Archives for category: Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania Cyber Charter won’t Answer Questions

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2012 //
9

The largest of Pennsylvania’s virtual charter schools is under investigation for its handling of public money. It’s offices were raided by the FBI earlier this year. It fired its top executives. The investigation continues.

Apparently the money rolled in so fast and furiously that the charter came up with ingenious ways to spend it, like sending a large number of its executives to get an online master’s degree on the public’s dime. But the lawyer for Pennsylvania Cyber Charter is not answering any questions. He seems to have forgotten that where public money goes, public accountability and transparency must follow.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Pennsylvania

Following the Voucher Money in Pennsylvania

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2012 //
5

Investigative journalists are beginning to follow the money trail that leads to privatization of public education.

Chris Potter of the Pittsburgh City Paper recently published an excellent examination of the lavish spending by a small group of interlocking organizations promoting privatization in Pennsylvania. Some of these organizations popped up overnight to dispense large sums of money to candidates willing to support vouchers.

The story is the same everywhere, it seems. A small number of people who are very rich are trying to buy elections. Their cause is “reform” their goal is privatization.

The journalist who conducts a national investigation might discover that the same 200-300 people are putting up the money in state and local school elections across the nation. They are undermining democracy with their targeted spending.

Categories Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

US DOE: Pennsylvania Can’t Inflate Charter Scores

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2012 //
7

The U.S. Department of Education ruled invalid Pennsylvania’s effort to inflate the scores of charter schools by treating them as local school districts.

Here is a description of what state education secretary Ron Tomalis tried to do.

The state’s charter-friendly education department had decided to treat charters as districts for purposes of NCLB scores, which made their performance look better. But US DOE said that was a no-go and all the charter scores must be recomputed.

Interesting that the announcement was made on the day before the long holiday weekend, which meant that someone decided to bury it.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Pennsylvania

Charters Expand Despite Lack of Evidence for Their Success

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2012 //
24

Joy Resmovits has a good article at Huffington Post describing the growth of charter school enrollments and the absence of adequate oversight.

Currently, about 5 percent of all American students are enrolled in these privately managed schools. In some urban districts, the proportion is much larger. The districts with the greatest number of students in charters are New Orleans, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Flint, Michigan. In 25 districts, at least 20 percent of students attend charters.

With the support of a bipartisan combination of President Obama, Congress, conservative governors, and rightwing groups like ALEC, these numbers are sure to grow. And the privatization of one of the nation’s most essential public services will continue.

The article mentions that local school boards “argue” that charters reduce their funding. That’s not an argument, that’s a fact. When students leave to attend charters, the public schools must lay off teachers, increase class sizes, cut programs. The more charters open, the more the public schools decline, especially when they lose their most motivated families and students. This is not simply a matter of transferring money from Peter to Paul, but crippling Peter to enrich Paul.

If charters had a stellar reputation, the logic might be on their side. But there are few studies that show charters outperforming public schools even on the crude measure of test scores. With only a few outliers, most studies show that charters do not get different results when they have the same kinds of students.

Chester-Upland, Pensylvania, schools may be an example of what happens when well-funded charters (funded by the district’s own revenues) grow as the host dies. The CU schools have been under state control for nearly 20 years. The local charter is not only thriving but providing handsome profits for its founder. Meanwhile the public schools, having lost half their enrollment to the charter, are dying. A state emergency manager just issued a lengthy report with high benchmarks for future success.

The plan calls for school closings and sets goals for academic gains. The bottom line in this plan for recovery is that the public schools will be extinguished if they can’t meet ambitious targets:

““If the district fails to meet certain scholastic performance goals, such as federal annual progress targets, by the end for the 2014-15 school year, the plan calls for the schools to be run by external management operations such as charter schools, cyber charters, and education management companies.”

Is this the future of urban education in the United States? Will this be the legacy of the Bush-Obama education program?

Categories Charter Schools, For-Profit, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), On-Line Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Race to the Top

A Local School Board Member in Pennsylvania Is a Hero of Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2012 //
6

Lawrence A. Feinberg is a member of the Haverford Township school board in Pennsylvania.

He is a hero of public education and a model for parents, educators and activists across the nation.

He is a businessman who cares passionately about public education.

Feinberg runs an outstanding website that keeps parents and educators (and people like me who don’t live in Pennsylvania) informed about the events in the state.

Here is a great example of the information that mobilizes parents and activists. In this post, Feinberg and fellow volunteers follow the money and the legislation that affect the future of public education. This one shows how $4 billion dollars in taxpayer funding is paid out to charters in the state with no real oversight. It demonstrates who gets the money and who is making big political contributions to politicians who fail to provide oversight.

Feinberg is a leader of the Keystone State Education Coalition. This is how it describes its work on its website: “Established in 2006, the Keystone State Education Coalition is a growing grass roots, non-partisan public education advocacy group of several hundred locally elected, volunteer school board members and administrators from school districts throughout Pennsylvania. Our mission is to evaluate, discuss and inform our boards, district constituents and legislators on legislative issues of common interest and to facilitate active engagement in public education advocacy.”

Feinberg became active in school board issues as a parent of children in Haverford Township. He has been elected to his local school board since 1999, endorsed by both Republican and Democratic parties.

Pennsylvania is lucky to have Lawrence Feinberg. If every state had advocates as dedicated as Feinberg, we could turn this nation’s education policies around to serve the interests of children, not entrepreneurs, politicians, and privatizers.

Categories Honor Roll, Pennsylvania

Why Is Pennsylvania Welcoming More Cyber Charters?

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2012 //
11

Despite the miserable results that cyber charters get in study after study, the state has authorized more of them than any other state. It has 12 up and running, four more just approved, and more in line to be approved.

I mistakenly reported in an earlier post that only one cyber charter had ever made “adequate yearly progress,” but I was mistaken. NO cyber charter has ever made AYP in Pennsylvania. It was only because the State Education Commissioner dummies down the scoring that one crossed the bar. When held to the same standards as public schools, no cyber charter meets the NCLB requirement for academic progress.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, K12 Inc., On-Line Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Please Vote. Your Vote Matters.

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2012 //
20

If you live in one of the battleground states, I urge you to vote to re-elect President Obama.

Though many of us oppose his Race to the Top, please vote for him for other reasons.

We can’t allow a reactionary, backward-looking Republican Party to take charge of this nation’s future. We can’t allow a rightwing administration to shape the Supreme Court.

I urge you to vote for President Obama. Once he is re-elected, we will continue to pressure him to strengthen our nation’s essential public education system. He might hear us. Romney won’t.

If you live in Washington State, vote NO on 1240 and show the billionaires that you won’t let them start the process of privatization.

If you live in Georgia, vote against the ALEC initiative and preserve local control.

If you live in Bridgeport, Connecticut, vote against the Mayor’s attempt to take away your right to elect the school board.

If you live in Los Angeles, vote for Robert Skeels for LAUSD school board.

If you live in Ohio, vote for Maureen Reedy for the legislature.

If you live in Minneapolis, vote for Patty Wycoff for school board.

If you live in Idaho, vote NO on Props 1, 2, 3: Repeal the Luna laws.

If you live in New Jersey, vote for Marie Corfield.

If you are in Perth Amboy, NJ, vote the “New Visions” slate: Nina Perkins Nieves, Benny Salerno, Jeanette Gonzalez and Maria Garcia for Board of Education.

If you live in Pennsylvania, vote for Richard Flarend.

If you live in California, vote yes on 30 to support public education and no on 32, meant to hobble unions.

Wherever you are, support the candidates who believe in democratically controlled public schools.

Wherever you live, oppose privatization and diversion of public funds to private hands.

Strengthen our democracy by supporting public education.

Support the schools whose doors are open to all.

Support the candidates who will fight for equality of educational opportunity.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Los Angeles, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Voters in Pennsylvania: Support Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2012 //
0

Education Voters Action of Pennsylvania interviewed candidates and endorsed those who support public schools.

Don’t be fooled.

Vote for those who support democratically governed public schools.

Categories Parents, Pennsylvania, US Education

School Libraries Matter!

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
30

Read here about the “Manchester Miracle,” about an elementary school in Pennsylvania that had only 40 fiction books on its shelves.

The community came together, renovated the library, and stocked its shelves with books.

And then there is the bad news. In Pittsburgh, only 14 of 51 schools have a full-time librarian. Most librarians spend only one day a week at each school.

This is the part I don’t understand.

When I went to public school in Houston many years ago, every school I attended had a library and a librarian. Some had more than one.

Our society is now immeasurably richer than it was then.

Why can’t every school have a library and a librarian?

Why don’t hedge fund managers support libraries?

Andrew Carnegie did, and it made him a hero for all time, enabling people to forget about labor practices at his steel mills. So today, because of his benefactions, he is remembered for his gift of libraries and literacy, not the brutal suppression of the Homestead Strike in 1892.

If the hedge fund managers and equity investors supported school libraries, we would think of them kindly and the memory of 2008 would fade.

Hello, Democrats for Education Reform! How about Democrats for School Libraries?

Categories Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Cyber Gold Rush

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
1

Pennsylvania has 16 full-time cyber charter schools. Of the twelve that have been around long enough to report on test scores, only one made AYP this year. Last year, two made AYP. Eight are in corrective action status. None has ever been closed. The other four were authorized earlier this year.

Last summer, the offices of the state’s largest cyber charter school was raided by the FBI, which apparently had many questions about where the money is going in an enterprise that collects more than $100 million every year. The board of that school fired its top staff but the investigation continues.

A review of the cyber charters by CREDO at Stanford University concluded that they get terrible results: their students have low scores, low graduation rates, and high attrition rates. A spokesperson for CREDO said: “whatever cyberschools are doing in PA is definitely not working and should not be replicated.”

But the cyber charters just keep growing, as they spend more and more money to recruit students and more and more money to lobby legislators.

So what does the future hold for cyber charters in Pennsylvania in light of evidence that cyber charters get poor education results and need greater oversight?

Eight more cyber charter schools just applied to the state for authorization.

The state auditor complained that the cyber charters overbill the state.

But aside from his report, has the governor or legislative leaders or the state commissioner of education expressed concern about the growth of the state’s lowest performing education sector?

Are you kidding? This is not about improving education. It’s not about “the kids.” This is the edu-business.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization
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