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North Carolina: New Study Finds Voucher Schools Are Shielded from Accountability

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2020 //
11

Jane R. Wettach of Duke Law School has written a study of North Carolina’s voucher program. It is expensive, having cost the state thus far nearly $160 million. It diverts money from the public schools. Most of the voucher schools are religious schools. Voucher schools do not participate in the state’s accountability program so the academic progress—or lack thereof—cannot be assessed.

Some of the author’s conclusions:

The overarching assessment of the initial review of the voucher program from our previous report remains true: The North Carolina voucher program is well designed to promote parental choice, especially for parents who prefer religious education for their children. It is poorly designed, however, to promote better academic outcomes for children and is unlikely to do so over time.

 The public has no information on whether the students with vouchers have made academic progress or have fallen behind. No data about the academic achievement of voucher students are available to the public, not even the data that are identified as a public record in the law. The State Education Assistance Authority (SEAA), which administers the program, concluded that the reporting of tests scores in aggregated form, as required by the legislature, produces no meaningful information. Therefore, the SEAA has discontinued requiring schools to produce the data and it no longer publishes any reports on test scores.

 The number of children receiving vouchers has increased ten-fold since it began: from approximately 1,200 in the first year to 12,300 in 2019-20. Although the program has attracted additional students each year, the rate of growth has been less than the General Assembly anticipated and not all of the appropriation has been spent.

The program is designed to 3xpsnd but it seems likely that most of the available slots will not be used.

92% of vouchers are used in religious schools.

This is a program designed to have no accountability for results of any kind:

Other potential accountability measures for North Carolina private schools receiving vouchers do not exist. Unlike private schools in most states with similar voucher programs, North Carolina private schools accepting voucher money need not be accredited, adhere to state curricular or graduation standards, employ licensed teachers, or administer state End-of-Grade tests.

The program is nothing more than a pass-through of public money to parents who want their children to have a religious schooling, without regard to quality.

The amount of the voucher is small, about $4,200, not enough for a high-quality education, but just right for an inferior religious school without certified teachers. This is what the NC General Assembly wants.

Categories North Carolina, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

North Carolina: Civil Rights Challenge Charter Schools’ Racial Segregation

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2020 //
5

Civil rights groups are suing to block the use of charter schools to desegregate public schools in North Carolina.

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May 18, 2020

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES NORTH CAROLINA LAW ALLOWING BREAKAWAY, SEGREGATED CHARTER SCHOOLS

By Wendy Lecker

Parents and civil rights groups in North Carolina have sued the State challenging a law passed in 2018 authorizing predominately white, wealthy towns in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district to break away and form town-run, separate charter school districts that could exclude non-town residents. In the lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court on April 30, plaintiffs charge that the law violates North Carolina’s state constitutional guarantees of a uniform public school system and equal protection and will exacerbate persistent racial and socio-economic segregation in the county district.

The plaintiffs in the case, North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. State, are the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Branch of the NAACP and two parents with children in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. They are represented by Mark Dorosin, Elizabeth Haddix and Genevieve Bondaies Torres of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the law firm of Tin, Fulton, Walker and Owen, P.L.L.C.

History of School Segregation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) has a long history of school segregation. The district was the subject of a major desegregation case in the 1960’s, Swann v. Charlotte–Mecklenburg Board of Education. In that case, in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court placed CMS under federal supervision to ensure school desegregation. In 1999, white parents succeeded in ending the desegregation order, and CMS was removed from federal court oversight.

CMS then implemented a voluntary, “neighborhood” school assignment plan which, over time, resulted in school resegregation within the district. By 2010, CMS was almost as de facto segregated as it was before Swann was filed to end de jure segregation.

In 2016, the CMS school board developed a plan to increase diversity and reduce the number of schools with high concentrations of poor students. The plan met with strong opposition by elected officials and parents in the mostly white and affluent towns of Cornelius, Huntersville, Matthews, and Mint Hill – all towns within the CMS district.

The Charter Breakaway Law

Desegregation opponents pushed the introduction of HB 514 in 2017 in the North Carolina legislature. The bill would allow the towns of Matthews and Mint Hill to establish municipal, and predominately white, charter schools with admissions preferences that would authorize by law the exclusion of non-resident, low-income students and students of color.

In an effort to appease legislators supporting the bill, the CMS board drastically scaled back its desegregation plan, limiting its effect to only 5% of the district’s students.

At the same time HB 514 was introduced, a State legislative committee studied the viability of breaking up large school districts in the state. That report concluded, in 2018, that breaking up large districts would exacerbate disparities in resources between high- and low-wealth schools and would provide no educational benefit.

In reaction, desegregation opponents dug in their heels and amended the municipal charter legislation to include the CMS towns of Cornelius and Huntersville. The bill passed in June 2018, and because it was considered local legislation, it did not require the governor’s signature under North Carolina law. In vetoing companion legislation to allow teachers in the new charter school district to participate in the state retirement and insurance programs, Governor Roy Cooper made clear that “municipal charter schools set a dangerous precedent that could lead to taxpayer funded resegregation.”

A companion funding bill was passed to facilitate the municipal charters under HB 514 by allowing towns to spend local property taxes to fund charter schools without requiring a voter referendum, as previously required by North Carolina law.

The plaintiffs in the current lawsuit charge that these new laws will drain resources from CMS, increase segregation in CMS, create segregated town charter schools, and deny low-income, non-white students equal access to higher-funded schools.

The Role of Charter Schools in School Segregation

This lawsuit is the latest in an emerging trend of litigation under education guarantees in state constitutions challenging states’ use of charter schools to foster segregation. In 2018, the Minnesota Supreme Court allowed a challenge to school segregation in Minneapolis-St. Paul to proceed to trial, noting that segregated schools cannot be “uniform” under that state’s constitution. Plaintiffs in that case charge that the formation of segregated charter schools in those cities and their exemption from desegregation plans play a major role in school segregation.

In February 2020, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted Education Law Center’s petition to review the Commissioner of Education’s approval of the expansion of charter schools in Newark without evaluating the charters’ segregative impact on the district or their negative impact on the educational resources available to students in Newark district schools.

Given the growing body of research documenting the lasting negative effects of segregation on the academic and life outcomes of public school students and a history of lax or almost no regulation by states over their charter school programs, these lawsuits seek to hold states accountable to ensure charter schools authorized by their laws do not undermine or jeopardize students’ rights to education under state constitutions.

Wendy Lecker is a Senior Attorney at Education Law Center

Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
Education Law Center
60 Park Place, Suite 300
Newark, NJ 07102
973-624-1815, ext. 24
skrengel@edlawcenter.org

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, North Carolina, Privatization, Segregation

Stuart Egan: The Step-by-Step Destruction of Democracy in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2020 //
7

In this powerful post, NBCT teacher Stuart Egan describes the calculated attack on democracy and social justice in North Carolina.

The state was once considered one of the most enlightened in the South. It is now one of the most regressive, taken down by the Tea Party, by a legislature dominated by ALEC, and by politicians determined to destroy opportunity for people of color and poor people.

Egan provides a timeline of North Carolina’s descent, which accelerated after the Tea Party capture of the General Assembly in 2010. Behind the scenes, big money pushed ALEC bills.

Egan writes:

That timeline is filled with actions that are calculated, highly crafted, delicately executed, and driven by dogma deliberately done to hurt public education and communities that rely on public schools. Each occurred before the May 16th, 2018 march in Raleigh.

Citizens United, you may remember, allowed for corporations and other entities to donate to political candidates. It gave rise to PACs and SUPERPACs. It’s why you now see an incredible amount of money in political races donated by people who have a vested interest in a race or candidate but cannot vote in that race.

HB17 was the legislation produced in a special session in December of 2016 right before Roy Cooper took office. It was a power grab that granted the incoming state superintendent, Mark Johnson, the most power any state super had ever had. Johnson might be the most unqualified person to ever hold the job. What ensued was a lawsuit between Johnson and the State Board of Education that lasted for 18 months. Ultimately, it cemented Johnson’s role as a puppet and led to DPI’s reorganization and reduction of personnel.

The Innovative School District is an educational reform that allows the state to select “poor” performing schools to be taken over by an out-of-state entity. In three years, it has only one school under its umbrella, but has gone through multiple leaders.

And then there was the Voter ID law, racially driven gerrymandered political maps, and the abolishment of automatically paycheck deductions for groups like NCAE. (Yes, the Voter ID law and the gerrymandered districting has been overruled, but we still as a state have not had an election cycle since both were overturned.)

It used to not be this way, but after the Great Recession of 2008 and the rise of a new wing of the Republican Party, a noticeable shift occurred in North Carolina politics. Decades ago, public education was championed by both Democrats and Republicans alike. Think of governors like Holshousher and Martin and you will see a commitment to funding public education like NC saw with Sanford, Hunt, and Easley. The governor’s office and the General Assembly were often in different hands politically speaking, but on the issue of public education, they stood much more united than it is today.

That unification is not there anymore. And it wasn’t caused by public education or its advocates. It was planted, fed, fostered, and championed by those who came to power after the Great Recession. These are not Eisenhower Republicans or Reagan Republicans; they are ALEC Republicans whose sole purpose is to politicize all things and try and privatize as many public goods as possible. And on a state level, nothing is more of a public good than public schools.

They have been very adept at combining racial and social issues with public education to make it hard not only to compartmentalize each through legislation, but easy to exploit how much social and racial issues are tied to public education without people thinking they are interlinked. Laws and mandates like HB2, the Voter ID Law, the gerrymandered districts, and the attempted judicial system overhaul have as much to do with the health of public schools as any other factor.

When you keep people from being able to vote, you affect public education. When you keep people below the poverty line, you affect public education. When you gerrymander districts along racial lines, you affect public education. You cannot separate them exclusively. And we have lawmakers in power who know that very well. It’s why when you advocate for public schools, you must be aware of social and racial issues and be willing to fight along those lines.

Public school advocacy that was “successful” before 2008 will not work as effectively in 2020. No ALEC aligned politician who is in a right to work state that outlaws collective bargaining is going to “work with” advocacy groups like NCAE.

For NCAE and other groups to truly advocate for public schools, they must fight for issues outside of school rooms that affect the very students, teachers, and staff who come into those school rooms.

By every measure, North Carolina has regressed and opposed equity and democracy.

For example, “Now name the only state in the country with the lowest legal minimum wage, no collective bargaining rights, no Medicaid expansion, loosely regulated voucher and charter school expansion, and a school performance grading system that measures achievement over growth. North Carolina.“

The legislators who have passed regressive laws are not interested in dialogue or reason. They knew exactly what they were doing. They don’t negotiate. They don’t listen. They must be voted out of office.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Corruption, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Reform, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice, North Carolina

Stuart Egan: Teachers in North Carolina Raised All the Right Issues When They Protested Last Year

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
2

Stuart Egan, an NBCT high school teacher in North Carolina, reminds us of why teachers protested last year and how the elected officials responded (mostly with silence).

Fortunately, the people of North Carolina have a chance to change the state’s direction by electing a genuine and experience advocate for public education as state superintendent: Jen Mangrum won the Democratic nomination and she will campaign vigorously to restore the state’s once-esteemed public schools as great places for students and teachers and communities.

If you live in North Carolina and you are tired of politicians tearing down the public schools and shifting public money to entrepreneurs and religious schools, vote for Jen Mangrum in November.

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Supporting public schools

North Carolina: Governor Cooper Closes All Schools for at Least Two Weeks

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2020 //
8

Governor Roy Cooper has closed all schools starting Monday for at least two weeks. Now is time for common sense and caution, to protect the health of children, families, staff, and communities. Limit the spread of the virus.

Here is the official notification from the state.

RALEIGH (WTVD) — Governor Roy Cooper on Saturday afternoon issued an executive order to stop mass gatherings of more than 100 people and close all K-12 public schools across the state of North Carolina as new cases of coronavirus continue to pop up.

The closures will start on Monday, March 16 for at least 2 weeks.

THE LATEST NORTH CAROLINA CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

“I do not make this decision lightly,” Gov. Cooper said at a news conference. “We know that it will be difficult on many parents and students. These measures will hurt people whose incomes are affected by the prohibition of mass gatherings, particularly the people who are paid by the hour.”

Governor Cooper announced he has appointed an Education and Nutrition Working Group to develop a plan to ensure that children and families are supported while schools are closed.

“I am standing up this new working group to ensure that children have enough food to eat, families have care in safe places for their young children, and student learning continues,” Governor Cooper said.

His announcement came just an hour after Wake County Public Schools announced that it would close schools beginning on Monday, March 16 through at least Friday, March 27.

Categories Health, North Carolina

North Carolina: Educator Jen Mangrum Wins Democratic Primary for State Superintendent

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2020 //
4

Educator Jen Mangrum won the Democratic primary for State Superintendent of Education. She had the support of the state’s biggest teacher associations, and she won the endorsement of the Network for Public Education Action.

Jen is a native of North Carolina whose parents were public school teachers. After graduating college, she taught second and third graders and specialized in early childhood education for 15 years. She earned graduate degrees and became a teacher educator.

Distraught with the General Assembly’s disrespect for the state’s teachers, she launched a long shot campaign against the most powerful politician in the state in 2018. She didn’t win but she persisted in fighting to restore respect and dignity to the state’s educators. North Carolina has moreNational Board Certified teachers proportionally than any other state.

Her Republican opponent, Catherine Truitt, was an advisor to Governor McCrory, who led the attacks on teachers and introduced charters and vouchers. She is now leader of an online university.

NPE Action is proud to have endorsed Jen and wish her well in her November race. We hope every public school parent and teacher will help her. She can lead the charge to revive the Tarheel State’s reputation for educational leadership.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, North Carolina

Craig Harris: How Foreign Investors Get Green Cards by Investing Millions in the Charter School Industry

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2020 //
13

Thanks to a provision in the tax law, called the EB-5 program, wealthy foreign investors can buy green cards by investing in charter schools.

Craig Harris, award-winning investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, took a close look at this provision in the law that allows foreign citizens to buy visas in exchange for funding charter schools.

He visited schools in Arizona and other states.

This story was published in December.

CORNELIUS, N.C. – When Lakeside Charter Academy opened five years ago in this boating community outside Charlotte, it faced the same challenge that confronts many new charter schools.

It had governmental approval to operate and the tax dollars that come with it to pay for teacher salaries, supplies and other expenses. But it had no money to build a school or lease classrooms.

Like most of the 45 states with charter schools — taxpayer-funded campuses operated largely by private businesses — North Carolina provides no money to new operators for start-up or capital costs.

So Lakeside struck a devil’s bargain of sorts. It entered an agreement with an Arizona company to renovate a former church building, funded, in part, by a federal program that allows private companies to raise money by essentially selling green cards to wealthy foreign nationals.

Arizona-based Education Fund of America secured the foreign financing and its business partner, American Charter Development, of Utah, would raise the rest of the cash, build the campus and then lease the space back to Lakeside. Lakeside put no money down.

Peter Mojica, a North Carolina businessman and founding school board member, said Lakeside had few options as parents worked to get the school built around 2012. 

“A charter school has no credit and can’t get the money unless they have a crazy endowment from a rich benefactor,” said Mojica, who still has a son at Lakeside. “So you have Chinese investors buying visas.”

Twenty-seven other campuses in eight states, mostly small charter schools, have struck similar deals with Education Fund of America since 2013, according to its website.

Those deals have put some of the schools in financial jeopardy, according an Arizona Republic investigation.

Two Florida schools closed after one year. Four others, including three Arizona charter schools, are in imminent danger of shutting their doors, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show. More than half of the schools who entered the deals are running budget deficits. And at least 10 have turned to high-interest loans to stay afloat. The majority have average to failing academic scores.

The Republic visited seven states to investigate charter schools and what ongoing shifts in the industry might mean for Arizona, the state with the largest share of charter school students in the nation.

Almost three decades after the first U.S. charter schools opened their doors promising to innovate and compete with traditional public schools, funding remains a daunting barrier for all but the biggest operators. The result, experts say, is small, entrepreneurial operators who were the backbone of the early charter movement are increasingly squeezed out or forced to take big financial risks.

The number of mom-and-pop charter operators is declining. Between 2014 and 2018, 61% of charter schools approved to operate nationwide were affiliated with a nonprofit or for-profit chain, according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

The officials who grant charters to would-be school operators are more inclined to favor big chains with proven track records than independent startups, said Greg Richmond, who until recently was chief executive of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. 

“The charter school field has become a little more risk-adverse,” he said.

‘MAKING A PROFIT OFF OF OUR CHILDREN’

Lakeside Charter Academy turned to Education Fund of America only after parents struck out trying to get private investors, including hedge funds, Mojica said.

The school has paid escalating rent to American Charter Development for a campus that is far from luxurious, according to interviews and records obtained by The Republic.

Lakeside has no gymnasium or lunch room and only a small playground. At the end of last school year, a parking lot that doubles as a basketball court was rendered unusable by a large sinkhole. Its roughly 300-square-foot library is mostly filled with donated books.

As of July, the school was more than $1.7 million in debt — most of it for unpaid rent — and enrollment had plummeted to 100 students, from a high of 400. The state gave it a “C” academic rating.

“All I wanted was a good school for my sons,” said Alyson Ford, whose boys attended Lakeside until she moved them over disgust with Lakeside’s finances and governing board.

“As taxpayers, we are not happy about this situation,” she said, citing companies “making a profit off of our children.”

She questions Education Fund’s claim that the school was built for $5.1 million, using $3 million in Chinese investment through the federal Employment-Based Fifth Preference Immigrant Investor Program — or EB-5 visa program. County assessor records value the property at $3.3 million….

The nation’s 7,000 charter schools educate more than 3 million children, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The share of public school students attending charter schools nationwide has risen from 1% in 2000 to 6% today.

Despite that growth, starting a charter school remains daunting.

Just seven states and the District of Columbia offer charter school facility grants, and nine have loan programs, according to the Charter School Facilities Center.

The Charter School Facilities Center, a Washington, D.C., group tied to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, found in a June research paper that one of the biggest challenges to the expansion of charter schools is state laws that place the burden of funding facilities on school operators who struggle to find affordable facilities.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey created a charter school construction lending program in 2016 that was billed as a way to help the “best public schools” expand by providing lower-cost financing with help from the state. It mostly assisted Basis Charter Schools Inc. and Great Hearts Academies — large, successful charter chains with close ties to the governor. After only one charter school received financing through the program in 2018, three Arizona charter schools used it this fall.

The federal government since 1994 has helped fund startup costs for charter schools through competitive grants and credit programs. But only a fraction of the projected $500 million this year is set aside for smaller charter schools, with most going to the large nonprofit companies that dominate the charter school industry.

The U.S. Department of Education last year distributed 32 multi-year grants to individual charter schools. The largest was for $1.25 million, far less than what is needed to build a comprehensive campus. Meanwhile, a single chain, Texas-based IDEA Public Schools, received nearly $117 million.

Operators who succeed in opening a school have a high failure rate, suggesting additional difficulty in finding long-term financing. Since 2000, at least 2,927 U.S. charter schools, or nearly 30%, have closed, federal records show.

The failure rate in Arizona, 41%, is even higher despite the Legislature providing charters with additional per-pupil funding to help with capital costs.

In 2018, The Republic found 1 in 4 Arizona charter schools had significant financial red flags, and that when compared to district schools, charters spend about twice as much or more on administrative costs than in the classroom.

In January 2018, Discovery Creemos, a Goodyear charter school, made headlines when it closed because of financial troubles. The ex-chief executive later admitted to defrauding the state and federal government of at least $2.2 million by inflating enrollment by hundreds of students. 

The Grand Canyon Institute, a private, nonpartisan think tank, found Arizona charter schools primarily fund buildings and classrooms using high-interest “junk bonds” guaranteed by schools’ projected enrollment growth. If the growth doesn’t materialize, mortgage payments will consume a greater share of the schools’ shrinking revenue, leaving less for the classroom.

Bill Honig, a researcher and California educator who runs the Building Better Schools website, found through his research that charter school closures have disrupted the instruction of at least 288,000 school kids since 2000.

Those closures take a largely overlooked toll on students.

Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes examined school closures in 26 states over eight years, and found that fewer than 50% of students displaced by a closure ended up at a better school.

A UC Santa Barbara study, considered the definitive look at the subject, found students who changed schools between the eighth and 12th grades for any reason other than being promoted to a higher grade, were twice as likely to drop out…

Wing launched Education Fund eight years ago to help address the lack of charter school start-up funding. 

“Charter schools have a massive financial disadvantage,” he said.

As a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services regional center for EB-5 visas, Wing’s Education Fund essentially sells green cards to wealthy foreign nationals in exchange for an investment in U.S. charter schools.

Among its first projects was to provide $2 million in foreign investment for the Learning Foundation and Performing Arts charter school, which opened in Gilbert in 2013.

Education Fund’s website shows smiling students, 28 “EB-5 financed charter schools,” and a breakdown of foreign capital and other investments.

There are about 880 regional centers. But Education Fund, which is approved to operate in 11 states, claims to be the first to raise foreign investment for charter schools.

Its work has gone largely unnoticed, even within the charter school industry. Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Jim Blew, one of the country’s top charter school advocates, told The Republic he was unaware charter schools have been funded through the EB-5 program.

The foreign investments must create or maintain at least 10 U.S. jobs within two years. When Lakeside Academy signed on with Education Fund, investors could get a visa with a $500,000 investment provided it was for a project in a rural or high-unemployment area.

Wing declined to say how many visas Education Fund’s investors have obtained. Nationwide, about 10,000 such visas are issued annually, but not without controversy and allegations of fraud.

Reports to Congress by U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2015 and 2016 found a lack of federal oversight of the program resulted in fraud.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa and then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in 2017 raised questions about an EB-5 scheme that created no jobs while allowing operators to pocket $50 million from Chinese investors.

EB-5-funded projects also have been widely criticized for gerrymandering poorer neighborhoods into regional centers to fund projects in wealthier areas. For example, New York City’s $25 billion Hudson Yards mega project, which has raised luxury towers across a swath of Manhattan, drew on more than $1 billion in EB-5 investment.

USCIS acknowledged it does not keep a “database of specific EB-5 investments” and said each regional center is responsible to “provide adequate and proper oversight, monitoring and management of its projects.”

Former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee supported Grassley’s efforts to provide more oversight of the EB-5 program, said there have been numerous calls in Congress to fix it because of situations similar to the Hudson Yards project, but “we simply extend the program year after year.”

“Reforms are needed and there is pretty broad agreement on those integrity measures,” Flake said. 

David North, a researcher with Washington, D.C-based Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors reducing immigration, said the “stunning” lack of federal oversight allows the EB-5 program to fester while middlemen and developers enrich themselves.

“It’s a terrific business to be in, but it’s a hell of a waste of public-school monies,” he said. “The EB-5 program is a mess. Charter schools are a mess. When you put them together, it’s a messier mess.”

One of Education Fund’s investors was Erica Zhu, who said she works in foreign-funded enterprises in China.

She learned of the program when her husband saw an article about Education Fund, and invested $500,000 in one of the company’s Florida schools, St. Cloud Preparatory Academy.

Four years passed before the U.S. government approved visas for her and three family members. They plan to relocate to North Carolina. (EB-5 investors do not have to live in the same community as their investment.)

“The EB-5 program is a great program that gives foreigners a chance to immigrate to the United States,” Zhu saidin an email to The Republic.

North disagrees, saying it unfairly rewards wealthy “aliens with a handful of green cards.”…

Education Fund’s cheap foreign money only covered a third of the charter schools’ facility costs. Wing’s business partner, American Charter Development, provided high-interest, U.S. hard money loans. The combined charter school fund totaled $234 million. 

Lakeside Charter Academy’s loans with American Charter Development carry interest rates up to 9.5%. The school began missing rent payments in 2017, records show.

Wing said some Education Fund schools’ financial hardships may be unrelated to their lease arrangement — for example, board infighting or declining enrollment, both of which have occurred at Lakeside.

Wing said Morley has been generous in allowing charter operators to delay rent payments.

Still, a Republic review of Education Fund’s financing of charter schools — including a review of more than 1,000 records and dozens of interviews — found widespread financial problems at the schools:

  • Half of Education Fund’s schools have budget deficits, with one Arizona operator, the Learning Foundation and Performing Arts charter school in Gilbert, nearly $2.8 million in the red. 
  • Education Fund charter operators of at least 10 schools in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina have borrowed money from other lenders at interest rates of up to 23%.
  • Independent auditors for three Education Fund charter operators in metro Phoenix have raised doubts to state regulators about whether the schools will remain open. All three, Learning Foundation and Performing Arts, Champion Schools and Painted Desert Montessori Academy, have experienced high and escalating rent payments.
  • Two Florida schools that raised money through Education Fund closed within a year of opening.
  • More than half of Education Fund’s charter schools have average to failing letter grades, with just three receiving an “A….”

Frank Yanez, who has worked in the charter school industry for two decades, wanted to open a Montessori-style school in Buckeye for his grandkids and other children.

He turned to Education Fund, which raised $2.5 million from Chinese investors for the $5.6 million Painted Desert Montessori Academy. Yanez, who has worked as a consultant to Education Fund, put no money down.

Yanez sipped a latte as he greeted students and parents with hugs on the first day of classes in early August.

He wore a smile for the students, but he’s worried about the school’s finances.

The school, which is beginning its fourth school year, has paid nearly $2 million in rent to one of Morley’s companies, he said. That’s about what he receives annually from the state of Arizona to teach 370 kids in the K-8 charter school.

Yanez is $1.4 million in debt, and deferred $436,633 in rent during the 2018-19 school year. Some of the borrowed money was used last year for teacher pay raises.

Things were so dire this past year he leveraged future payments from the state as collateral to borrow operating cash. The loan had interest rates up to 23%. 

This year, he said, he can’t afford to give raises even though the Arizona Legislature and Ducey approved a budget to provide all teachers with a 5% boost in pay.

“With the money on the rent, they are making money,” Yanez said of Wing and Morley. And when he buys the school, instead of paying them rent, “they will make a few million dollars, and that’s a good return on their investment,” he said.

Yanez also is on the board of Champion Charter Schools, a charter chain that financed two campuses through Education Fund in Chandler and San Tan Valley.

Carolyn Sawyer, who runs Champion, said the schools’ rent is so high she had to defer $800,000 in lease payments last year.

The nonprofit company that runs the schools, including a south Phoenix campus built without EB-5 investment, had a $1.9 million deficit last year.

She said using the EB-5 program was her only option. 

Sawyer recalled a woman from Shanghai showing up several years ago when the campus on McQueen Road in Chandler was still under construction. The two put on hard hats and took a tour.

The woman returned several times to check on the school’s progress.

“She decided to invest in American school children,” Sawyer said. “These people have helped us build beautiful schools.”

 

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Education Reform, Funding, North Carolina

Justin Parmenter: The Rightwing Assault on Public Schools in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2020 //
3

Justin Parmenter is a National Board Certified Teacher in North Carolina.

In this essay, he documents the decade-long effort by Republicans to destroy public education in North Carolina and demoralize teachers. 

He writes:

Out of all the states that have struggled to provide a quality public education over the past decade, perhaps none have seen as precipitous a decline as North Carolina. Once seen as a regional model of progressive education policy, a succession of unfortunate occurrences has severely damaged our public education system. Activists now fight against difficult odds for the change students need most.

Shift of Political Power to Republicans and Impact on North Carolina Education Policy

Like many states, North Carolina was hit hard by the Great Recession and saw funding cuts that greatly impacted our schools. However, the nightmare for our public schools began in earnest in November 2010 when the Republican Party won control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives (Mildwurf & Browder, 2010) in North Carolina’s state legislature. The following year, Republicans gerrymandered electoral districts (Ballotpedia, n.d.a) to ensure they’d be able to hold onto power for the next decade and then set their veto-proof majority to work passing regressive education policies with no opposition.

The policies included significant de-professionalization of the teaching profession in North Carolina through revoking career status protection (Public Schools First NC, 2017) for teachers, terminating advanced degree compensation (Kiley, 2013), and eliminating retiree health care benefits (Bonner, 2017). The GOP majority lifted the cap (Leslie, 2011) on charter schools, worsening economic and racial segregation across the state given that charters serve an increasingly white population (Nordstrom, 2018). The legislature directed a billion dollars (Wagner, 2019) over a decade to voucher programs, despite the fact that the the schools participating in the program were not required to report on student achievement (Public Schools First NC, 2019). Additionally, the legislature cut thousands of teacher assistants (Campbell & Bonner, 2015) and created a school report card system, in which school ratings were highly correlated with levels of poverty (Henkel, 2016). Finally, state legislators passed a K–3 reading initiative (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, n.d.), which promised to improve results through increasing assessment volume and threatening our most vulnerable students with grade retention. And when K–3 reading achievement got worse, legislators added financial pay- for-performance incentives (Clark, 2016) based on questionable value-added data.
Many of these harmful initiatives were passed in budget bills rather than being moved through deliberative committee processes, eliminating the debate and public input so essential to the creation of effective policy. In addition to promoting a neoliberal education reform agenda, North Carolina’s lawmakers passed massive tax cuts favoring corporations and wealthy individuals, which have taken $3.6 billion in potential annual revenue (Sirota, 2019) off the table, all but ensuring schools will struggle for adequate resources for the foreseeable future.

In North Carolina’s 2016 general election, Republican Mark Johnson eked out a 1% victory (Ballotpedia, n.d.b) for the state superintendency—the first time in more than 100 years the office had been won by a Republican. State legislators immediately moved to transfer power away from newly elected Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and the State Board of Education and give Superintendent Johnson unprecedented control of North Carolina’s public school system (North Carolina General Assembly, 2016).

As State Superintendent, Johnson has been a disaster. Having only two years as a TFA teacher, he was over his head. His inept leadership outraged teachers and provoked mass walkouts.

Parmenter says that teacher activism is exhausting but worth it.

This year there is an election for state superintendent. The Network for Public Education has endorsed educator Jen Mangrum for the post. There is a chance to revive public education in North Carolina.

 

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Network for Public Education, North Carolina, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

North Carolina: The News From Public Schools First

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2020 //
0

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North Carolina has critical needs that the state’s General Assembly has made worse. A court decision—called Leandro—requires the state to improve its schools. One of its recommendations is to:

provide a qualified and well-prepared, and diverse teaching staff in every school. Working conditions and staffing structures should enable all staff members to do their job effectively and grow professionally while supporting the academic, personal and social growth of all their students.

 

Highlights of Findings

#1 Teacher supply is shrinking and shortages are widespread. Budget cuts have reduced the total number of teachers employed in North Carolina by 5% from 2009 to 2018 even as student enrollments increased by 2% during that same time period.

#3 Experienced, licensed teachers have the lowest annual attrition rates. Teach for America teachers, on the other hand, had the highest attrition rates. National trends show that teachers without prior preparation leave the profession at two to three times the rate of those who are comprehensively prepared.

#4 Teacher demand is growing, and attrition increases the need for hiring. The total number of openings, including those for teachers who will need to be replaced, is expected to be 72,452 by 2026….

Recommendations:
1.Increase pipeline of diverse, well-prepared teachers who enter through high-retention pathways and meet the needs of the state’s public schools.

2. Expand the NC Teaching Fellows program. [The General Assembly cut the funding of the NC Teaching Fellows program to prepare career teachers and transferred its funding to TFA.]

3. Support high-quality teacher residency programs in high-need rural and urban districts through a state matching grants program that leverages ESSA title II funding.

4. Provide funding for Grow-Your-Own and 2+2 programs that help recruit teachers in high-poverty communities.

5. Significantly increase the racial-ethnic diversity of the North Carolina teacher workforce and ensure all teachers employ culturally responsive practices.

6. Provide high-quality comprehensive mentoring and induction support for novice teachers in their first 3 years of teaching.

7. Implement differentiated staffing models that include advanced teaching roles and
additional compensation to retain and extend the reach of high-performing teachers.

8. Develop a system to ensure that all North Carolina teachers have the opportunities they
need for continued professional learning to improve and update their knowledge and practices.

9. Increase teacher compensation and enable low-wealth districts to offer salaries and other
compensation to make them competitive with more advantaged districts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Supporting public schools through information,

education, and engagement. 
       
Teacher Pipeline

North Carolina’s teachers are dedicated and hardworking, and their professionalism has made our public school system a jewel among Southern states. North Carolina leads the nation in number of teachers who have earned certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Disappointingly, we do not compensate our educators accordingly. The average teacher salary was $53,975 for 2018-19, according to the NEA, $7,755 less than the national average of $61,730.

 

It is also critical to remember that this average includes the salaries of veteran teachers who receive longevity and master’s pay, which newer teachers do not. With reduced job security, low pay and no incentive to get advanced degrees, the appeal of a teaching job has been significantly reduced in North Carolina.

 

Enrollment in undergraduate education programs across the UNC system is down, negatively impacting our once vibrant teacher pipeline. There are 15 UNC system schools with teacher preparation programs, and all are reporting declines in enrollment in their degree and licensure programs. The severe shortage of math and science teachers and middle school teachers for all subjects is a critical and growing problem.

 

As the WestEd report shows, we must work to provide a qualified and well-prepared, and diverse teaching staff in every school. For our students living in poverty, with little access to educational opportunities, an effective, experienced and qualified teacher is critical to their educational success. We must all work together to make this a reality.

 

We know that teachers and students depend on and benefit from our school support staff. These hardworking, valuable, dedicated individuals have been left out of pay increases for far too long. It is imperative we press lawmakers to pay them a living wage and start showing them the respect they deserve!

 
Leandro: A Recap

If you’re just tuning in, here’s a brief summary of Leandro and the recently released WestEd report. You can find more information on our website.

 

In 1994, in Leandro v. State, parents, students and school districts in low-wealth, rural counties filed a lawsuit alleging that students in these counties were denied their right to a sound basic education under the NC constitution.

 

The case affirmed that inequitable and inadequate school funding bars access to a sound and basic public education. In 2002, the court found that there was a violation of students’ rights to a sound, basic education and ordered the State to remedy this violation.

 

On December 10, 2019, the WestEd report was finally released confirming what educators and public school advocates believe: our public school system does not meet the educational needs of all children. High poverty, high needs school districts bear the brunt of these inequities.

 

The report estimates the state will need to spendnearly $7 Billion to properly address education funding. The report detailed the following critical needs. Over the next several weeks, we will be taking a deeper dive into each one.

 

1. Revise the state funding model to provide adequate, efficient, and equitable resources.

 

2. Provide a qualified, well-prepared, and diverse teaching staff in every school.

 

3. Provide a qualified and well-prepared principal in every school.

 

4. Provide all at-risk students with the opportunity to attend high-quality early childhood programs.

 

5. Direct resources, opportunities, and initiatives to economically disadvantaged students.

 

6. Revise the student assessment system and school accountability system, and statewide system of support for the improvement of low-performing and high-poverty schools.

 

7. Build an effective regional and statewide system of support for the improvement of low-performing and high-poverty schools

 

8. Convene an expert panel to assist the Court in monitoring state policies, plans, programs, and progress.

 

What happens next? Public education advocates are waiting to see if: 1) Judge Lee will order the NCGA to fund WestEd recommendations and/or 2) Will the NCGA take action on their own to fund the recommendations? Stay tuned!
ICYMI

Highlights From Recent Education News ​

The State Board of Education is considering changes to how it approves contracts after North Carolina Superintendent Mark Johnson signed a $928,000 contract late Tuesday night without the board’s knowledge.

 

Lawmakers return Tuesday. Will they finally vote on a budget?

 

On the education front, NC can invest in early childhood education and “commit to North Carolina’s constitutional responsibility to deliver a sound, basic education.”
A Charlotte voucher school announced it would not open for the second semester, leaving 145 students in limbo. The school is a former charter school that closed and reopened as a private school.

 

State Superintendent Mark Johnson charged Wednesday that thousands of third-grade grade students have been improperly promoted to the fourth grade when they aren’t proficient in their reading skills.

 

In the 2020-21 school year, high school freshmen will be required to take an economics and personal finance course before they graduate. To accommodate this class, the State Board of Education adopted new graduation requirements Thursday that say high school students will take one U.S. history course, instead of two.
Impact of Charter Schools Webinar

Sun, Jan 19, 2020 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST​

Join us for an in-depth look at the impact of charter schools on the Northeast school districts in Wake County. Our panelists are the Wake Board of Education representatives for Northeast Wake County: Roxie Cash and Heather Scott. They will share data on Northeast Wake Schools and participate in a conversation about how to best balance school choice in public education without damaging the economic vitality of traditional public schools in the same geographic area.

 

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

 
Budget News

The House and Senate are scheduled to reconvene January 14. Will they finally vote on a budget?
Leandro #2nd Recommendation:  Teachers Critical to Student Success

Before winter break, WestEd released their report  on the Leandro case. The report outlined 8 critical needs the state must address in order to fulfill its constitutional obligation to deliver a sound, basic education to all children.

 

The second critical need identified by the WestEd report is to provide a qualified and well-prepared, and diverse teaching staff in every school. Working conditions and staffing structures should enable all staff members to do their job effectively and grow professionally while supporting the academic, personal and social growth of all their students.

 

Highlights of Findings

#1 Teacher supply is shrinking and shortages are widespread. Budget cuts have reduced the total number of teachers employed in North Carolina by 5% from 2009 to 2018 even as student enrollments increased by 2% during that same time period.

#3 Experienced, licensed teachers have the lowest annual attrition rates. Teach for America teachers, on the other hand, had the highest attrition rates. National trends show that teachers without prior preparation leave the profession at two to three times the rate of those who are comprehensively prepared.

 

#4 Teacher demand is growing, and attrition increases the need for hiring. The total number of openings, including those for teachers who will need to be replaced, is expected to be 72,452 by 2026.

 

#5 Salaries and working conditions influence both retention and school effectiveness.
Teacher attrition is typically predicted by the following 4 factors:

  • The extent of preparation to teach
  • Extent of mentoring and support for novices
  • The adequacy of compensation
  • Teaching and learning conditions on the job

The report explained that teacher pay, after climbing for many years, began falling in 2008. Findings also show that the amount of the local supplement paid to teachers does influence retention.

 

#6 Although there has been an increase in the number of teachers of color in teacher enrollments, the overall current teacher workforce does not reflect the student population. Many teachers of color enter through alternative routes, which have higher rates of attrition than more comprehensive paths. Additionally, teacher education enrollments dropped by more than 60% between 2011 and 2016 in minority-serving institutions.​

 

#7 Disadvantaged students in North Carolina have less access to effective and experienced teachers.

For students who come from under served populations, an effective, experienced and qualified teacher is even more critical to their educational success.

 

Recommendations:
1.Increase pipeline of diverse, well-prepared teachers who enter through high-retention pathways and meet the needs of the state’s public schools.

2.Expand the NC Teaching Fellows program.

3.Support high-quality teacher residency programs in high-need rural and urban districts through a state matching grants program that leverages ESSA title II funding.

4. Provide funding for Grow-Your-Own and 2+2 programs that help recruit teachers in high-poverty communities.

5.Significantly increase the racial-ethnic diversity of the North Carolina teacher workforce and ensure all teachers employ culturally responsive practices.

6. Provide high-quality comprehensive mentoring and induction support for novice teachers in their first 3 years of teaching.

7. Implement differentiated staffing models that include advanced teaching roles and
additional compensation to retain and extend the reach of high-performing teachers.

8. Develop a system to ensure that all North Carolina teachers have the opportunities they
need for continued professional learning to improve and update their knowledge and practices.

9. Increase teacher compensation and enable low-wealth districts to offer salaries and other
compensation to make them competitive with more advantaged districts.

 

It is anticipated the recommended actions would result in:

  • Increased number (5,000 annually) of in-state trained and credentialed teachers
  • Increase in teachers of color in the teacher workforce to better reflect the student population (from 20% to 40%)
  • Comprehensive mentoring and induction support provided for all first-, second-, and third-year teachers (approximately 15,500)
  • Competitive teaching salaries in all North Carolina LEAs
  • Teacher attrition statewide at 7% or lower
  • Increased number (annually 1,500) of Teaching Fellows awards
  • Increase in experienced, effective, and certified teachers in high-poverty schools
  • Improved teacher retention in high-poverty schools
  • Improved capacity in districts and schools to provide high-quality, job-embedded professional learning
  • Increased student achievement.

 

Read the full report here.

 

We must restore our teacher pipeline and make teaching a viable, attractive option for students considering career paths. The state must work to restore adequate teacher pay and support. It is also crucial that our teachers reflect the diversity of their classrooms. It will require lawmakers to work together to prioritize adequate funding public education.

 

This is where you can help. Talk to your community about the importance of this report! Tell your representatives in the NCGA how important it is to fully fund schools for all children. Stay tuned for more advocacy ideas from us and our partners in education advocacy!
Teacher Diversity

There has been a great deal of research in the past few years showing the many benefits of a diverse educator workforce. The benefits are both academic and socioemotional and prepare students for the world they will be working and living in.

 

An article from the New York Times states “The homogeneity of teachers is probably one of the contributors, the research suggests, to the stubborn gender and race gaps in student achievement: Over all, girls outperform boys, and white students outperform those who are black and Hispanic.”

 

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and American University​ found black students who’d had just one black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college—and those who had two were 32 percent more likely.

 

There are increasing numbers of students of color in our public schools, but the teaching force is still comprised of mostly white women. It is crucial that our state work to make teaching an attractive, tenable option once again and work towards diversifying our teaching staff.
Early Childhood Grant

The preschool years of a young child’s life are a crucial time in their social, emotional and cognitive development. A high-quality early education program sets up children for academic success. ​

 

On January 9, Governor Roy Cooper announced that North Carolina will receive $56 million in federal funding over the next seven years to support children’s health and well-being, improve access to high-quality early learning for families across the state and invest in the state’s early childhood workforce.

 

The PDG grant invests in the people who shape young children’s healthy development – parents and early childhood professionals. It will help early childhood teachers build the skills needed to support children’s optimal development without having to leave the classroom. By providing job-embedded professional development and coaching, the grant removes barriers that make it difficult for teachers to pursue higher education.

 

In addition, the grant funds a partnership with the Smart Start network to expand access to Family Connects, a nurse home visiting program for parents of newborns; support for families as their children transition into kindergarten; and expanded access to high-quality child care for infants and toddlers. This is the state’s second PDG grant. In 2018, the NCDHHS was awarded a one-year $4.48 million PDG planning grant.

 

Read the full press release here and view the North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan here.
Candidate Forum

Public Schools First NC, the NC Parent Teacher Association, ​the Public School Forum of North Carolina, and the NC League of Women Voters are pleased to co-sponsor a candidate’s forum for the March primary for NC Superintendent of Public Instruction. This live screening will be held on February 6th, 2020 from 7 PM – 9 PM.

 

David Crabtree, WRAL anchor/reporter, will moderate the forum. The Republican primary candidates will be presented from 7pm-8pm and the Democratic primary candidates will be presented from 8pm-9pm.

 

We will be streaming the forum LIVE (provided by WRAL). You will find the link at wral.comcloser to the event. Please note that this a livestreaming event only, NO TICKETS available to the public.

 

We look forward to a stimulating exchange of ideas about the issues facing public education and hope you’ll join us.
Webinar- Legislative Update

 

Missed our webinar? Click here to listen

 

The NC General Assembly will reconvene on January 14, 2020. In the meantime, we have an update on the public education bills that passed this session and those bills still under consideration.

 

Legislators also provided an overview of funding so far for Pre-K to 12th grade education.

 
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Categories Accountability, Education Reform, North Carolina, Supporting public schools, Teach for America, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers

North Carolina: I Endorse Jen Mangrum for State Superintendent of Schools

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2020 //
4

I am happy to give my personal endorsement to Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Mangrum, who is running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina.

Jen has already been endorsed by the Network for Public Education, which concluded that she is far and away the most qualified candidate in the race.

Jen is a career educator who understands the importance of restoring the integrity of public education in what was once the premier state in the South.

She knows that the state’s General Assembly and its current superintendent have not supported public schools or their teachers.

The General Assembly has passed law after law intended to demoralize teachers and harm public schools.

In a  previous election, Jen had the courage to run against the most powerful politician in the state, the one who has led the effort to destroy public schools in the state.

She has proven that she has the knowledge, the experience, the spine and the spirit to run a spirited campaign and to fight for the children, teachers, and public schools of North Carolina.

She has been a classroom teacher and a teacher of teachers. She knows what is needed to lead the state’s school system.

Jen Mangrum understands the importance of attracting and retaining dedicated teachers, and she is committed to improving the public schools of North Carolina.

Her election would be a welcome change from years of toxic policy and state mis-leadership.

I have no doubt that Jen Mangrum would lead the change towards positive policies that is so desperately needed in North Carolina.

Please turn the tide in North Carolina against the politicians who have attacked public schools and their teachers and opened the schools up for profiteers and privatizers.

My many friends in the state support Jen Mangrum for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

I add my endorsement to that of North Carolina Teachers United, which has nearly 40,000 teacher-members.

Early voting starts February 13; the deadline to register to vote is February 7.

Please register and vote.

Please vote for Jen Mangrum.

 

 

NCTU Announces Recommended Candidate for North Carolina State Superintendent

Press Release: 

Mr. Bishay Elshoukarey, Director, Melissa Marie, Communications Manager, with Operation Managers Kristy Elshoukarey and Katherine Harter of  North Carolina Teachers United (NCTU) announced that Dr. Jen Mangrum has been selected as the recommended candidate for North Carolina State Superintendent of Public Instruction.  A committee of educators, who are members of NCTU, convened and after carefully reviewing each of the questionnaires selected Dr. Mangrum from a field of seven candidates.

 

Dr. Jen Mangrum, an educator for more than 30 years is currently employed by UNC-G in the School of Education as Clinical Associate Professor in Education.  Since she has been at UNC-G, Jen co-founded the STEM Teacher Leader collaborative.  Prior to taking the position at UNC-G, she completed her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and worked NC State University creating the Elementary Education program and department, where she led it for two years.

 

Both of Mangrum’s parents were educators and she followed in their footsteps.  For twelve years, she served as an elementary teacher in two different North Carolina school districts.  She then became a literacy facilitator where she modeled and coached effective literacy instruction.  During this time she began consulting with the National Paideia Center, which advocates that all learners practice the critical thinking, communication skills, and attitudes necessary to earn a living, be an active citizen, and pursue a meaningful life.

 

“Jen Mangrum is the leader we need as State Superintendent as she is an advocate for teachers, students, and families,” said Melissa Easley. 

 

“It is clear that Dr. Mangrum is totally qualified and the best candidate to be the State Superintendent.  She wants to change the current climate of respect for public education that is prevalent in the current leadership of both the NC Senate and NC House,” added Bishay Elshoukarey. 

 

Dr. Mangum indicated on her questionnaire that she is running to be the State Superintendent because she wants to reverse the current trend to dismantle public education.  She also said, “I want to make our state better for our children and future generations.”

 

The North Carolina Primary Election is March 3, 2020 with early voting beginning on February 13, 2020 and lasting until February 29, 2020.  Voter registration deadline is Friday, February 7, 2020. 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, North Carolina
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