Archives for category: New Jersey
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Chris Christie’s Plan to Privatize NJ’s Low-Performing Schools

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
21

The Education Law Center, an independent organization that advocates for the children of New Jersey,  obtained a copy of a proposal that the Chris Christie administration made to the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in Los Angeles.

The plan calls for aggressive state intervention in the state’s lowest performing schools. Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf wants to set up an “achievement district” for the low-performing schools. These schools would likely be closed and handed over to private managers as charter schools. The state plan calls for eliminating collective bargaining in these schools.

The amount requested was $7.6 million, of which the Broad Foundation has thus far supplied $1.6 million.

This should not be a difficult sell for Cerf. He is a “graduate” of the Broad Foundation’s unaccredited Superintendent’s Academy. And the chairman of the board of the foundation is his former boss, Joel Klein.

It’s somewhat strange that people like Cerf (and Arne Duncan, for that matter) think that a school gets “reformed” or “turned around” by firing the staff, closing the school, and handing it off to a charter operator. Cerf is a smart enough guy, and he surely knows that charters on average don’t produce better results than the public schools they replace unless they push out the low-performing kids.

One of the news stories says that Cerf wants to use New Orleans “recovery school district” as a model for New Jersey, but I wonder if he knows that 79% of the charters in New Orleans were graded either D or F by the state, and that New Orleans ranked 69th of 70 districts in the entire state.

How long can this shell game go on?

I understand that the people in the Abbott districts (the poorest cities where the lowest-performing schools are) may be accustomed to getting pushed around by the state, but how will the people of New Jersey feel about Christie and Cerf bringing in a raft of charter school operators to privatize what used to be their public schools?

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Cerf, Chris, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Klein, Joel, New Jersey, New Orleans

Kudos to Jennie Shanker! Debate Ended.

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2012 //
8

If you have been following these posts for the past few days, you will recall that New Jersey Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf claimed that legendary union leader Al Shanker would be on his side, supporting more of the (non-union) charters that Cerf wants to open all over New Jersey.

I wrote a post pointing out that Al Shanker was an original proponent of charters but turned against them in 1993 when he realized that they would become the leading edge of privatization.

I then got a tongue-lashing by someone from New Jersey for daring to say that Al Shanker would not be on board with Chris Cerf and his boss Governor Chris Christie in their campaign to turn more public schools over to entrepreneurs.

And then, blogger Mother Crusader discovered that Al Shanker’s widow, Edie Shanker, had already spoken up and reminded the world that Al would not have supported the “reform” movement.

But best of all, I just read in Jersey Jazzman’s piece that Al’s daughter Jennie Shanker posted the following comment on the article challenging my views:

# Do not speak for Albert Shanker. — Jennie Shanker 2012-07-20 11:26

It was a pleasure and joy to read 2/3rds of your article, at which point your perspective takes its own course.
As his daughter, I treasure the testimony of individuals who knew my father and his work. Lately, it has been, frankly, dreadful to find his name associated with school “reform” that undermines public education. Without exception, these articles offer a few short quotes in evidence, always inappropriately pulled out of the context of his true mission and life’s work.
I can tell you, absolutely and unequivocally, if my father was with us today he would be fighting side by side with Diane Ravitch to preserve and improve public education. The Washington Post re-published an excellent post from Ravitch’s blog this week which very clearly articulats the differences between his vision of charter reform and the for-profit version championed by Chris Cerf and others in New Jersey.
Would he have told that NJ parent to send their child to public schools? Absolutely. As mentioned in the Post article, NJ public schools are among the highest performing in the nation.
Your appreciation for my father’s work and vision was lovely to read. But your stance on this issue is diametrically opposed to his values and intent, and you are dead wrong to shame Diane Ravitch for her position. Indeed, if you consider your thinking to be in line with my father’s, I recommend that you champion her work, as my family does. If anyone can speak for my father in this day and age, the person who should be most trusted is Dr. Ravitch.
It’s unfortunate that many people who read your article will not see this comment. I would like to respectfully request that you reconsider further publicizing your characterizatio n of my father’s position on this topic. From what is in evidence in this article, despite your love for the man, you are in no position to speak for him. -Jennie Shanker
Categories Cerf, Chris, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization

Mother Crusader Rides Again

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
6

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a New Jersey reformer came to the defense of Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf and insisted that if Al Shanker were alive today, he too would be an advocate for charters and choice just like Chris Cerf and Governor Christie.

No one knows how she came to this conclusion, since Al Shanker did not look kindly on non-union schools (90% of more of charters are non-union) and he came out in opposition to charters in 1993.

Now Mother Crusader, the parent activist in New Jersey, has introduced a new voice into this discussion: Edith Shanker, the widow of Al Shanker.

Mother Crusader–known to family and friends as Darcie Cimarusti–did some research and found a statement in which Edie Shanker (as she is known to her friends) called a foul on the reformers who were trying to use Al’s name to support charters.

As I have said again and again, each of us has the power to change the national conversation. Together we are unstoppable.

Darcie Cimarusti and Jersey Jazzman and other parent and teachers bloggers are doing that in New Jersey. They are our Paul Reveres. They are shining a light on the back room deals and exposing the hype and spin. Thanks to them for their persistence and courage.

Categories Cerf, Chris, Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey

Report Says K12 Online Charters Lag Behind Real Schools

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2012 //
21

The National Education Policy Center in Boulder, Colorado, released a report today about the performance of the for-profit online corporation K12. This is the biggest of the online operators, which has been criticized repeatedly for poor academic performance yet continues to expand. Just recently, Ohio and Pennsylvania added more for-profit virtual charters, as North Carolina rejected them and New Jersey deferred making a decision.

The new NEPC report found that students who enroll in these virtual schools do worse in academics than those who attend a brick-and-mortar school.

The authors of the report urged states to slow down in their headlong rush to open more such “schools.”

Here are the major findings, as reported in the press release:

New Report Shows Students Who Attend K12 Inc. Cyber Schools Falling Behind

Students at K12 Inc., Nation’s Largest Virtual School Company,
Are Lagging in Reading, Math and Graduation Rates; Researchers Say Evidence of Success Needed BEFORE Further Expansion

Few Dollars Dedicated to Instructional Salaries and Special Ed, Despite Lower Overhead Costs

WASHINGTON — A new report released today by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado shows that students at K12 Inc., the nation’s largest virtual school company, are falling further behind in reading and math scores than students in brick-and- mortar schools. These virtual schools students are also less likely to remain at their schools for the full year, and the schools have low graduation rates. “Our in-depth look into K12 Inc. raises enormous red flags,” said NEPC Director Kevin Welner.

The report’s findings will be presented in Washington today to a national meeting of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), where the report’s lead author, Dr. Gary Miron, is scheduled to debate Dr. Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the International Association for K–12 Online Learning. The report is titled, Understanding and Improving Full- Time Virtual Schools.

“Our findings are clear,” said Miron, an NEPC fellow, “Children who enroll in a K12 Inc. cyberschool, who receive full-time instruction in front of a computer instead of in a classroom with a live teacher and other students, are more likely to fall behind in reading and math. These children are also more likely to move between schools or leave school altogether – and the cyberschool is less likely to meet federal education standards.”

K12 Inc. schools generally operate on less public revenue, but they have considerable cost savings, says Miron. They devote minimal or no resources to facilities, operations, and transportation. These schools also have more students per teacher and pay less for teacher salaries and benefits than brick-and-mortar schools.

“Computer-assisted learning has tremendous potential,” said Miron. “But at present, our research shows that virtual schools such as those operated by K12 Inc. are not working effectively. States should not grow full-time virtual schools until they have evidence of success. Most immediately, we need to better understand why the performance of these schools suffers and how it can be improved.”

Earliier this week, New Jersey education officials postponed granting approval to a K12 Inc. full- time virtual schools for one year. In many states, however, policy is headed in exactly the opposite direction. In Michigan, for example, legislators decided earlier this year to lift the cap on full-time virtual schools, even though the state was in the second year of a pilot study to see whether these schools work and what could be done to ensure they work better. That pilot study had provided no findings to support such a scale-up.

Student performance results from the current study are clearly in line with the existing body of evidence, which includes state evaluations and audits of virtual schools in five states as well as a more rigorous study of student learning in Pennsylvania virtual charter schools conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University. CREDO’s study found virtual-school students ended up with learning gains that were “significantly worse” than students in traditional charters and public schools.

New Report Shows K12 Inc. Cyber School Students Falling Behind/ 3

Miron and co-author Jessica L. Urschel, a doctoral student at Western Michigan University, analyzed federal and state data sets for revenue, expenditures, and student performance. In terms of student demographics and school performance data, the researchers studied all of K12’s 48 full-time virtual schools. In terms of revenues and expenditures, they used a federal data set that includes seven K12 Inc. schools from five different states (Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Ohio and Pennsylvania), although these seven schools accounted for almost 60 percent of all of K12 Inc.’s enrollment from 2008-09, which is the most recent year of available finance data.

In terms of the number of students enrolled, K12 Inc. is the largest private education management organization (EMO) and the largest private operator of virtual schools in the United States. It had contracts to operate 48 full-time virtual schools in 2011-12. In addition to these contracts, K12 Inc. provides services and support to dozens of other schools that have more limited online offerings.

Key findings include:

  •   Math scores for K12 Inc.’s students are 14 to 36 percent lower than scores for other students in the states in which the company operates schools. Across grades 3- 11, the scores were between 2 and 11 percentage points below the state average in reading.
  •   The on-time graduation rate for students the K12 Inc. schools is 49.1 percent, compared with a rate of 79.4 percent for the states in which the company operates schools.
  •   Only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc.’s schools reported meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards in 2010-11, compared to 52% for brick-and-mortar schools in the nation as a whole.
  •   Student attrition is exceptionally high in K12 Inc. and other virtual schools. Many families appear to approach the virtual schools as a temporary service: Data in K12 Inc.’s own school performance report indicate that 31% of parents intend to keep their students enrolled for a year or less, and more than half intend to keep their students enrolled for two years or less. K12 Inc. also noted in this report that 23% of its current students were enrolled for less than a year and 67% had been enrolled for fewer than two years.

• K12 Inc.’s schools spend more on overall instructional costs than comparison schools – including the cost of computer hardware and software, but noticeably less on teachers’ salaries and benefits.

New Report Shows K12 Inc. Cyber School Students Falling Behind/ 4

  • K12 Inc. spends little or nothing on facilities and maintenance, transportation, and food service.
  • K12 Inc. enrolls students with disabilities at rates moderately below public school averages, although this enrollment has been increasing, but the company spends half as much per pupil as charter schools overall spend on special education instruction and a third of what districts spend on special education instruction.Among the take-aways from all this is that K12 Inc.’s cyberschools reduce costs by having more students per teacher and by reducing overall spending on teachers’ salaries and benefits, particularly for special education instruction. “Part of K12’s problem seems to be that it skimps on special education spending and employs few instructors, despite having lower overhead than brick-and-mortar schools,” said the NEPC’s Welner, who is a professor of education policy at the University of Colorado. 
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, National Education Policy Center, New Jersey, On-Line Education, Pennsylvania

Good News from New Jersey

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2012 //
9

Jersey Jazzman reports that New Jersey will not approve the state’s first online for-profit virtual charter school. K12 has been told to come back next year, perhaps on the hope that citizen outrage will have died down by then. Jersey Jazzman, you may recall, memorably referred to New Jersey as “the cesspool of school reform.”

This is a big win. The most important message here is that citizens make a difference when they organize and speak up against politically powerful forces who are trying to grab taxpayer money and call it “reform.”

This is two wins in a row against the K12 giant, first in North Carolina, where the school boards banded together to stop the raid on their own strained budgets, and now in New Jersey, where concerned parents and educators blew the whistle.

It’s important to remind everyone that the reformers are vulnerable. They are vulnerable to public exposure because the fact is that their harmful ideas have no public support once the public understands what they are up to. There is no public support for handing taxpayer dollars over to corporate interests and calling it “reform.”

The public loves its community schools and doesn’t want to see them impoverished by corporate raiders.

So, yes, learn from New Jersey. Learn from the parents of Florida, who stopped the fake “parent trigger” legislation. Learn from the school boards of North Carolina.

You are not alone. Work in coalition with others to understand the theft of public education that is underway. You can make a difference.

Categories Education Reform, K12 Inc., New Jersey, On-Line Education

What Chris Cerf Needs to Know About Albert Shanker

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2012 //
44

Chris Cerf, the acting commissioner of education in New Jersey, published an article today defending charter schools, which have become very controversial in his state. They have become controversial because the state is trying to push them into suburbs that have great public schools and don’t want them, and they have become controversial because the public is beginning to revolt against for-profit charters, especially for-profit online charters, which Cerf is promoting.

People in New Jersey are beginning to realize that every dollar that goes to a privately managed charter school is a dollar taken away from their own public school. Because the budget is not expanding, it IS a zero sum game. Fixed costs do not decline when children leave the school.

Despite Governor Chris Christie’s frequent belittling of New Jersey teachers and schools, New Jersey is one of the highest performing states in the nation on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. So, citizens of the state have good reason to oppose the Christie administration’s efforts to turn more taxpayer dollars over to private entrepreneurs.

In his article, Chris Cerf writes:

“...it is often forgotten that one of the first advocates for public charter schools was Albert Shanker, the former New York City teachers’ union leader, who supported charter schools as a way to empower public school educators to innovate.”

Chris Cerf needs to know what Albert Shanker really said about charter schools. This is what he would learn if he read pp. 122-124 of my book The Death and Life of the Great American School System:

1. Albert Shanker was president of the American Federation of Teachers, not the New York City union, when he first proposed the charter school idea in 1988.

2. Shanker proposed that any new charter should be jointly approved by the union and the school district. More than 90% of charters today are non-union. Shanker would not have approved any school that did not respect the rights of teachers to bargain collectively.

3. Shanker proposed that new charters should target the hardest-to-educate students: those who had dropped out or were failing. He never imagined that charters would have a selection process or that charters might avoid students with disabilities or English-language learners as is now the case in many charters.

3. Shanker wanted charters to collaborate, not compete, with existing public schools. He proposed them as a way to solve the problems of public schools. Whatever they learned, he said, should be shared with the public schools that sponsored them.

4. MOST IMPORTANT: In 1993, when Shanker saw that the charter idea was going to be used to privatize public education, he turned against charter schools. He opposed the takeover of the charter idea by corporations, entrepreneurs, and for-profit vendors. He became a vocal opponent of charter schools when he realized that his idea was embraced by “the education industry.” In his weekly column in The New York Times, Albert Shanker repeatedly denounced charter schools, vouchers, and for-profit management as “quick fixes that won’t fix anything.”

Here is an idea for Commissioner Cerf. You can fix the charter idea if you align it with Shanker’s original idea.

First, insist that all new charters are endorsed by the local school district and the union representing teachers.

Second, bar all for-profit management.

Third, insist that all charters recruit and enroll only the lowest-performing students, the students who have dropped out, and the students who are doing poorly in their present public school.

Fourth, require that charters collaborate with the public schools and share whatever they learn.

Fifth, to truly revive the spirit of Shanker’s proposal, bar all corporate-owned charter chains. Authorize only stand-alone charters that are created by teachers and parents in the district to serve the children of that district. No chains, just local charters committed to that community.

So, yes, Commissioner Cerf, you are on the right track when you quote Albert Shanker. Now, if you take his advice, you can save the charter school idea from the privatizers and profiteers who are giving it a bad name.

Categories Cerf, Chris, Charter Schools, New Jersey, Unions

This Is the Most Startling Post of the Day

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2012 //
7

Darcie Cimarusti is a mother in New Jersey. She is not a teacher. She does not belong to a teacher’s union. She cares about public education. She became active as “mother crusader” in the last year or so, and she has demonstrated the amazing power of an informed citizen.

She has a voice and a blog. She speaks out. She does research. She is heard. She is making a difference.

When I travel and speak, people often say to me, “what can I do? how can I help? what role is there for a solitary citizen?”

In the future, I will point to Mother Crusader Darcie Cimarusti. With her one voice, she has the politicians in New Jersey reading and quaking. She is exposing the facts, and that terrifies them. She is an investigative reporter without pay or portfolio.

Read this and tell me if you agree that this is the most amazing story you have read this day, maybe this week.

There is a stink of moral corruption here. Maybe other kinds as well.

As Jersey Jazzman said in his comment on this blog, New Jersey’s school politics today is “a cesspool.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey

Realism in New Jersey: Can We Face It?

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2012 //
6

My favorite New Jersey blogger, known as Jersey Jazzman, is a teacher and one smart guy (I’m assuming he is a guy because of his moniker, which is not Jersey Jazzperson or Jazzwoman).

He has written a very important post. I urge you to read it carefully. It reflects on where the reform movement is heading in his state, and for that matter, nationally. He looks specifically at Newark, which has been a focal point for “reform” money and programs.

He shows (relying on the work of Bruce Baker) that the successful charters are the ones with the least challenging students, and the less successful charters have the most challenging students. The independent variable, as he points out, is not the teachers but the students.

The reformers want even more charters, as they do everywhere else. They want more public money in private hands. Why are they so unwilling to let local residents and parents have any role in the future of their schools other than to choose which one to apply to? Why do billionaires who live in California have more to say abut the future of Newark than the people who live there?

Why do the reformers blame the teachers in Newark for low scores? Why do they blame tenure and seniority for poor results? In the neighboring town, the teachers also have tenure and seniority and get great results.

This is a powerful post. Jersey Jazzman looks deep into the heart of the current American dilemma: Intense concentration of poverty and segregation in certain communities. And he calls on us to look too.

You should.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Why Does Governor Christie Have a Grudge Against Teachers?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2012 //
16

One of the best bloggers in New Jersey, if not the whole northeast, is Jersey Jazzman.

He has gathered statements that Governor Christie has made about teachers that are quite negative. His teachers remember him fondly.

By all accounts, he had an idyllic childhood and experienced great public schooling.

Now he is pushing privatization as hard as he can, promoting privately managed charter schools and cyber charters (despite their dismal results).

What went wrong?

Categories Education Reform, New Jersey, Privatization

Why Is Governor Christie Angry?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2012 //
32

How many times have I read stories about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie blowing his stack when the subject is education or teachers?

Just yesterday he blew up when a stranger made a passing remark about his education policy.

Is it a sign of a guilty conscience?

Governor Christie is doing everything possible to privatize public education: promoting online charters (even though they have not been authorized by the State Legislature), expanding charter schools, flirting with vouchers. And, he has famously attacked the New Jersey Education Association, throwing choice epithets their way.

It is easy to forget that Governor Christie is a graduate of Livingston High School, where he received an excellent public school education. It is easy for him to forget that New Jersey is one of the highest rated states in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In other words, it has an excellent public school system. If New Jersey would focus on improving the districts marred by intense poverty and segregation, it would the “Garden State” of public education.

Maybe New Jersey readers could explain the governor’s antagonism to anything related to the public schools that benefited him.

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey
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