Archives for category: Privatization
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Reed Hastings Funds Anti-Abortion Extremists in Missouri in Hopes of Getting Their Votes for Charter School Bill

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2019 //
30

Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, funded anti-abortion Republicans in Missouri as a way to win their votes for charter school  legislation. Hastings likes to portray himself as a “progressive.” What kind of progressive would fund a total ban on all abortions, including abortions related to rape, incest, and the health of the mother?

New York (CNN Business)Netflix has taken a stance against a restrictive abortion bill in Georgia. But its CEO Reed Hastings has been donating to lawmakers who passed one of the country’s most controversial abortion laws.

Over the last 10 months, Hastings donated $143,000 to 73 Republicans who voted for a Missouri abortion ban. And in November, Hastings donated $2,600, the maximum donation amount, to Missouri Governor Mike Parson, who signed a bill on May 24 prohibiting abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy.
A newsletter, Popular Information, first reported the publicly available data through the Missouri Ethics Commission.
The recent trend of donating to Missouri Republicans is unusual for Hastings, who has a pattern of donating to Democrats over the past two decades. He’s donated to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, as well as to larger Democratic committees. Over the past 10 months, Hastings also donated $10,700 to various Missouri Democrats.
A source close to Hastings told CNN Business that Netflix’s CEO donated the money for education purposes.
“All of these personal donations from Reed, on both sides of the aisle, were made in support of a specific piece of legislation aimed at improving the availability and quality of charter schools in Missouri,” said the source. “Reed’s private support of educational causes is well known and these personal donations stem directly from that.”
Missouri legislators were evaluating House Bill 581, sponsored by Representative Rebecca Roeber, a Republican. A very similar bill was also circulating in the Senate. Hastings gave the maximum donation, $2,600, to Roeber two times last year to support her after the primary and general elections. The bill would have increased perks for charter schools, but it ultimately failed.
Hastings’ last contribution to Missouri politicians was in February, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission. The bill was dropped from the calendar by May. Hastings declined to comment for this article.
In addition to Hastings’ support for the charter school bill, Netflix also took up a particular interest in Missouri. The company hired a lobbying firm a few months ago to work in Missouri, noted Dan Auble, senior researcher with the Center for Responsive Politics.
“They are undertaking a concerted campaign here,” he said, “Whatever it is that Hastings and Netflix are trying to get done — or stop — in Missouri it is clear they will have the ear of legislators to make their case.”
It is shocking that Hastings would risk women’s lives for the sake of his pet hobby: the privatization of public schools.
Will he next partner with Betsy DeVos to promote school choice?

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Missouri, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: Democrats Must Choose Between Raising Teacher Pay and Funding Charters

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2019 //
19

 

Jeff Bryant explains here why Democratic candidates will have to make a choice between raising teacher pay and funding  charter schools.

Up until recently, candidates spoke only about pre-K and postsecondary education.

But the time has come to set forth their ideas for K-12.

In Florida, the choice is stark.

Voters pass tax increases dedicated solely to funding their local public schools, but the Legislature wants to compel them to share any tax increases with charter schools, whether they want to or not.

He writes:

A recent law passed by the majority Republican Florida state legislature and signed by newly elected Republican Governor Ron DeSantis will force local school districts to share portions of their locally appropriated tax money with charter schools, even if those funds are raised for the express purpose of increasing teacher salaries in district-operated public schools. (Charter schools in Florida, as in many states, do not receive funds that are raised through bond referendums, mill levies, or other forms of local funding initiatives.)

Florida teachers have openly opposed the new law, and local school districts have taken it to court to have it overthrown. But given this new law, it’s not at all hard to imagine a scenario, even at the national level, where Democrats pushing to increase funds for teacher pay will have to confront an expanding charter school industry—and now voucher programs—that would claim their portion of that money to use as private institutions for whatever purposes they wish.

“The problem with charter schools isn’t that they’re competing with public schools; it’s that they’re supplanting public schools,” says Justin Katz in a phone call. Katz, who is president of the Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association, recently helped organize a rally in West Palm Beach where more than 200 teachers and public school advocates showed up to voice their opposition to distributing funds raised by local tax increases to charter schools.

The protest “was very specific, local, and personal,” Katz explains, because voters in the county had approved $200 million in funding for their schools in a measure that specified increases could be used for teacher raises in traditional public schools and not for funding charter schools.

The referendum was overwhelmingly approved by more than 72 percent of voters. But under the proposed new law, a proportional share of 10 percent, or about $20 million a year, would have gone to the county’s 49 charters. Only a final hour amendment in the state’s Senate averted the loss, when the bill was altered to apply to future bond referendums only.

The language of the referendum that was passed was “crystal clear,” Katz says, that money raised by the bond efforts would not go to charter schools. But the loophole being used to argue for charters to get their share is the use of the term “public schools.”

The new law is “an effort to redefine what are public schools,” he says, in order to give charter schools a right to claim a portion of any publicly raised education funds, regardless of the intent for raising the money. He fears that once charters claim that right, private schools in the state’s school voucher programs will claim it too.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Funding, Privatization

West Virginia: State Senate Wants to Please DeVos, Punish Its Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2019 //
17

Politico Morning Education reports:

BANNING TEACHER STRIKES?: West Virginia’s GOP-led Senate approved the ban on teacher strikes 17-14 as an amendment to broad education reform legislation that DeVos urged the lawmakers to pass. The amendment was approved with “heavy opposition” from Democrats, the Associated Press reported.

— GOP Sen. Charles Trump, who sponsored the amendment, said it’s meant to keep schools running and not as retaliation for two teacher walkouts since last year, according to the AP. But Fred Albert, the president of the state’s American Federation of Teachers chapter, told POLITICO Pro “it’s pure retribution, retaliation.”

—”Already, we don’t have collective bargaining. It’s a right-to-work state,” Albert said, acknowledging that work stoppages in the past have been “truly illegal.” “This is just I think another stab at trying to punish us, making the law perhaps a little more severe with such language,” but he said such measures aren’t likely to float in the House.

— The chamber will continue its work today on education legislation, which would allow for the creation of state charter school and education savings account programs that are opposed by teachers unions who have been protesting at the state Capitol. The GOP-led House will reconvene on June 17.

— In February, the unions waged a two-day strike over a contentious education bill that would have brought education savings accounts and charter schools to West Virginia. The state started the wave of teacher strikes in 2018, helping create a #RedforEd teacher strike movement that continues today.

— DeVos’s push for school choice runs directly counter to what the state’s teachers unions want. She tweeted on Friday, “West Virginia has an opportunity to improve education for all & put the needs of students first. Looking forward to seeing bold moves to offer robust options like charter schools & ESAs and support great teachers. Let’s get it done.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers, West Virginia

To Understand Teach for America, See Who Funds The Organization

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2019 //
27

Follow the money is a basic principle.

To understand an organization, see who funds it.

Take Teach for America.

It presents itself to the public as a noble charity.

Unfortunately, it promotes the bad idea that anyone with five weeks of training can teach. That has the effect of undermining teaching as a profession.

Does anyone believe that five weeks of training is adequate to become a doctor or lawyer or architect or engineer?

TFA supplies the workforce for a large proportion of charter schools, 90% of which are non-union.

TFA simultaneously undermines the teaching profession and teacher unionism, which assures that teachers have rights and voice in the workplace.

Who would promote these goals? .

Who funds  Teach for America? 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Teach for America, Teaching, Unions

Peter Goodman: Charter Lobby Headed for Setback in New York Legislature

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2019 //
3

 

The charter lobby in New York State had a clever strategy: Invest campaign cash in Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and in the Republican-controlled State Senate. For years, it worked. Cuomo gave the charter industry whatever it wanted. The Republican Senate showered favors on charters, even requiring the City of New York to give them free space in public school buildings, and if they didn’t like the space, to pay their rent in private buildings. NYC is the only city in the nation that is compelled to pay the charters’ rent in private space.

However, the charter industry’s cushy arrangement fell apart last fall when progressive Democratic candidates beat Republican incumbents and took control of the State Senate, thus assuring Democratic control of both houses. The new leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, was insulted in 2017 by the billionaire hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who was then chair of the board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain.

The charter industry wants more charters in New York City, because they have reached the cap. There are still unused charter slots in the state but not in the city. So the lobbyists want either to lift the cap or to let the city have the unused charter slots from the rest of the state.

Peter Goodman, long-time analyst of education politics in New York, predicts that the industry will get neither because the politicians they backed are no longer in office:

Not only will the charter school cap not be lifted it is possible legislation hostile to charter schools may be folded into the “big ugly.”

A few bills dealing with the reauthorization of charter schools and the auditing of charter schools have just been introduced.

Factions will advocate, seek allies, lobby electeds and as the adjournment date, June 19th approaches totally disparate bills will be linked, factions will find “friends,” at least for the moment.

Elections have consequences, charter PAC dollars “elected” Republicans who used their leverage to pass charter friendly legislation; an election cycle later Democrats defeated the charter PAC endorsed candidates, elections have consequences, the leverage switched, and, we can expect that legislation more friendly to teacher unions and public school advocates may become law.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York, New York City, Privatization

The Bronx, New York: You Are Invited to a Free Screening of “Backpack Full of Cash,” June 11

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2019 //
1

This is a terrific documentary, created by professional filmmakers at Stone Lantern Films. It will be shown in Spanish and in English. If you want to show the documentary in your community, contact the filmmakers by email, listed below.

MEDIA ALERT

____________________________________________________________________________________

THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS HOSTS SPECIAL SCREENING OF THE ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARY “BACKPACK FULL OF CASH”

EXPLORING THE REAL COST OF PRIVATIZING AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor, Matt Damon

BACKPACK has screened over 360 times in 39 states and nine countries

— including nine film festivals

WHO: Sarah Mondale and Vera Aronow, BACKPACK filmmakers; Nicholas Cruz, United Federation of Teachers; James Rodriguez, College Goal New York Coordinator; NYC teachers; parents of NYC students; NYC students; members of the community

WHAT:  The United Federation of Teachers will host a special screening, in English and Spanish, of the acclaimed documentary BACKPACK FULL OF CASH.  As the next election season kicks into high gear, education is at the forefront and BACKPACK is serving as a powerful tool to inform parents, teachers and community members about the reality of market-based education “reform,” and its impact on American public schools and the 50 million students who rely on them.  BACKPACK was made by the team that produced the award-winning PBS series, SCHOOL: The Story of American Public Education.  The Bronx event will be free for members of the community.  

Public RSVP at: https://uft.wufoo.com/forms/qqwn5z81x5qcqo/

WHERE: ​​UFT Bronx Learning Center, 2500 Halsey Street, The Bronx, NY 10461

WHEN: ​​Tuesday, June 11, 2019

             ​​Press Call: 4:00

PRESS RSVP:  ​Natalie Maniscalco / Retro Media

                           ​Natalie@retromedianyc.com / 845.659.6506

For more information about the film, upcoming screenings, downloadable photos, trailer and other resources, please visit http://www.BackpackFullofCash.com

Official Website: http://www.BackpackFullofCash.com

Email: info@backpackfullofcash.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/backpackfullofcash/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/backpackthefilm

Instagram: @backpackthefilm\

To Register for screening:

https://uft.wufoo.com/forms/qqwn5z81x5qcqo/

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Philadelphia, Privatization, School Choice

National Education Policy Center Reviews Claims about Fiscal Impact of Charters and Finds Them Shallow and Misleading

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2019 //
12

Bruce Baker of Rutgers University reviewed three policy briefs produced by the pro-charter, pro-choice Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington and found them to be “generally superficial and misleading.” The apparent intent of these briefs was to influence the policy debate in California, in which Governor Newsom and the Legislature are considering whether to take into account the fiscal impact of charters on public schools. Baker’s review was sponsored by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.

 

Reviewed by:

Bruce D. Baker University of Colorado Boulder

May 2019

Executive Summary

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), based at the University of Washington, Bothell, recently released a series of three policy briefs on the financial impact of charter schools on nearby school districts in California. The briefs arrive at a time when a Task Force convened by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is deliberating on these exact matters. CRPE’s founder, Paul Hill, was a key source of testimony to the task force, serving as an expert viewed as “sympathetic to charter schools.”

The three briefs make note of the task force in their introduction and are seemingly intended to inform these ongoing debates over charter school financing and expansion in the state of California. The briefs are as follows.

  • The first brief, Charter Schools and District Enrollment Loss, posits that charter school enrollment growth is not a significant factor in large district enrollment decline in California.
  • The second brief, Do Charter Schools Cause Fiscal Distress in School Districts?, argues that charter school expansion is not a significant contributor to fiscal distress (fiscal stress and/or fiscal impact) in California school districts.
  • The final brief, Do the Costs of California Charter Schools Outweigh the Benefits?, contends that there are “tangible benefits” and “few quantifiable costs” to charter schooling in California, though it does concede that a more thorough cost-benefit analysis is warranted.

 

The first brief acknowledges that over the long run, California charter school expansion has resulted in some district enrollment decline. But the brief contends that this decline has been modest and in recent years is no longer occurring. Further, the report asserts that whether charter schools expand or not, many districts will face continuing enrollment decline and “the financial challenges it brings” (p. 10).

The second brief lays out a set of figures showing charter school enrollment shares and comparing this to county-assigned classifications of district fiscal distress. It concludes boldly that (a) there is no relationship between charter enrollment share and host district fiscal distress; (b) instead, fiscal distress is most often caused by financial mismanagement; and (c) fiscal distress is too important to get wrong.

The third brief first asserts that there are benefits to, but few if any tangible costs associated with, charter schooling in California. Those benefits are illustrated by reports of differences in test score gains for children in some urban California charter schools versus matched peers in host districts. The brief also cites a handful of studies to support its contention that charter expansion also benefits, or at least does not harm, children in host district schools. Finally, it notes other potential benefits for children enrolled in charter schools, for which quantifiable values are more difficult to assign, including: “The option to choose” (p. 4).

On the potential-costs side of charter expansion, the third brief provides a short list, including, (a) lacking/losing economies of scale, (b) transfers/fiscal impact, (c) capital costs, (d) educating high-cost students, and (e) social cohesion and societal concerns. The authors then dismiss these five concerns, offering the conclusion that there are “few quantifiable costs to charter schooling” in California (p. 6). Yet they provide little analysis or reference to any valid, rigorous analysis by any other researchers.

Robin Lake, Ashley Jochim, Paul Hill, and Sivan Tuchman wrote these briefs and qualify their work with identical wording: “Given the time constraints for informing the commis- sion’s and legislator’s questions, we were limited to data available from earlier studies and from federal, state, and local databases, as cited in the three briefs” (p. 2 of each brief).

These limitations did impair the usefulness of the briefs, but other problems are also evi- dent. The first brief is misleading in its assertion that charter enrollment growth is not to blame for district enrollment decline. It is, and has been for some time, whether in districts with declining, stable or growing overall student enrollments. The brief also attempts to minimize the import of the considerable role played by charters in districts’ enrollment loss, offering up the non sequitur that enrollment loss can arise from other sources as well. The second brief relies on overly simplistic comparisons of charter enrollments and county-assigned “fiscal distress” classifications to conclude that there is no association between charter enrollments and fiscal distress. The contention here is that there can’t be an illness if the patient isn’t dead. In order to rely on this problematic approach, the brief erroneously dismisses a significant, more rigorous, detailed, peer-reviewed and published body of research that illustrates the fiscal impact of charter schools on host districts, and how those fiscal impacts may lead to fiscal stress. The third brief, which presents itself as an analysis of costs and benefits, merely touts the benefits of charter schooling as tangible while being entirely dismissive of numerous known and often measurable costs. Taken together, the briefs are useful only in pointing to some important issues that policymakers should consider; their analyses of those issues are, however, generally superficial and misleading.

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Pennsylvania: Charter Lobby Pushes to Remove All Quality Controls and Allow Unlimited Expansion

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2019 //
12

Two officials of the Philadelphia school system wrote an opinion piece warning that proposals for “charter reform” are actually a blank check for unlimited charter expansion with no regulation at all.

Dr. William R. Hite is superintendent of the Philadelphia public schools. Joyce Wilkerson is president of the Philadelphia school board.

They point out that the State Auditor said that Pennsylvania’s charter law is the worst in the nation.

Current proposals to benefit charter schools would make it even worse.

They write:

Legislation pending in the General Assembly pushes the charter law in the wrong direction. House Bills 356 and 357 create more risk for students, local districts, and taxpayers. We vehemently oppose these bills.

The legislation would allow all charter schools, even the poorest performers, to expand without the authorizing district’s knowledge or approval. These unpredictable expenses would not only create short-term fiscal challenges for the district but make it impossible to reasonably utilize multiyear budgeting — the very approach to budgeting that has allowed the district to make the strategic, sustainable investments that are resulting in improved academic performance across our schools. These bills undermine the fiscal-stability promise of local control.

Newly proposed charter legislation also frees charters from oversight that is necessary to ensure they are meeting academic standards. They make it harder to close underperforming charters and allow unfettered expansion of charters — even those with failing performance — without regard for their ability to successfully operate. The proposed standard charter application form lacks information on an applicant’s’ experience, finances, past performance, and operational ability, all of which are necessary to meaningfully assess whether the applicant can sustain a school that meets the needs of the very students it aspires to serve.

The original vision for charter schools was teacher-driven laboratories of innovation that would develop promising practices to inform and advance all public schools. Charters have not lived up to that promise. In fact, charter schools are only 6 percent of public schools in Pennsylvania but are 25 percent of the lowest-performing schools under new state standards. Is this the future we want for the commonwealth’s public education system? Is this the future our students and families deserve?

As usually, the charter lobbyists are advocating for no accountability, no supervision, and more money.

Disgraceful.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Who Benefits from Unlimited Expansion of Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2019 //
10

Whenever there is a battle over the expansion of charter schools, we read in the papers that “charter parents” prevailed and the teachers’ union lost.

Why don’t the stories say “charter lobbyists prevail,” and public schools and their students lost?

Why do reporters always assume that only the unions oppose charter expansion.

Why are “charter parents” seeking more charter schools?

Don’t their children already attend a charter school?

Here is the conundrum.

Who benefits when legislators allow unlimited expansion of new charter schools?

Not the parents. Their children are already in a charter school.

How many charter schools does one child need?

This unrestricted expansion is solely for the benefit of the charter operators and their lobbyists.

As we have seen again and again, charter operators use the children and the parents as pawns to expand their empire of privately managed schools and enrich themselves.

Unlimited expansion of new charters does not benefit any charter school parent.

It sucks money away from existing public schools, the schools that 90% of the nation’s are enrolled in.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

California: Charter Reform Fails, Charter Lobbyists Celebrate Victory for Privatization and Non-Regulation

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2019 //
40

The California Legislature failed to take action on bills to impose a moratorium on new charter schools, and charter lobbyists were exultant.

Despite the ongoing scandals in the charter industry, the Legislature was unable to act.

Only this week, eleven charter leaders were indicted for misappropriating millions of dollars that ended up in their personal bank accounts.

Only last week, the founder of a charter chain was sentenced to thirty months in prison for theft of millions of dollars.

The California Charter School Association, funded by billionaires such as Reed Hastings and Eli Broad, want predators to go unsupervised and unregulated. They want no limits on charter growth, public schools be damned.

If it is not there already, I place the CCSA on this blog’s Wall of Shame.

Let’s see what happens to AB 1505, which enables districts to have some say over whether charters can open in their space, which would curb the rapacious appetite of sleazy operators who are able to get a charter in Rural District Z and open the school in an urban district that doesn’t want them.

Ten percent of the students in California are enrolled in privately managed charter schools; 90% are enrolled in public schools. Why undermine and deprive the 90% for the (possible) benefit of the 10%? Only one group benefits from the legislators’ inaction: the charter industry. This is insane. And corrupt.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Privatization, Wall of Shame
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