Archives for category: Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Pennsylvania’s Expensive, Ineffective Cyber Charters

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2019 //
5

From the Keystone State Coalition, administered by Lawrence Feinberg:

Started in November 2010, daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 4050 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor’s staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition team members, superintendents, school solicitors, principals, charter school leaders, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations, education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

 

These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org

Visit us on Facebook at KeystoneStateEducationCoalition

Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

 

Reprise Aug. 2017: Pa. charter schools spend millions of public dollars in advertising to attract students

Public Source By Stephanie Hacke and Mary Niederberger AUG. 29, 2017

PART OF THE SERIES The Charter Effect|

If you’re a parent, it’s likely Facebook knows it.

If you’re not happy with your child’s current school, Facebook probably knows that, too. And you are likely to be hit with paid, highly targeted ads offering alternatives. That’s why when you scroll through your news feed on Facebook you may see a sponsored photo of a wide-eyed child and parent thrilled about their tuition-free, personalized education at a Pennsylvania cyber charter school. If you pay property taxes, you likely paid for this ad campaign. See the ad on the side of the Port Authority bus that shows happy students and a message that Propel Montour High School has spaces available in grades 9 and 10. Your property taxes paid for that, too. Television ads, radio promotions, social media ads and billboards promoting cyber and brick-and-mortar charter schools are everywhere. Some charter operators pay for online keyword searches that prompt their school’s websites to show up first when a parent searches for certain terms related to charter schools or a student’s need for an alternative education setting. In the last three school years, 12 of the state’s 14 cyber charter schools spent more than $21 million combined in taxpayer dollars promoting their schools, PublicSource found through Right-to-Know requests. The Commonwealth Charter Academy spent the most of the cyber charters on advertising; it spent $3.2 million in 2015-16 and $4.4 million in 2016-17.

https://projects.publicsource.org/chartereffect/stories/pennsylvania-charter-schools-spend-millions-of-public-dollars-in-advertising-to-attract-students.html

 

Blogger note: Total cyber charter tuition paid by PA taxpayers from 500 school districts for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 was over $1.6 billion; $393.5 million, $398.8 million, $436.1 million and $454.7 million respectively.

In 2016-17, taxpayers in Senate Education Cmte Majority Chairman .@SenLangerholc’s districts had to send over $10.5.3 million to chronically underperforming cybers that their locally elected school boards never authorized. . #SB34 (Schwank) or #HB526 (Sonney) could change that. 

Data source: PDE via PSBA

 

Bedford Area SD $195,903.70
Blacklick Valley SD $172,928.49
Cambria Heights SD $171,102.13
Central Cambria SD $147,481.76
Chestnut Ridge SD $334,862.00
Claysburg-Kimmel SD $108,164.64
Clearfield Area SD $847,317.65
Conemaugh Valley SD $277,810.82
Curwensville Area SD $165,465.87
Dubois Area SD $781,498.59
Everett Area SD $352,172.57
Ferndale Area SD $231,971.23
Forest Hills SD $248,609.94
Glendale SD $157,426.86
Greater Johnstown SD $2,532,971.00
Harmony Area SD $127,540.41
Moshannon Valley SD $200,674.93
Northern Bedford County SD $225,181.66
Northern Cambria SD $251,658.09
Penn Cambria SD $428,637.20
Philipsburg-Osceola Area SD $697,580.57
Portage Area SD $182,599.03
Purchase Line SD $358,211.18
Richland SD $264,415.85
Tussey Mountain SD $253,595.93
West Branch Area SD $323,061.45
Westmont Hilltop SD $0.00
Windber Area SD $467,326.78
  $10,506,170.33

 

 

Has your state senator cosponsored bipartisan SB34?

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34

 

Is your state representative one of the over 70 bipartisan cosponsors of HB526?

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=H&type=B&bn=526

 

WHYY Radio Times: Cyber charter schools

Air Date: Friday June 21, 2019 10:00 am; Runtime 49:15

Guests: Margaret Raymond, Susan Spicka, David Hardy

A new study shows that many students enrolled in Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are not getting a quality education. A quarter of Pennsylvania’s charter school students use these virtual learning programs as an alternative to attending brick-and-mortar schools. Today, we’ll hear about the damning report, the pros and cons of digital classrooms, and what the future holds for these types of programs. Joining us will be MARGARET RAYMOND, founding director of the organization, CREDO, that released the report, as well as SUSAN SPICKA of Education Voters of PA, and DAVID HARDY, executive director of Excellent Schools Pa, a school choice advocacy organization.

https://whyy.org/episodes/cyber-charter-schools-are-they-working/

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Michigan: Gov. Whitmer Wants to Impose Deformers on Benton Harbor

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2019 //
10

 

Thomas Pedroni of Wayne State University writes that Governor Gretchen Whitmer wants to impose corporate reform organizations on Benton Harbor to “save” the underfunded district. A cruel hoax. She is carrying forward the foul legacy of Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

 

Michigan Gov Whitmer Grants Benton Harbor Schools a Trojan Horse-load of School Privatizers 
 
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, propelled to the state’s highest office just eight months ago by Black, Latino, and other progressive voters, is coming out to her electorate— not as a progressive, but as a third term retread of former Republican Governor and Flint Poisoner-in-Chief Rick Snyder.
 
Not only has Whitmer continued Snyder’s penchant for strong-arming and dismantling predominately Black school districts (he gutted Inkster, Buena Vista, Muskegon Heights, Highland Park, and Detroit; she’s “offered” to close Benton Harbor’s only high school in exchange for not immediately dissolving the entire district), but she also shares her predecessor’s fascination with the disruptive possibilities of some of our nation’s foremost corporate education reform companies.
 
While the Governor has responded to statewide outrage over her indecent proposal for Benton Harbor High School by grabbing her political life preserver and offering to consider alternative suggestions by the elected board (which returns to power after five years of state supervision on July 1), her rhetorical softening comes with a new “proposal”— Benton Harbor trustees must now agree to onboard a “turnaround expert” to guide their return to autonomy.
 
As the Benton Harbor trustees learned on Wednesday, June 26, just days before their restoration, the Governor has given them a choice— they must work with one of the four whole district “turnaround” companies she has laid on the table: AUSL (Academy for Urban School Leadership), TNTP (the New Teacher Project), TfC (Turnaround for Children), or ERC (Educational Resource Strategies).
 
AUSL, of course, has consistently failed to reach its promised benchmarks in the schools it’s taken over in Chicago and, remarkably, has underperformed non-AUSL Chicago schools despite receiving large resource infusions from the Gates Foundation. A recent Chicago Teachers Union analysis of AUSL teacher firing and replacement in Chicago found that the largest impact of AUSL takeover may be on the racial composition and experience level of the teaching workforce— fired teachers were disproportionately more experienced and of color.
 
TNTP, which traces its founding to the teacher-bashing Michelle Rhee and TFA’s Wendy Kopp, has been described by Peter Greene as the “big boys and girls” version of Teach for America, in that its objective is to transform people with established non-teaching careers into teachers. TNTP believes in using computer-administered multiple choice questions to identify better teachers.
 
The final two organizations, Turnaround for Children and Educational Resource Strategies, similarly partner with and are funded by a who’s who of the corporate education reform world— TfC by the Bezos Family Foundation, the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kipp DC, and America’s Promise Alliance, among others; and ERS by the Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, TNTP, and the New Schools Venture Fund.
 
How Governor Whitmer’s staff came up with this short list of corporate education reform organizations for Benton Harbor Schools is unclear; but one thing is clear— the Governor is passing over the insights and recommendations she might garner from the Benton Harbor community; from educational researchers and teacher educators; from officials and researchers at the Michigan Department of Education; from rank and file teachers and their unions. Instead she is laser-focused on whoever it is from the corporate education reform world who is whispering in her ear.
 
Benton Harbor Area Schools, its children, and the people who elected Whitmer deserve much better than this, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t get it. But this can only happen if Whitmer chooses to disavow the corporate education Koolaid and actually listen to the people she claims to value.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Michigan, Privatization

Washington State: “Bold Experiment” with Charters Is Flunking

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2019 //
55

 

Give Bill Gates credit for persistence. He wanted charter schools in Washington State and he wouldn’t give up. The state held four referendums about whether to authorize private charter schools, and the idea was defeated time after time after time. Until 2012. Gates and his billionaire buddies raised a multimillion dollar war chest that completely overwhelmed the opposition of the PTAs, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the Washington Education Association, and a long list of civil rights and good government groups.

And in 2012, the referendum passed by less than 1%, bought and paid for by Gates and friends. The opposition sued, and the state’s highest court ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they do not meet the State Constitution’s definition of a “common school,” which is governed by an elected board.

Gates then put up money to try to defeat the judges who ruled against his beloved charters, but they were re-elected.

Then he went to the Legislature and through his surrogates, persuaded the lawmakers to pass a bill to use lottery money to fund Bill Gates’ charters. He could have easily paid for them himself, but he wanted the public to pay.

A dozen or so were quickly set up, some of which were recruited by Gates and given seed money.

And so the bold experiment began.

Things went badly quickly. First, the Walton-funded CREDO from Stanford University evaluated the charters and found that overall they did not get better results from public schools.

Recently, some of the fledgling charters folded because of low enrollments.

Read this equivocal editorial in the Tacoma News Tribune, which alternates between acknowledging the disappointing performance of Tacoma charters, the closure of two of them, the good performance of one, blaming the Legislature for failing to provide facilities funding (why not blame Bill Gates?), reminding readers that “the voters” approved charters, but not reminding them that Gates for the vote and it passed by a hair.

This editorial board once called charter schools a “bold experiment,” but even we need to remember that kids aren’t lab rats; when we experiment with schools, we experiment with kids’ futures. The stakes are high.

Joe Hailey, board chairman of Green Dot Public Schools Washington, the nonprofit charter that ran Destiny Middle School, told the News Tribune that lack of access to local levy funding meant a “permanent structural deficit for our schools.” In other words, with a large funding gap, Destiny Middle School was destined to fail.

Hailey is right. Without levy funding, charters compete with one hand tied behind their backs. If the paramount duty of the state is to educate every child, that’s not happening. Instead of being all-in on charter schools, we’re only half-in, and guess who suffers?

Why didn’t Bill Gates warn voters that they would have to pay facilities funding? Come to think of it, why doesn’t he buy a building for each of the charters, since he wanted them so badly? This would be only crumbs off his table.

Due to the opposition of the teachers’ union and lack of facilities funding, Tacoma’s charters are doing poorly:

Opponents — the Washington Education Association being one of the loudest — have launched lawsuits and a hostile public relations campaign against these voter-approved schools. To counter their claims, charters have to prove themselves by meeting higher benchmarks for success, and at least in Tacoma, that didn’t happen.

Third graders In Tacoma’s SOAR Academy had reading and math scores 28 to 34 percentage points lower than their Tacoma Public School cohorts, and now, due to the school’s closure, some of those students will have to go back into the local district and compete with students who may be miles ahead in terms of academic performance.

With results like that, the WEA needs no PR campaign.

Why was anyone so gullible as to believe that entrepreneurs would be better at running schools than professional educators?

Ask Bill Gates.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Washington State

Peter Greene: On Reading “Winners Take All,” a Morality Tale for Our Times

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2019 //
57

Peter Greene read and loved Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.

So did I, which is why it is on my short list of books I recommend for summer reading.

Peter writes:

Every so often you come across a book that unpacks and reframes a part of the universe in a way that you can never unsee. Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas has been a book like that for me.

Giridharadas is writing about “the elite charade of changing the world,” and while he is taking a broad look at the way the Betters are trying to influence our country and our world, the connections to education reform are unmistakable. I’m about to go ahead and give my grossly oversimplified take on his work and its intersection with public education; as a general guide, assume everything smart came from his book and everything wrong is my fault. There’s a lot to pack into a blog post, and I will cut corners like crazy; there are so many pull quotes from this book that I have put up an entire supplemental blog post just of quotes from the work. My best recommendation if you find any of this striking is to buy the book…

The elite assumption is that the system that put them on top, the game that they are the winners of, is fair and just and unrigged and not in need of being changed in any major ways. They are not part of the problem, and they are hurt that you would even suggest that was true; they are simply the just winners in a meritocratic system.

So the solutions they will propose meet a couple of standards:

1) It will include no challenge to the fundamentals of the current system.
2) The elites will be in charge (because their eliteness is proof of their fitness to run the show).
3) It will harness entrepreneurial energy (i.e. someone’s going to make money from it).
4) It will hand most of the blame responsibility to the people on the bottom who are being “rescued….”

The fingerprints of this mindset are all over education reform.

* The very notion, popular and bipartisan among the Betters, that education is the fix for everything. All the socio-economic inequity in the country can be solved, not by looking at the system that created that inequity– in fact, we’re not even going to admit that the system had any hand in creating inequity. No the system is swell, and the winners are people who are at the top got there by hard work and wisdom and meritocratic excellence. So, no, we don’t need to look at that system– we just need these people on the bottom to get themselves better educations (including things like grit) so that they can win at the game, too.

* Think Bill Gates, deciding that he needs to rewrite and standardize public education, and will have to circumvent, subvert and co-op the actual government to do it. Nobody elected him Grand Poobah of US Education, but he is perfectly comfortable appointing himself to the job.

* Think the deification of business standards in ed reform, and the notion that the free market will fix the system, that we will know which ideas are working best because they will succeed in the market. Think Eli Broad’s assertion that schools don’t have an education problem, but a business management problem.

* Think the repeated notion that democracy is a problem in education. We need to get rid of elected school boards and we need to give school leaders the kind of freedom that an all-powerful CEO has to create his vision. In ed reform, local control and the democratic process are to be avoided.

* Think the constant rejection of expertise. Reformsters don’t need to talk to teachers. What do teachers know? (If they are really such great shakes, why aren’t they rich?) I’ve succeeded at the game, and the same wisdom that made me a winner at that game will apply to fixing education. No other sorts of wisdom are necessary.

The huge irony of this book, which excoriates the elites and the billionaires who pretend to “save” the world by privatizing it, is that one of the blurbs was written by Bill Gates. He (or more likely, someone in his office) wrote:

In Anand’s thought-provoking book his fresh perspective on solving complex societal problems is admirable. I appreciate his commitment and dedication to spreading social justice.

This is a book that lambastes the likes of Gates. Why did he endorse it?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Hoax, Privatization

Jersey Jazzman: Do Test Scores Go Up When Tests Are Harder?

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2019 //
18

 

Jersey Jazzman untangles a simpleminded assertion by New Jersey Reformers: Harder Tests Make kids smarterand Cause scores to go up.

We have been hearing this claim since NCLB was enacted.

And we must ask, what’s the connection between scores going up and learning more?

Test prep can drive scores higher too.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Jersey, Privatization, Testing

Gary Rubinstein: This Article is Propaganda for TFA and Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2019 //
22

 

Gary Rubinstein writes here about an article he was surprised to read in  Chalkbeat. 

He was surprised because he expects more of Chalkbeat.

The article lauds a young TFA teacher who has just finished her first year.

He writes:

The basic premise is that Angelique Hines a first year TFA teacher placed in a brand new charter school in Tennessee is featured in a series of interviews by Chalkbeat called “How I Teach.”  The premise of the interview series, according to Chalkbeat is “Here, in a feature we call How I Teach, we ask educators who’ve been recognized for their work how they approach their jobs.”  So already there’s an issue of whether Hines is really an educator who has been recognized for her work.  She has been teaching for 9 months in a brand new charter school that has no track record at all.

One thing we do know is that her students can sit with their hands folded in front of them in a very obedient way.

So the article explains its title.  Hines speaks about how a student said he misses his old school because that school was much more fun.  One example of how the old school was more fun, he says, is that in the old school they watched more movies.

Gary writes that the article assumes that the old school was “bad,” but provides no evidence. The article assumes that students can’t learn and have fun at the same time. The article assumes that the first year teacher “has been recognized” for her work as a teacher but who recognized her and for what? How many teachers are recognized as exemplary at the end of their first year in the classroom?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teach for America, Teaching, Tennessee

Carol Burris: Who Is Ferdinand Zulueta?

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2019 //
9

Carol Burris wrote this post on learning that the National Charter Schools  Conference was honoring charter chain founder Ferdinand Zulueta.

 

I am dumfounded that Fernando Zulueta is being honored by the National Charter Schools Conference. He and his brother run one of the most notorious for-profit charter management companies in the country, Academica. The Office of Inspector General’s audit of three Academica schools — Excelsior, Mater High and Mater East  found that the Board of the Excelsior charter school, which ended its relationship with Academica in 2013, allowed Academica to find, design and procure facilities, recommend staff, conduct the day-to-day running of the school, assume responsibilities for accounting, budgeting and produce its financial forecast. The for-profit CMO participated in all charter board meetings and made recommendations to the board.

OIG’s audit of the two Mater charter schools identified related party transactions between the for-profit Academica and a real estate company that leased both buildings and security services to the schools.

Although the audit is difficult to follow due to extensive redactions, it is clear that the investigation found inappropriate transactions among the CMO, School Development HG II, L.L.C., School Development East L.L.C., Duke School Properties, L.L.C. and the charter schools.

School Development Corporation HG II owned and leased a building to Mater High School while School Development East owned and leased a building to Mater East. School Development Corporation was owned by a Panamanian company, the Wolfson Hutton Development Company. The directors of the Wolfson Hutton Company were the Zulueta brothers, one of whom is being honored at the Charter Schools Conference. The brothers were the founders of both the Mater Academies and Academica. The details of the complex for-profit web can be found here in an earlier investigative report by the Miami-Dade Public Schools.

According to OIG, there was no evidence that the relationship between the CMO and the real estate company was disclosed to the charter school’s board of directors at the time of the original lease; nor was there any “evidence of a discussion regarding the renewal of the management agreement with Academica or the reasonableness of CMO services or fees.” The original real estate transactions took place while Fernando Zulueta served on the Mater Board.

By 2010, the Zulueta brothers controlled more than $115 million in Florida tax-exempt real estate with the companies collecting about $19 million in lease payments. Many of the charter schools paid rents well above expected rates. Academica not only benefited from renting real estate it owned, it also sold payroll, employer services, construction services, equipment leasing and school services to the schools.

Considering the complicated web of conflicts of interest and raw profiteering, one would think that Academica would have been scaled back. Not at all. Deep-pocket contributions to Florida lawmakers have shielded Academica and other for-profit CMOs from regulations that inhibit their ability to make a profit off taxpayer funds. And then there are the legislators who are profiting from charter schools.

Until 2016, Academica’s closest ally in the capital was Fernando Zulueta’s brother-in-law, [former Florida House Rep.] Erik Fresen. Fresen, a former lobbyist for Academica, served as chairman of the House Education Appropriations even while working as a consultant for a firm called Civica which had contracts with Academica schools.

During his eight years in the legislature, Fresen never bothered to file his taxes, resulting in a 60-day prison sentence after he left office.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization

National Charter School Conference Honors Its Heroes

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2019 //
71

One of our readers and frequent commenters—Joe Nathan— was elected to the Charter School Hall of Fame and will be honored at the National Charter Schools Conference. Joe helped to write the first charter law in the nation in Minnesota. He and Ted Kolderie ensured that charters would be deregulated and would not confirm to Albert Shanker’s template on unionized schools approved only by local school districts. Joe continues to insist that charters are “progressive,” even though their most important funders are the Walton Family Foundation (which funds Joe) and their biggest cheerleaders are the rightwing ALEC and Betsy DeVos.

Charters are in the midst of an existential crisis right now after years of boasting about unlimited growth. That growth has stalled, as Democrats distance themselves from charters. A backlash against charters and privatization is in full swing.

Part of that backlash stems from the daily drumbeat of charter scandals, especially the recent indictment of 11 people connected to an $80 million scam in California.

Here is the program of the National Charter Schools Conference.

NCSC will honor not only Joe, but Ferdinand Zulueta, who runs one of the largest for-profit charter chains in Florida, called Academica. The Zulueta Family has amassed a real estate fortune of more than $100 million, thanks to their business acumen and public funds.
National Charter Schools Conference

We are bummed you couldn’t make it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little taste of Vegas during the 2019 National Charter Schools Conference (NCSC19)! We will be livestreaming all general sessions and happenings on the Charter Talks stage.

Tune in on our Facebook page for these sessions:

Monday, July 1

Opening General Session (9:30-10:30 a.m. PT): We’re thrilled to welcome back Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, back to the main stage at NCSC19! National Alliance President & CEO Nina Rees will kick-off and lead the first plenary session of NCSC19 with her annual State of the Movement address encouraging us all to share our stories.

And, finally, don’t miss a special guest introduce one of the 2019 Charter School Hall of Fame inductees, Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica!

Charter Talks (11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT): Back for a third year, presenters will share a 15-minute compelling presentation that shares a big idea, is a tech demo, delves into an issue, or shares a small idea with a big impact. These Charter Talks pack a punch, so come ready to learn a lot in a small amount of time from interactive, engaging presenters!

  • 11:15 a.m. The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation – Cara Stillings Candal, Pioneer Institute
  • 11:30 a.m. The Life and Times of an Independent Charter School Operator – India Ford, T-Squared Honors Academy
  • 11:45 a.m. College for All: A Personal Odyssey – Robert Lane, Southland College Prep HS

Recording of The 8 Black Hands Podcast (3-4:30 p.m. PT): For the first time ever, we will have a live recording of two podcasts on-site, starting with The 8 Black Hands Podcast. The podcast from four black men (Ray Ankrum, Charles Cole, Sharif El-Mekki, and Chris Stewart) engages in passionate discussions about educating Black minds in a country that has perpetually failed them. Don’t miss the live recording of this powerful podcast!

Tuesday, July 2

Recording of Academica Media’s Charter School Superstars Podcast (10 a.m.-12 p.m. PT): The second live podcast recording at NCSC19 will feature a Q&A session with big players in the charter school movement on the Academic Media podcast.

Unleashing Opportunity and Creativity with Computer Science (12:15-1 p.m. PT): Hadi Partovi, founder of Code.org and creator of the global Hour of Code campaign, talks about the importance of teaching computer science as part of the core academic curriculum in grades K-12, introducing creativity to the classroom, approaches to diversity in computer science, and implementation challenges in schools.

Second General Session and Charter School Rally (3:15-4:30 p.m. PT): The National Alliance is pleased to have Hadi Partovi as our keynote speaker during Tuesday’s general session. Romy Drucker, deputy director of K-12 Education at the Walton Family Foundation and co-founder of The 74, will also give remarks. The General Session will close with a Charter Schools Rally encouraging us all to speak up on behalf of the nation’s 3.2 million charter school students, led by Dr. Howard Fuller, Institute for the Transformation of Learning; Keri Rodrigues, Massachusetts Parents United; and Myrna Casterjón, California Charter Schools Association.

Wednesday, July 3

Closing Session (9-10 a.m. PT): During the closing session of NCSC19, we will be recognizing two more 2019 Charter School Hall of Fame inductees: Joe Nathan, Ph.D., director of the Center for School Change, and Dr. Margaret Fortune, president and CEO of Fortune School. Clifton Taulbert, president of the Freemount Corporation and author of Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, will be delivering our last keynote session of NCSC19 with his talk on the charter of community—a fitting end to the conference. Kendall Massett, executive director of Delaware Charter School Network and vice chair of the State Leaders Council, will lead the final session.

Don’t forget to follow the conversation throughout the conference on Twitter with #NCSC19!

 

While technology is great, everything is so much better in person—and you can still register onsite at Mandalay Bay. We’d love to have you!

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools   1425 K Street  Suite 900  Washington,  DC   20005   USA
Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Deregulation, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Great Britain: School Privatization Run Amok

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2019 //
6

 

 

Thanks to Leonie Haimson for sending along this paper. The “academy” concept began under a Conservative government that believed private enterprise was infinitely wiser than public anything. Corporations and wealthy individuals were encouraged to “buy” control of schools by putting up a large sum. Things seem to going swimmingly for the idea. This is a small excerpt. When I was part of the Koret Task Force at the rightwing Hoover Institution, we journeyed to England as a group to learn about this example of privatization in action.

The paper contains a valuable review of “related party transactions,” that is, financial self-dealing in the private entities that receive public funding in the U.S. and Great Britain.

 

Charter Schools, Academy Schools, and Related-Party Transactions: Same Scams, Different Countries

Preston C. Green III and Chelsea E. Connery

 

Academies were first introduced in 2000 as the City Academy Program. 34 City academies were to

replace locally run schools in urban areas that were deemed to be failing by the school inspection

body Ofsted, or that were underachieving. The Education Act 2002 permitted academies to open

outside of urban areas.

 

Eight years later, Parliament enacted the Academies Act 2010. This statute extended the academy

option, until then limited to struggling schools, to include successful schools at both the primary

and secondary levels. The government financed conversion costs and provided considerable

financial incentives to encourage schools to convert. The number of academies increased

dramatically as a result of these policy changes. In 2010, there were 203 academies throughout

England, all of them serving secondary schools with high proportions of disadvantaged students.40

As of September 2018, there were 8,177 academies, constituting 36% of England’s state funded

schools. About 66% of England’s secondary schools and 30% of its primary schools have achieved

academy status.

 

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=288029089119124077071072023002029091103043056088031004087020092093070127089006103068017098101006051012034021074006121068019013122090028033029003084118011099077099015084017084101118003105028109069085121099080067081097099083066095083111127031029112103001&EXT=pdf

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, International, Privatization

St. Louis: Four New Charters, One Charter Closes

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2019 //
5

 

St. Louis will get four new charters, including another KIPP and a private school that turned charter so families would no longer pay tuition. A charter plagued with financial mismanagement and suspicion of inflated enrollment will close.

Kairos Academies is enrolling sixth-graders for its personalized learning-themed middle and high school opening in the Marine Villa neighborhood. It’s the only entirely new school opening in August. Founders Gavin Schiffres and Jack Krewson are Teach For America alumni who taught briefly in north St. Louis County districts. Krewson is the son of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson.

St. Louis College Prep closed in May after it wound up in financial trouble mid-year following revelations of possible attendance inflation by its founder and executive director. Lafayette Preparatory Academy, a nearby elementary school, tried to step in and purchase the building to add its own high school. The deal to purchase the building fell through and plans for a high school have been postponed, according to Susan Marino, Lafayette Prep’s executive director.

The Soulard School, which had been a private school in south St. Louis, is converting to a charter school this fall.

Creative destruction continues to roil St.Louis, aided by TFA.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, St. Louis, Teach for America
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »