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Angie Sullivan: We Want Magnets, Not Charters!

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
17

Angie Sullivan teaches first grade in a Title 1 school in Clark County (Las Vegas) with large numbers of English learners.

She sends her missives to legislators and journalists in Nevada.

ASD is the all-charter district modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District. A complete and total failure that Nevada copies.

Angie writes:


We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

ASD Rebecca holds her annual school grab.

She does not know what she is doing. Do not allow her or Jana to take your school.

Parents may have say in future of Clark County’s failing schools

Parents in Vegas can convert their neighborhood public school into a charter? And that has worked where?

Every successful white person Vegas charter – is sitting next to a successful white person public school. All in white neighborhoods full of five star “choices”. Successful Nevada charters are white. They support segregation and white flight.

The place folks need a real choice – charters do not work.

Get ready Vegas Parents to fight for your school. Our community will not be served by white folks in a white charters. Nor they will be served by young white folks imported into Nevada to do the takeover job.

For profit charters and corporate takeover is a scam.

Non-profit ASD is defunct. Futuro stinks. Agassi stinks. Do not go into that crap. ASD is now the worst district in Nevada. It used to be Nevada Charters were the lowest performers but now it is this new piece of garbage with 100% failure.

Where is the ASD data?

Is the ASD built to hide data?

Everyone involved needs to demand accountability for this new disfunction NVDOE is using to grab schools.

_______________________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

_______________________________

Look at the list closely attached to the bottom of this file.

Keep in mind that Vegas has 349 schools. 39 are struggling – they seem to all be in minority impoverished areas of town. Most serve language learners who research has shown need several years to learn academic English. Not difficult to figure out how to fix a money and support problem. Those schools need money and support. Lower class sizes and supplies.

NVDOE and the ASD will try to grab CCSD schools.

They do not know our students.

They do not love our students.

They will not serve our students.

They will grab schools listed because parents will not be informed.

Spread the word – no to ASD charters.

If they want to give a school money to improve – with research based best practice – great.

Turning any Vegas school into a charter is a scam.

If ASD Rebecca wants to come into your school and show a crappy charter video – tell her to hit the road.

We already know how to read a science book to kids or plug students into the computer. That is not teaching or effective.

Privatization is not education.

___________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

Every year I get angry that our community is targeted while the rest of the state flounders. NVDOE – do your job. You have plenty to grab. Go to these white areas and get it done.

Look at Elko. 100% of its schools are in severe failure. What is happening there? Those schools are along the Carlin Trend and heavily susidized by mining proceeds in a primarily white English speaking area. What is going on?

Look at Washoe which has pages on that list. A heavy heavy percentage of those schools are struggling – with more per pupil than Vegas. And again largely English speaking and middle class areas. What is going on?

Rural Nevada is sinking. When a school fails in a small town – it may be the only school in town. Better address those first. Charter “competition” kills the public schools and does not help small towns. It leaves expensive and hard to educate special education students in public schools and allows “choice” to everyone else.

Again the NV Charter schools are sinking. These schools serve white flight families. They are failing. Severely. That data which at least includes more of their 80+ campuses – is bad – extremely bad considering there are 24 charters and a large chunk are the lowest performers – again. Every year. Again.

It is not Vegas that is the high priority problem.

Folks who are brown do not want to be a target.

This has to stop.

Did not work in New Orleans.

Did not work in Tennessee.

Is not working in Nevada.

How many students have to be hurt to stop this ASD madness?

________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

The Teacher,

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Inequity, Injustice, Nevada, Privatization

Nevada: Time to Close Down the Worst, Least Accountable Charter Schools in America

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2018 //
4

Charter schools in Nevada are a national joke. They can fail and fail and fail, and the state doesn’t care. For charter schools, there is no accountability. CREDO Director Macke Raymond said at a national Education Writers Association meeting in 2015, directing her remarks to Ohions, who spend $1 billion annually on charters: “Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst.” (https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/03/ohios_charter_schools_ridicule.html)

Clark County first grade teacher Angie Sullivan recently wrote to legislators and journalists:

We need to close the DeVos Charter.

Not in February. Now.

DeVos proclaimed Nevada Virtual Academy an example of success. A direct lie.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/02/04/513220220/betsy-devos-graduation-rate-mistake

On June 25, the Charter Authority will openly discuss revoking that charter.

Click to access 180625-Notice.pdf

Flooding Nevada with K-12 ads. The for-profit charter proclaimed a success by DeVos while huge number of Nevada Virtual students are not participating, scoring well, or graduating.

Empty threats given on Governor letterhead. Who is accountable for this extreme mess?

Nothing done.

Nevada Virtual Academy is not scared of being closed. Nevada does not close failing charters or even demand regular academic data. Charters will continue to take tax payer money without being accountable. Creating the largest alternative lowest of the low performing school system in the state and possibly the nation.

______________________________

We need an Nevada Charter audit.

Given Nevada’s total disregard for charter school accountability. We are an example to the nation of the extreme distinction which occurs without any accountability.

On-line charters in particular have questionable practices.

Are students actually enrolled? When looking at on-line numbers, how can so many students be supposedly enrolled in on-line instruction but not be taking high stakes testing?

The numbers are telling. We pay. Students do not test. Students do not graduate. Those who do test are scoring lower than everyone else.

Perhaps on-line charters should only be paid for the handful of students actually participating. The tax payer should be concerned. Millions being paid for on-line student learning and it is highly questionable.

An audit should be demanded.

—————————————

Half the Nevada Charters need to be closed. If they are floundering in financial and academic failure, close them. And all campuses need to return and report, not in clumps, site by site.

Zero Failing Nevada Charters have been closed. Not even those without funds to continue – floundering in receivership and demanding money to continue in bankrupt dysfunction. Nevada throwing good money after bad. The tax payer should be disgusted with $350 million in Nevada Charter School waste.

No accountability.

No transparency.

________________________

We should all be disgusted by our political leaders.

One set of rigorous standards for Nevada Public Schools which are ironically turned into charters. Why is that a good idea? The data shows tax payer money will be misused by Nevada Charters. Nevada Charters are a national disgrace. Find a state with worse charters than Nevada. I dare you.

Thank you Nevada politicians and legislators present and former who are heavy advocates on both sides for this embarrassing disgrace. Many hold positions on charter board and groups. You are failures.

Politicians, you have made this incredible mess. I suggest you act quickly to find a remedy. I’m worried this is criminal and your fingerprints are all over it.

The Teacher,

Angie

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Nevada, Privatization

Andre Agassi, Tennis Legend, Now Profits from Privatizing Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
32

Andre Agassi became a tennis legend as a young man. He started tennis early, having dropped out of school at the end of eighth grade to make his mark on clay courts.

Then he opened his own charter school in Las Vegas, and promised that every student would be prepared for a selective college (Agassi never completed high school). Agassi plowed $18 million into the school to assure that it had the best of everything. He told the New York Times in 2004 that he wanted his school to be a model for the nation.

Unfortunately the Agassi school was a disaster. Teachers and principals cycled in and out through a revolving door. It had six principals in its first decade. The cheerleading coach was accused of running a prostitution ring on the side. Security guards complained that the kids were out of control. The scores were about the same as the district’s, despite what teachers called “a chaotic learning environment.” (Source: Amy Kingsley, “Learning Curve,” Las Vegas Citylife, March 14, 2012).

It ended up on the state’s list of low-performing schools. At the very bottom.

What does a state do with a low-performing charter school? Turn it into a public school? Absolutely not! It was handed over to the Democracy Prep Charter chain of New York.

But the word “failure” is not in Andre Agassi’s vocabulary. Last year, he went to the big annual entrepreneur’s conference at Arizona State University to boast about the millions he was now making building new charters. And he pretends that his school in Las Vegas was a phenomenal success.

Andre Agassi, who was once the number one tennis player in the world, has helped build 70 charter schools in the past four years, educating 33,000 students. And that’s just the beginning, he told hundreds of attendees at the 2017 ASU/GSV Summit here Wednesday.

“We have $1 billion more to spend,” he said.

Agassi described his passion for education, his drive to scale up successful charter schools across the nation, and the business model he’s using to do so in an interview with sportscaster Ted Robinson.

“It took me 14 years to build one school in Clark County [Nev.] for 1,300 students,” said Agassi. That school, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, is a K-12 public charter school that educates students in a low-income neighborhood of West Las Vegas. The academy was constructed with $40 million raised by the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education

At least he has the good sense not to replicate his own failed charter school. Why bother, when he can make $1 Million for every charter school he builds and opens.

Charter schools that have been funded through the Turner-Agassi fund have included KIPP, Rocketship, Academica, Franklin Academy and Lighthouse Academies.

Agassi knows nothing about education but he knows how to turn a profit. In 2023, he bought a building in the Bronx, New York, for $4.3 Million. Five years later, in a related-party transaction, his charter building sold the site to his charter schools for $24 Million. Somebody pocketed $20 Million. Isn’t the charter industry amazing?

What a shame to see a tennis icon reduced to charter shill, profiting by hurting public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Failure, Nevada, Privatization

Nevada: The Copy-Cat “Achievement School District” Is Failing

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2017 //
8

Angie Sullivan teaches young children in the public schools of Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. Her school is a Title I School. She often excoriates the legislature for ignoring the needs of the state’s neediest children. In this post, which she sent to legislators and journalists, she reminds them that Nevada’s charter schools are among the lowest performing schools in the state, and that their so-called Achievement School District, modeled on the ASD that failed in Tennessee, is also a massive failure.

The Nevada ASD

The Achievement School District is the biggest reform failure in the state of Nevada.

Built on the flawed premise that charters are a remedy for failing public schools, the ASD forces 6 failing public schools into charters. Unfortunately, the worst academic performers in Nevada are charters. Charters are not a remedy. There are zero excellent charters in Nevada. And certainly zero excellent charters in places needing remedy in Nevada.

This is a description of Nevada ASD.

http://www.doe.nv.gov/News__Media/Press_Releases/2016a/Nevada_Achievement_School_District_Eligibility_List_Submitted_to_State_Board_of_Education/

When implemented, no one wanted the ASD job. Certainly no one in the Nevada community wanted the task.

Eventually a young woman Jana Wilcox Lavin with a background in public relations and marketing was imported from the failed Tennessee ASD model to form the new Nevada ASD.

Jana immediately announced she did not want to “takeover” an older school facility. Her primary concern was plumbing. Seems that her “takeover” in Tennessee had issues with pipes she did not want to deal with again. Also charter vendors are not attracted to rural communities. And charter takeover of a failing charter was not an option. Proving ASD charters were not a remedy for student achievement but a business function since they do not go where a remedy for student achievement is needed the most.

Jana has moved on and is now at Opportunity 180. That organization had $10 million (including funds from Eli Broad) under former Nevada State School Board Member Allison Serafin to bring non-profit charters to Nevada. Opportunity 180 also failed.

Due to low per pupil funding, ASD and Opportunity 180 did not attract any quality charter vendors. It certainly did not attract quality vendors with education experience dealing with high poverty and high language learning populations.

Some scary vendors were chosen – later to be excluded.

As mentioned before, the selection process for the ASD was unfair with schools being “chosen” in urban Vegas because the facilities were new. I believe the ASD thought minority parents would be easily swayed to become a charter. They were wrong.

The underperforming list was very telling. Half the list were rural schools and charters. Many listed were immediately disqualified because they were already charters. Outside charter vendors had zero appetite for rural school takeover. No one had an appetite for rural school takeover. Again proving the ASD is not a function of doing what is best for all Nevada students.

The ASD moved to force the six charter vendors on minority communities in Vegas.

Low Performing Vegas schools were the victims. While a very small handful of parents welcomed becoming a charter, overwhelmingly the community came out by the thousands rejecting “takeover”. The community is tired of failed experimentation on communities of color by outsiders. Decades of invasion has taught our parents to be highly skeptical and critical of crazy ideas imposed by top-down policy makers who do not know or care about our kids.

The ASD ended up taking in the Agassi Charters and a very tiny four teacher Futuro started by Allison Serafin’s TFA friends. Some schools ended up with a “compact” since there was no one willing to take them over.

During the last legislative session, correction of this failed reform was attempted. Unfortunately the revised legislation may have been worse than the current version with teacher voice squelched and parent trigger like language. The correction was about forcing charters with even stronger language. Hard to explain the poison pills the NVDOE wanted to place in the revision but they were nasty. While some pieces of the new legislation were better; other pieces were worse. Unfortunate maneuvering by the NVDOE and the ASD. Taught me a lot about the individuals at the NVDOE and how little they know about my community.

We needed to change the ASD legislation but the poison was too hard to swallow.

We are stuck with a system which parents already rejected.

This years underperforming list looks to be similar to last years list. The lowest of the low performers are obviously charter schools and rural schools once again.

https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/362048046/Nevada-s-2017-Rising-Stars-Schools?skip_app_promo=true

Elementary Schools

CCSD Bottom 5% – 12 Schools (5%)
CCSD Low Performing – 14 Schools (6%)
CCSD has 216 elementary schools. (11%)

Washoe Bottom 5% – 3 Schools (5%)
Washoe Low Performing – 5 Schools (8%)
WCSD has 60 elementary schools (13%)

Rural Bottom 5% – 3 Schools
Rural Low Performing- 8 Schools
** 100% of schools in most places are failing – since often only a singular choice is offered**

Charter Bottom 5% – 1 Schools (4%)
Charter Low Performing – 4 Schools (17%)
24 charters – (21%)

Middle Schools

CCSD Bottom 5% – 2 schools (3%)
CCSD Low Performing – 6 schools (10%)
CCSD has 59 middle schools. (13%)

Washoe Low Performing – 2 schools (13%)
WCSD has 15 middle schools (13%)

Rural Bottom 5% – 5 schools
Rural Low Performing – 4 schools
** 100% of schools in most places are failing – since often only a singular choice is offered**

High Schools

CCSD – 4 schools
CCSD has 49 high schools. (8%)

Rural – 5 schools
** 100% of schools in most places are failing – since often only a singular choice is offered**

Charters – 8 schools (67%)
24 charters – 12 having high schools

Nevada has 24 charters. 11 are on the list. 46% of charters are performing lowest of the low. Mater (Academica) , NV Connections, Nevada Virtual, Quest, Delta Academy, Innovations, Odyssey, Beacon, Encompass, Silver State, and I Can Do Anything.

Elko County has nine schools. 7 are on the list. 78% of its schools.

Places like McDermitt which serves primarily Native Americans – 100% of its schools are on the list for elementary and high school.

Unfortunately the list still includes schools which are obviously credit retrieval and alternative programs. This should be fixed instead of continuing to list obvious programs already identified as specialized.

Alternative Schools
CCSD Burk
CCSD Desert Rose
Nye Pathways

In summary:

If ASD is really about improving student achievement and not a Vegas school grab – it will look at the data.

Reform rural schools first since there is zero other school choice in those locations. Some places have the most obvious and overwhelming need. Start in Elko and McDermitt. ASD should focus on places with 100% of schools failing – which are most of the rural schools listed and a third of the list.

In addition, all schools listed should be allowed to make a compact instead of charter takeover if targeted. This was allowed last year and set a precedent.

If CCSD schools are the only schools targeted again for takeover – it will be obvious to everyone this is unfair according to the data. Also, Vegas offers choice by magnet, zone variance, and location. Parents can move students because we have 351 schools not a singular choice.

Charters under scrutiny by the State Public Charter Authority, in receivership, or under investigation should not be allowed to “escape” by opting in to the ASD. That would include all of them on the low performing lists. Nevada Charters have avoided accountability for too long. They need to be closed if they are failing.

Personal note: Also listed are many schools with ZOOM, Victory, SB178 money. This shows that money is obviously required and the Vegas schools labeled Low Performing are filled with students experiencing high poverty and language learners. Since this funding was recently legislated, especially the weighted funding, those places should be left alone to see if those funds can work.

I will be watching ASD closely to make sure it makes it choices based on student achievement . . . and not nice real estate or extra money.

Forcing a charter on minority communities is not school choice.

And that is why Nevada ASD is a huge policy failure.

Angie.

Categories Charter Schools, Failure, Fraud, Nevada, Tennessee

Clark County Deficit: Cut Administration First, Not Classrooms!

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2017 //
5

Clark County, Nevada, discovered it has a deficit. A big one!

Because of poor planning and oversight, the district has a budget deficit of $80 million. It intends to lay off teachers and slash services for children. Most of the children in Clark County are poor.

Why should the children pay for the adults’ mismanagement?

Sign this petition on change.org, calling for actions to cut central Administration, not children or teachers.

https://www.change.org/p/mayoderios-gmail-com-clark-county-school-district-cut-central-bureaucracy-budget-first

Accountability starts at the top!

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Nevada

Nevada Rejects ESA Vouchers, But Funds Tax Credit Voucher

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
12

A voucher is a voucher is a voucher. It means shifting public tax money to private schools.

The Democrat-controlled Nevada Legislature rejected Education Savings Accounts vouchers, which would have allowed every family to have a debit card for education. It was hailed by conservatives as the best universal voucher program in the nation. But it will not be funded. However, the Democrats did allocate $10 million for tax credits, which allow wealthy individuals and corporations to donate to a private scholarship fund. What should have been paid in taxes goes to pay for private schools. A rose is a rose is a rose.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article154497234.html

Categories Nevada, Vouchers

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley: The Top Ten Research-Based Reasons Why Standardized Tests Should NOT Be Used to Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
11

The value-added assessment model that was forced on states by Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top is starting to fall apart, in the courts and in the experience of every state compelled to use it.

In this post, evaluation expert Audrey Amrein-Beardsley explains the top ten reasons why large scale, standardized tests should not be used to evaluate teachers.

She faced off against the rightwing National Council on Teacher Quality, which has consistently supported VAM and high-stakes testing. It is funded by, among others, the Gates Foundation.

Categories National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Nevada, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Brookings Sullies Its Reputation By Aligning with DeVos Agenda for Privatization

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2017 //
35

The Brookings Institution used to be referred to as a liberal think tank. In reality, it was a nonpartisan think tank that hired former high-level officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations and produced valuable studies and reports. As I was ending my time in the first Bush administration in late 1992, the president of Brookings came to my office at the US Department of Education and invited me to accept the Brown Chair in Education Policy. Since I did not want to live permanently in DC, I declined his offer but agreed to be a Senior Fellow. I was in residence at Brookings until 1995, wrote a book on national standards, then returned to Brooklyn. I continued to be a Non-Resident Senior Fellow until 2012, when I was summarily fired from my unpaid position by Grover Whitehurst, who joined Brookings as chair of the Brown Policy program after serving as director of education research in the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps it was happenstance, but the email from Whitehurst came a few hours after the online release of my blistering critique of Mitt Romney, whom Whitehurst was advising. Whitehurst fired me because, he said, I was “inactive.”

Whitehurst served for a few years as head of the Brown Center but was quietly removed as the Chair. Now, he uses Brookings and its prestige to promote the Republican agenda of privatization.

Here is the latest, in which Whitehurst plugs charters because “We do not know how to create or sustain uniformly great neighborhood schools.” He should have added that “We also don’t know how to create or sustain uniformly great charter schools.” There is no existence proof, even though charters choose their students and exclude students with serious disabilities and ELLs and push out behavior problems. Residents of Clark County, Nevada, may be surprised to see that he raised their grade, since most charters in Nevada are failing schools, concentrated in Clark County, and the funding for the voucher program (which he hails) has been halted by state courts. Columbus, Ohio, got good marks even though the scandal-ridden charters in Ohio have become a bad joke.

To make sure that everyone noticed that Brookings was linking its reputation to the most controversial, least qualified member of the Trump cabinet, DeVos was invited to speak at the press conference on the only subject she knows: the glories of school choice.

The press release reads:

School Choice Increasing Nationally; Secretary DeVos to Speak at Release of Brookings’ Annual School Choice Rankings
Proportion of large school districts allowing choice has nearly doubled since 2000; Denver wins top spot for large districts for second year in a row

Rankings from Brookings’ 2016 Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI)—an annual ranking of school choice in the nation’s 100 largest school districts—will be unveiled today at a Brookings event featuring keynote remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. You can watch a livestream of the Secretary’s remarks at 9:30 AM EDT.

In a summary of the results (PDF), ECCI’s author and Brookings Senior Fellow Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst highlights the growth of choice across the nation’s school districts according to trends tracked by ECCI, many of which can be observed since 2000. Whitehurst notes that the proportion of large school districts allowing choice has nearly doubled over the past 16 years. That coincides with other measures of the growth of school choice, including that the number of large districts for which charter school enrollment is at least 30 percent of total public enrollment has increased from one to ten.

Whitehurst writes: “There is no question empirically that opportunities for parents to choose among traditional public schools for their children, to choose a charter school, and to receive a financial subsidy to attend a private school have grown leaps and bounds in the last 15-20 years. The traditional school district model is no longer the monopoly it used to be.”

The ECCI is not designed to answer causal questions about what system or education delivery mechanism works best, but to reveal what’s happening on the ground by providing a snapshot of choice and competition in each district and allowing for comparisons of specific policies and practices across districts. The rankings are based on objective scoring of 13 categories of education policy and practice. School choice options considered by the rankings include: the opportunity of choosing any traditional public school in a district (open enrollment), charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, and affordable private schools.

Whitehurst notes that critics of school choice often assert that the alternative to choice is to assure that every public school is of high quality, but that “universal access to a great neighborhood school is a pipedream.”

“We do not know how to create or sustain uniformly great neighborhood schools. There is no existing proof that we do, and there is strong empirical evidence that the performance of schools varies substantially everywhere there are large numbers of schools to compare…School choice is one way of addressing the reality of the normal curve of school performance by giving parents the opportunity of moving their children out of schools that are in the lower tail of the distribution.”

Students in the nation’s 100+ largest school districts are overwhelmingly (91 percent) in public schools, with 56 percent of the ECCI districts allowing choice within the traditional public schools. According to Whitehurst, “advocates of school choice should take note of the reality that for the foreseeable future the greatest opportunities for the expansion of choice are in the public school sector through furthering the reach of open enrollment.”

Denver, which received the highest score on this year’s ECCI, and the Recovery District serving New Orleans are the only two districts in the ECCI that receive grades of A on school choice. Both are characterized by: open enrollment and a centralized assignment process requiring a single application from parents for all public schools; a good mix and utilization by parents of alternatives to traditional public schools; rich information to parents to support school choice, including a school assignment website that allows parents to make side-by-side comparisons of schools; funding that follows students to the school in which they enroll; a fair and efficient formula for matching school assignments for students to the expressed preferences of their parents; and provisions for transportation of students to schools of choice outside their neighborhoods.

Notably, Camden City School District in New Jersey and Clark County School District in Nevada saw substantive enough changes to move them from receiving an F in the previous year to a B- and C-, respectively. Clark County’s increase in score was largely due to Nevada’s Educational Choice Scholarship program, which was enacted and launched in 2015. Camden, NJ experienced a dramatic increase in score and grade on the 2016 ECCI by virtue of rolling out a new process for school search, application, and assignment.

New to the top 10 list this year are Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago, while Baltimore and Tucson dropped off. Chicago showed a score increase due to its decision to include data on student growth among the information on school performance provided to parents on its website. The score for Columbus increased, in part, because the district documented a student-based funding formula for schools.

Almost one-quarter, or 26 of the 112 school districts scored on the 2016 ECCI, received a grade of F, meaning that families have very little in the way of school choice other than what they can exercise by choosing to live within the geographical assignment zone of their preferred public school. Or, if they do provide school choice, the process is hidden from parents.

You can learn more about the 2016 ECCI rankings by exploring an interactive breakdown of results or reading a report of topline takeaways (PDF).

CONTACT
Delaney Parrish
Assistant Director of Communications, Economic Studies
202-797-2969 | DRParrish@brookings.edu | @DParrish
BROOKINGS
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Nevada, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Nevada: Why is This Failing Virtual Charter School Never Closed?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2017 //
2

Angie Sullivan teaches first- and second-grade students in a Title 1 school in Carson County, Nevada. She sends her email reports to legislators and journalists. She is the conscience of Nevada.

She writes:


Attached is a report I put together in an attempt to review what data I could find on Nevada Connections Academy.

I did include some research on the parent corporation also for background which may or may not give you insight into the Nevada Connections Academy.

Opened in 2007 – Nevada Connections has never been successful.

Ten years later the Nevada Charter Authority is attempting to shut down this charter because of poor graduation rates.

Ten years.

I have been studying this information for months and have yet to see any accountability by Nevada Charters. Claims that they can be closed are not backed by real evidence. Nevada Charters close due to bankruptcy and fraud. They do not close due to severe and consistent academic under-performance.

As you review the data – you will notice that in most years and most grade levels half or more of the students are failing.

Graduation rates have been abysmal.

If I am reading the hard to understand reports correctly, in 2016 Nevada most likely paid $6,000 X 2400 = $14,400,000 to Nevada Connections Academy for High School Seniors and 40% or 914 graduated.

Total enrollment in Nevada Connections Academy was report at 2,851. Overall the Nevada Tax Payer spend $17,106,000 for less than half its students to be proficient.

The school also has a swinging door with half its students turning over. Due to lack of regulation and oversight – plus the “missing” students every year at testing time – I have to ask if the Nevada Tax Payer is paying for students not even in the program any longer.

nevada graph

Understandably parents and students do not want their charter school to close.

Parent and students do not want my public school to close either. Yet, I am held accountable. My school can be turned around or taken over by the Achievement School District. This failing charter has been doing poorly for 10 years and what has happened?

Nothing.

Parent and students base their “choice” of school on things other than standardized testing and numbers. I understand this very well. And they will protest if this school is closed. However, I am using this an example which is fairly similar to half of Nevada’s Charters which are on the lowest performing list.

Half of Nevada’s charters are on the lowest performing list. The worst graduation rates in the state are in the State Public Charter School System.

This charter is one of many in Nevada not doing well.

Half of Nevada’s charters are on the lowest performing list.

Parents need access to charter information at the same level public schools are required to give information to parents. In an annual report published on-line. Charters which spend on marketing to produce enrollment numbers need to be giving their data and graduation rate information to student prior to enrollment. No one should have to dig around in the Nevada Report Card for a month to try to determine if a school is academically achieving. If these charters are actually serving students not expected to graduate – if they are alternative schools – they should tell parents up-front the likelihood of graduating from these schools.

Charters need to be audited. Public schools have the SAGE Commission. Charters should have a similiar body which looks at return on investment and other financial measures.

I just attempted to watch an audit or something like an audit on-line from the charter authority.

https://manage.lifesizecloud.com/#/publicvideo/975a6334-1f01-4734-9678-cc6042d30f29?vcpubtoken=2021a45f-3957-40df-97a4-8cc8d9196bdb

Besides cheerleading for charters – I’m not sure the audit produced much information. It certainly did not expose anything I have discovered in the last few months. Watch the video for yourself and ask yourself if the Nevada Charter Authority is able to hold any of Nevada’s Charters accountable with the information presented.

Due process is the reason charters are not closing?

Perhaps there is simply zero political appetite to close a perpetually failing charter?

While charters may protest accountability in the name of freedom and choice. . . this needs to be balanced by accountability to the tax payer who pays the bills.

It is not fair to have a strict accountability system for public systems while charters are allowed to run amuck in the state of Nevada.

The unfairness of a legislated system that turns public schools into charters but does nothing about all the failing charters spending million in tax payer money in the state – is foul.

The Nevada Charter System is a failing school system in the state. That is clear according the data.

If Nevada Connections cannot be closed after 10 years of failure, which charter will ever be held accountable?

Angie

See the whole report here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Failure, Nevada, Virtual Charter Schools

Susan Ochshorn: When Angie Sullivan Took On an Alt-Right Critic of Early Childhood Education

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2017 //
12

Susan Ochshorn writes frequently about early childhood education: policy and practice.

In this post, she reports on an epic battle in Nevada between teacher Angie Sullivan and an alt-right critic of early childhood education. I have often cited Angie’s work in Nevada. She teaches little kids in Clark County, and her students are poor and include many who don’t speak English. She fights for them like a Mama Bear. Her regular email list appears to include every legislator and journalist in the state. She comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. Usually they don’t listen.

Angie writes:


It takes a special kind of person to pick on a three- or four- year old. Victor Joecks is that person.

Joecks formerly worked for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a local alt-right think tank that regularly publishes articles attacking teachers and public schools. He’s now employed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Owned by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, it was the first major newspaper to endorse Donald Trump.

Over the past six years, I’ve gone toe-to-toe many times with Joecks, who has zero background in educational pedagogy. He would not last in a public school classroom for a day, let alone a year. He knows nothing about helping a wide variety of students reach their potential. But this does not stop him from spewing his propaganda, as he did recently in his column at the Review-Journal.

Joecks starts his article like this:

A mega corporation is using skewed research to sell its product to gullible parents. The conglomerate claims to help kids, but its product actually has no effect — or a negative effect — on children’s cognitive skills and social behaviors.

This is how he expects to begin a serious discussion of early childhood research? Joecks equates nonprofit public schools with corporations, which sell products. But education is a service, not a product. And he insults parents.

“It’s time to fire up the outrage machine,” Joecks urges—captured in a video that accompanies his column—“ complete with congressional hearings, attorney general lawsuits and shocked, shocked politicians hamming it up in front of TV cameras. This company should be shamed, stigmatized and sued.”

You would think he was discussing a bank that foreclosed on homes—or a dirty politician. He’s actually shaming women, the majority of those who teach young children in preschool programs.

The entire piece is erroneous and foul. Lies, mingled with truth. Preschool is ineffective? My expertise is early childhood. I have studied at three universities. I have applied evidence-based practice for more than three decades. Every piece of research I have ever read over my career supports developmentally appropriate early intervention.

Picking and choosing the project you want to bolster your arguments without looking at the entire body of work will lead you to false conclusions. Extracting bits and pieces from research to justify false conclusions is not valid analysis. Joecks really has to stretch to find a right-wing think tank to provide the data for his rants:

…today’s politicians fail to mention that researchers described the participating children as being at risk of “retarded intellectual functioning.” The children received extensive services, including home visits, and had mothers who stayed at home.

This is like a business claiming a mass-market product will make your child smarter, but putting in the small print: Results only applicable to left-handed, brown-haired 2-year-olds born on Jan. 15 weighing 33.4 pounds.

Besides being utterly offensive, this is direct fear-mongering and waving of “red meat” to the alt-right base. The logic is crazy.

Every state and school district need a spokesperson for children like Angie. She is a tiger when anyone attacks the children.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Nevada
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