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EPI: Corporate Takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools Makes No Sense

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
17

Poor Milwaukee. It has a thriving voucher sector. It has a thriving charter sector. It has a struggling public sector, overloaded with the children with disabilities and the others that the two private sectors don’t want.

 

Yet neither the voucher schools nor the charter schools get better test scores, and the higher graduation rate of the voucher schools relies on an extraordinary attrition rate (56% of their students leave before 12th grade).

 

On NAEP, Milwaukee is one of the lowest rated districts in the nation, slightly ahead of Detroit.

 

All that choice, and nothing to show for it.

 

So what do the business/civic leaders now propose for Milwaukee: More charter schools!

 

The Economic Policy Institute says what should be obvious: This is a bad idea.

 

Here is a press release on the latest EPI report on Milwaukee:

 
Corporate Takeover of Milwaukee Schools Would Do Nothing to Help Students

Washington, DC | Apr 23, 2014
Wisconsin policymakers and advocates are debating proposals to close low-performing public schools, largely in Milwaukee, and replace them with privately run charter schools. In a new report, Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Economic Policy Institute research associate Gordon Lafer argues that these proposals will enrich private charter schools’ corporate backers while doing little or nothing to help Milwaukee students.

Lafer argues that, because national research shows that charter schools don’t perform better than public schools, there is no reason to replace traditional public schools in Milwaukee with private charters. These proposals will simply divert money from Milwaukee students to corporations and their investors. Especially troubling is the Rocketship chain of schools—promoted by Milwaukee’s business community—which uses a particular blended learning model that allows students to spend a quarter of the day on computers with no certified teacher to monitor their activities and, in the remaining classroom time, relies heavily on test preparation taught by inexperienced educators. This model is not shaped by what’s best for students, but in large part by what will generate profits for investors and fuel the company’s ambitious growth plans.

“To really improve education in Milwaukee, we need to broaden the curriculum to focus on creativity and critical thinking, not just test prep,” said Lafer. “Poor children are no less deserving of a quality education than rich children, and the schools that privileged suburban parents demand for their children should be the yardstick we use to measure the adequacy of education in the city.”

The most ambitious proposals for corporate-backed school reform are skewed against poor cities, while letting corporate-backed charter schools fail for years before facing any consequences. Such legislation would lead to the closing of a growing number of public schools and concentrate the city’s neediest students in a public system without the resources to serve them—possibly bankrupting the public school district.

For more from EPI, see 2007’s Vouchers and Public School Performance: A Case Study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, by Martin Carnoy, Amita Chudgar, and Frank Adamson.

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ABOUT EPI

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States.

Categories Charter Schools, Milwaukee, Privatization, Vouchers

Milwaukee: Poster District for the Failure of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2014 //
19

Bob Peterson here writes about the fate of Milwaukee which is a model city for almost every bad idea of the corporate reform movement.

Milwaukee has had vouchers and charters since 1990. The voucher schools and charter schools do not outperform the public schools. The public schools have disproportionate numbers of students with special needs, who Re not wanted by the voucher and charter schools.

Some of the charter and voucher schools are abysmal and should never have been funded or kept open.

On the NAEP, Milwaukee is one of the nation’s lowest performing districts.

The current school board now wants to turn its lowest-performing schools into charters, even though their record is no better than public schools.

The public schools are slowly and surely dying. The children are not benefitting.

One of our nation’s basic democratic institutions is being abandoned by those responsible for its health.

This is called “reform.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Milwaukee, Vouchers

Forward Institute: Milwaukee Charter Study Shows Effects of Truancy, Poverty, and Experienced Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2014 //
32

The Forward Institute has released a study of charter schools in Milwaukee, comparing district charters, privately managed charters, and public schools.

The findings are instructive. The 2R charter schools are the privately managed charters.

The privately managed charters are skimming, doing grievous harm to the public school system. Any educational “gains” are the result of skimming, not educational effectiveness.

 

Summary of most significant findings

1. School to school comparisons:

  • MPS/2R raw scores – We need to take into account that 2R charter schools have lower truancy and student poverty rates. When we equalize for those factors, the difference becomes insignificant. This means that the 2R Charter school type is NOT creating higher scores.
  • 2R/MPS Charters – We need to take into account that 2R charter schools have lower truancy rates and higher rate of fully licensed teachers. When we equalize for those factors, the difference becomes insignificant. This means that the 2R Charter type is NOT creating higher scores.
  • MPS public/MPS Charters – We need to take into account that MPS public schools have higher disabled enrollment, teacher experience, and student poverty rates than MPS charter schools. When we equalize for these factors, we find that the difference BECOMES significant. This means that MPS public school Report Card Scores actually ARE higher than MPS charter schools.

2. The most significant factor in the Milwaukee School Report Card scores is habitual truancy (Truancy effect slope figure). We can explain almost the entire effect on Report Card scores by three significant factors – habitual truancy rate, student poverty, and the percent of teachers with at least five years of experience. It is important to underscore that “Percent of Teachers with 5 years experience” have the same POSITIVE effect with scores as student poverty has negative effect. The negative truancy effect is 3 times that of the teacher and student poverty effects.

3. The negative effect of truancy is equal across schools. No school type counters these effects through educational effectiveness.

4. The data presented in this study along with other cited research indicates a strong likelihood of student selectivity (“skimming”) by 2R charter schools. This factor creates perceived positive effects which are overstated and unrelated to school type.

5. We suggest that school and parental bias factors are theorized to have a negative effect on the students left behind by an opt-out system which functions as a new form of segregation based on prior student achievement, parental participation, and schools picking “desirable students.”

The study reached the following conclusions:

1. There is strong evidence that 2R charter schools [privately managed charters] have selection biases which reinforce each other, and have nothing to do with educational efficacy – confirming theorized “skimming” effects.

2. Recent published research (Dr. Kern Alexander, U of I, Journal of Education Finance, Fall 2012)[1] confirms what is now known from 20 years of Cognitive Science research[2] – that people make decisions based on deeply held values, beliefs, and cultural biases – not from best information. This is critical in understanding how ANY publicly subsidized, parallel education system is based on a false premise – that people will select a school based on educational effectiveness. THIS IS FALSE. In education decisions, as in economics, people do not behave as rational actors. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

3. The system in Milwaukee is leading to selection bias on the part of schools and parents, which is causing predictably higher performing students to opt out of public schools for multiple bias reasons, leaving higher concentrations of higher needs student in the public schools.

4. Higher concentrations of higher needs students places more stress on a school, requiring more resources – which are not there because of funding required for the parallel, publicly subsidized schools which are skimming funding as well as students.

5. The cycle is now continuous as funding for higher needs, public school students continues to be cut. These are the schools in our most distressed communities which will be faced with closure, only to be replaced by 2R style charter schools which do NOT offer a better education for a more select group of students – leaving many behind.

This is becoming a vicious, downward spiral in Milwaukee. Current policy being debated would perpetuate this cycle through inappropriate use of School Report Cards. School Report Cards provide local schools with another rung on the educational ladder of success. They provide insights into what works, and what requires further development and investment to ensure educational opportunity for every child. Instead, there are policymakers who would have the Report Cards be used as a wrecking ball – to literally wreck public schools in our most distressed communities, and replace them with schools that do not provide equal opportunity for every child.

Policy Recommendations

1. The entire Milwaukee community (and the state of Wisconsin) should commit to a proactive, wide reaching truancy project. One place to start is the model program “Walking School Bus” which has been successful in getting kids to school in other urban areas.

2. A ten year plan to sunset the 2R charter and any publicly subsidized private schools. A 20 year experiment has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and shown no real educational benefit or effectiveness beyond what is available in public schools.

3. Develop criteria for proper use of School Report Cards as another means for local districts to gauge successes and further needs – not as a wrecking ball.

4. Address the issue of inequitable funding in Wisconsin Public Schools in the face of increasing populations of high needs students.

5. The state needs to begin addressing the real issues facing communities in distress, as schools will follow.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Milwaukee, Privatization

Most Milwaukee Charter Schools Fall Below Expectations

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2014 //
5

Newly released state report cards show that 53% of independent charter schools in Milwaukee are not meeting expectations.

Erin Richards of the Journal-Sentinel writes:

Despite having more freedom over curriculum, budgets and staffing than traditional public schools, the majority of Milwaukee’s independent charter schools are not meeting performance expectations, according to statewide report card results for 2012-’13.

Of the 17 independent charters in Milwaukee that received a rating through the state’s new school report card accountability system, 53% fell below expectations, with two schools authorized by the City of Milwaukee receiving a failing grade.

The report cards released by the state this month are not perfect measures of school progress, but the results still raise questions about whether independent charters should be producing better results. The schools are publicly financed but privately managed, and are given freedom from bureaucratic restraints on school districts in exchange for upholding a promise to deliver on performance.

“It’s pretty clear we all have work to do,” said Cindy Zautcke, who directs the City of Milwaukee’s charter school initiative.

The discussion about performance is also pertinent because of a new law the state Legislature passed this spring that allows independent charter schools to expand to the five-county Milwaukee area, if the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee agrees to authorize the potential schools.

In addition:

A total of 18 independent charter schools were rated, including 17 in Milwaukee and one in Racine. Together those rated schools enrolled almost 7,500 students.

■ In Milwaukee, independent charters authorized by UWM posted better overall grades than schools authorized by Milwaukee’s Common Council. The average report card score out of 100 for UWM charters was 65.7, compared with 57.8 for the city’s charter schools.

■ As a sector, Milwaukee’s independent charter schools outscored Milwaukee Public Schools. Among independent charters in the city, 47% met or exceeded the state’s expectations. In MPS, 25% of the rated schools met or exceeded expectations.

■ But on a percentage basis, the 134 schools rated in MPS educated three times as many students learning English and twice as many students with special needs, compared with independent charters. The charter schools enrolled a lower percentage of white students and lower percentage of students in poverty than MPS.

The leader of the local charter school association said the report cards were not a good measure of school quality.

The two City of Milwaukee-authorized schools that received the lowest grade, “fails to meet expectations,” were Milwaukee Math and Science Academy and Milwaukee Collegiate Academy, formerly called CEO Leadership Academy and connected to voucher school advocate Howard Fuller.

Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/many-independent-charter-schools-miss-mark-on-state-report-cards-b99102550z1-224814982.html#ixzz2rSKZlIva
Follow us: @JournalSentinel on Twitter

Categories Charter Schools, Milwaukee

Business Leaders Push More Privatization in Milwaukee

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2013 //
30

Some critics of my book “Reign of Error” say that “reformers” are not privatizers. Who, me, they say, in all innocence?

I invite them to read this post by veteran reporter Bobby Tanzilo in Milwaukee. Here is a city with a thriving voucher program, a thriving charter sector, and a shrinking public school system (that contains disproportionate numbers of students with disabilities and English learners who are unwanted by the other two sectors).

All of this competition among the three sectors was to produce dramatic improvement, but it didn’t. Milwaukee has had school choice for 23 years. Today, it is one of the lowest performing urban districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But the business leaders of Milwaukee, Tanzilo writes, want more choice. They want more privatization. They want the entire city school district turned into a “Recovery School District,” to emulate those in New Orleans and Memphis.

Tanzilo writes:

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce – which has in the past supported stripping the elected school board of its power and drawing away funding from Milwaukee Public Schools to pay for private and religious school vouchers – sponsored a pair of PowerPoint presentations on education that were shown to its members in August.

These slideshows touted the so-called “recovery districts” in New Orleans and Memphis and suggest to me – and others I’ve spoken to – that rumors that the group is pushing the recovery district idea for Milwaukee are true.

Recovery districts are public school systems that have had their autonomy and local control usurped by state capitols at the urging of corporate school reformers whose goal is to privatize public schools. The districts are then turned over to private, outside entities that are accountable to no one … or at least not us citizens and parents.

In short, they want to eliminate public education in Milwaukee altogether. They should do their homework. Even the Cowen Institute at Tulane–which supports charter schools–acknowledges that 2/3 of the charters in New Orleans are low-performing schools. And the so-called Achievement District in Memphis is too new to have any meaningful results.

The bottom line is that the business and civic leaders in Milwaukee think that the best way to improve the schools is to abolish public education and privatize control of all the schools. They have not a scintilla of evidence for doing so. The charter sector and the voucher sector in Milwaukee do not outperform the struggling public sector.

What is it that appeals to Milwaukee’s leaders? The absence of any democratic role in public education?

 

Categories Milwaukee, Privatization, Vouchers
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