.

Mary Whalen Gans, J.D., M.Ed.

footnote: Why the need to proclaim that it is a “tuition-free public high school”? What public high school charges tuition? Is it that Sturgis is trying to connote that it’s giving something of great quality that you’d otherwise have to pay for in the private sector? Ridiculous….

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

Third Grade Teacher in Massachusetts: Why I Will Vote No on Question 2

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
4

Michael Macchi teaches third grade at the Phineas Bates, a public school in Boston. He writes here that he will vote NO on Question 2 and explains why.

His bottom line is that as a matter of public policy, it makes more sense to improve and strengthen the public schools we have than to fund a raft of new and unproven schools that might be worse than what we have and that will certainly weaken the ones we have.

He asks, “Why can’t we work together on a common vision” and end the competition that is counterproductive? He would like to see close collaboration between public schools and charter schools, instead of a competition for resources.

He writes:

John, an eight-year-old third grader in my classroom at the Phineas Bates, a Boston Public School in Roslindale, is an English Language Learner and has an intellectual impairment. On any given day, John gets small group instruction from me in math, 1:1 reading intervention from our special education teacher, and a socially-rich physical education. The supports that John and other kids like him receive are in tremendous jeopardy come November 8 unless Massachusetts votes no on question two, and opposes the proposal to authorize up to 12 new charter schools every year…

Imagine the well-rounded the education that students like John would receive if we shift our focus from creating unproven schools at the expense of public school students to finding ways to work together to improve the schools in Massachusetts that already exist. Let’s vote no on question two. Instead of lifting the cap, let’s refine our vision of what an excellent education looks like by adopting best practices from both public schools and the charter school system. This is something that I and my colleagues can get truly excited about.

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts

Jersey Jazzman Responds to David Leonhardt: Do Charters “Work”?

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
17

A couple of days ago, New York Times’ writer David Leonardt wrote a column endorsing Question 2 in Massachusetts, which would expand charters by 12 a year for the indefinite future. He presented some studies to buttress his view that charters are “schools that work,” which he defines as “high expectations, high support.” He visited the MATCH charter school and talked to some of the researchers, who were excited about their findings. Leonardt acknowledged that not all charter schools were as effective as the ones in Boston, but nonetheless thought it was a good idea to authorize more charters in Massachusetts.

I invited Jersey Jazzman, who is a teachers and also a graduate student at Rutgers, to review the column and the evidence. Here is his response, as he is an expert on charter research.

He begins by suggesting that the comparisons in the study cited by Leonhardt are inadequate.

Because simply showing that charter school students in Boston get better test scores than similar students in the Boston Public Schools is not, I’m afraid, nearly enough evidence to support lifting the cap. In fact, the more time I spend looking at this research, the more questions I have about whether Massachusetts can reasonably expect charter expansion to improve its schools:

– Are the students who enter charter lotteries equivalent to the students who don’t? This is a critical limitation of these studies that is often ignored by those who cite them. The plain fact is that the very act of entering your child into a charter school lottery marks you as different from the rest of the population; you are taking an affirmative step the majority of public school parents are not taking in an attempt to improve your child’s education. There’s a real likelihood your family is not equivalent to a family that doesn’t enter the lottery…

It’s not always clear how to calculate the overall target population in these studies; I used the Ns that made the most sense to me.** But even if we’re not quite sure about the exact numbers, the scope of the issue is clear: the study sample is only a fraction of the total population. Which would be fine — if the sample was randomly drawn from the target population.

But clearly, that’s not the case: The sample is self-selected, because families have to choose to enter the lottery. Which means the results of the study can only be generalized to that population, because there may be characteristics of the students in the sample that are different from the entire Boston population and affect test scores….

First of all, how do we know the charters are any different than the traditional public schools regarding these school practices? Angrist, Pathak & Walters (2012) surveyed charters for their practices, which is fine… except we don’t really know how they compare to the public district schools. If we’re going to ascribe effects to these practices, we should know how they differ across our treatment and control schools.

We can say, however, that the charters have longer school days and years. This is probably a significant contributor to any effects the charters show. But is it necessary to expand charters to lengthen instructional time? Can’t Boston just do that in its district schools?

JJ points out that charters are known for their reliance on inexperienced teachers who burn out and leave within 2-3 years. Does the Boston area have enough wannabe teachers to staff a growing number of charters? Is it really a good idea to rely on policies of churn-and-burn for teachers, continually recycling inexperienced teachers to meet the demand for them?

He says that the question of cost is central to the proposal for expansion. Parents understand that more money for new charters means less money for public schools, their own community’ public schools.

JJ writes:


And, yes, there are costs. As this clever model developed by a couple of public school parents shows, districts can’t easily absorb the costs of charter expansion, which is why the state offers extra funds. Unfortunately, the state has not fully funded this program in recent years; if they can’t find the money now, how will they find even more funding in the future?

We know that charters place fiscal burdens on hosting districts, largely because they educate students who would otherwise go to private school and they replicate administrative and other costs by creating multiple systems of school governance. We know that charters are not held to the same standards of transparency and accountability as public district schools, because they are not state actors. This has created major problems in other states, incentivizing behaviors that are not in the public’s interest.

Is it not possible, given all this, that Boston’s charters are getting good results because of the cap? That limiting their expansion has increased quality and stopped the abuses that have plagued states like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, which have let charter expansion run wild?

He concludes:

I understand Boston’s children can’t wait any longer for real improvement in their schools and their lives. But lifting the cap largely on the basis of these limited studies is not, in my opinion, smart public policy. The good people of Massachusetts have every right to question whether voting yes on Q2 is in the best interests of students both in and out of charters, and to consider the limits of the evidence presented to them as they make their decision.

And I would add, taking money away from the schools that serve the overwhelming majority of children in Massachusetts so as to open schools for a tiny minority of other students makes no sense from a public policy standpoint–or common sense. Why weaken the public schools that serve more than 90% of children in public schools to benefit the few?

As for David Leonhardt, I suggest that he visit charter schools in Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, and many other states, where charter schools are among the lowest performing schools in the state. Anecdotes do not make good public policy, nor does one visit to a “no-excuses” charter school in Boston.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization, Research

Who Is Voting NO on 2 in Massachusetts? This Video Answers the Question!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
7

This short video was made by parents in Boston.

It shows who is standing together to oppose Question 2, which would authorize 12 new charter schools a year in Massachusetts, every year for the indefinite future.

More charter schools means more budget cuts for the public schools that enroll the vast majority of students. Charters do not enroll the same proportion of students with disabilities and English language learners as public schools.

Massachusetts now has the best performing state school system in the nation. Why disrupt it?

Watch the video, share it, and send it to your friends in Massachusetts.

The billionaires are using $20 million or more to spread their pro-charter message on television and to pay campaign workers.

The parents have no money, and they need our help.

Save public schools in Massachusetts.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization
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