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Chalkbeat in Tennessee Admits Failure of the Achievement School District, But State Sees a Silver Lining

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
6

You read it here first, straight from Gary Rubinstein’s superb blog (or, if you subscribe to Gary’s blog, you read it there first. The much-hyped Achievement School District in Tennessee is a flop. The same ASD that several red states have copied, not waiting for evidence or results.

Now Chalkbeat’s Tennessee outpost covers the story, and it isn’t pretty.

“Most of the schools that were taken over by Tennessee’s turnaround district remain on the state’s priority list six years after the intervention efforts began.

Four of the six original Memphis schools that were taken over by the state in 2012 are on the newest priority list released last week. And more than a dozen schools that were added to the district later also remain on the list.

Four of six original ASD schools remain on list…

Brick Church College Prep

Corning Achievement

Frayser Achievement

Westside Achievement

For years, the district has fallen short of its ambitious promise to dramatically raise test scores at the schools by handing them over to charter operators — a goal that the district’s founder later acknowledged was too lofty. And researchers with the Tennessee Education Research Alliance recently concluded that schools in the state district are doing no better than other low-performing schools that received no state help…

Of the 34 schools that have ever been part of the Achievement School District, 17 are on the new priority list, and four have closed. Thirteen schools are not on the new list.

In contrast, Memphis’ Innovation Zone, an improvement initiative from the local district, saw more of its schools move upward: 16 out of 25 schools absorbed into the iZone improved enough to exit the list.

One thing is clear: the charter schools that took over the low-performing schools did not have a secret sauce.

For some unknown reason, the state sees a silver lining in this failed effort to vault the lowest-performing schools into the top of the state’s rankings.

“Still, the state says the Achievement School District has had a positive influence that might not be reflected in its own school’s scores. Education Commissioner Candice McQueen recently praised Shelby County Schools’ progress, giving partial credit to the state’s own Achievement School District for creating a sense of urgency in Memphis.”

The schools may have failed to keep their promise but they created “a sense of urgency” in Memphis, where most are located.

Yes, there must be a sense of angst, like, what do we do now that the magic bullet failed?

Is reality replacing magical thinking?

The article links to one posted by Chalkbeat in August which did a “deep dive” into the dismal results of the $100 Million spent on the ASD.

“Six years after the state took over six of Tennessee’s lowest-performing schools, all of those schools continue to struggle, new state test results show…

“Of the schools in the original state-run district, four of the six had fewer than 10 percent of students testing at or above grade level in math or English during the 2017-2018 academic year, according to TNReady test results released last week. Meanwhile, Cornerstone Prep Lester Elementary School in Memphis performed better than its counterparts with 11.5 percent of students at grade level in English and 20 percent of students at grade level in math. Frayser Achievement Elementary had 12 percent of students at grade level in English, but just 9 percent at grade level in math.

“As a point of comparison, statewide averages for grades 3-8 had 33.9 percent of Tennessee students at grade level in English and 37.3 percent at grade level in math.”

The ASD was based on the Recovery School District in New Orleans. The research czar in New Orleans, Douglas Harris of Tulane, says that the Tennessee ASD should have been more aggressive in turning over low-performing charters to other charter operators. That would be almost every school in the ASD. Surely there mus5 be charter operators who have cracked the code of raising test scores. But then, Memphis didn’t have a natural disaster to drive out a substantial portion of its poorest families.

The bottom line in Tennessee is that none of the ASD charters was catapulted from the bottom 5% to the Top 25%. None even cracked the top 90%.

Time for fresh thinking?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Memphis, New Orleans, Privatization, Tennessee

California: Tony Thurmond Needs Our Help As Billionaires Swarm to Aid Marshall Tuck

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
15

Tony Thurmond, candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, needs our help. The charter industry and billionaires are showering millions of dollars on his opponent Marshall Tuck. Despite the widespread graft and corruption in California’s charter industry, the billionaires want to continue expanding their “market share” of students and draining resources from the public schools.

Please donate whatever you can to Tony Thurmond’s campaign.

The race for state superintendent has become the key race in the state because the gubernatorial race appears to be a slam dunk for Gavin Newsom, the Democratic candidate, who is leading his little-known Republican opponent by double digits.

Tuck has been endorsed by Arne Duncan and the state Republican Party.

Thurmond has been endorsed by the California Teachers Association and the Los Angeles Times.

Think of this race as the Public School Candidate vs. the Charter School Candidate, and it explains why the usual herd of billionaires are supporting Tuck. If they can capture this key spot, California’s public schools will be in deep trouble.

“With seven weeks to go before Election Day, fundraising for Tuck has already surpassed what his supporters raised in the former school administrator’s unsuccessful run for superintendent four years ago.

“This is going to be the most expensive election, period,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy…

“Thurmond is a former social worker, school board member and council member in Richmond. Tuck is the former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization based in Los Angeles, and CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a district-city initiative that runs 18 district schools.

“Tuck will benefit from $10.8 million raised by an independent expenditure committee backing him as of Monday, compared to $4.9 million raised by an independent committee supporting Thurmond.

“In addition, Tuck raised $3.1 million in direct contributions to his campaign through June 30, the most recent reporting deadline, outpacing Thurmond’s $2.1 million in direct contributions…

“Wealthy donors pushing to expand charter schools in California have driven much of the spending to support Tuck so far by pouring large donations into the Sacramento political advocacy organization EdVoice For The Kids PAC, which runs the committee backing Tuck. Although EdVoice has donated to dozens of candidates over the past two years, nearly 90 percent of the money it gave as of the most recent reporting date went to its Tuck committee, which calls itself Students, Parents and Teachers supporting Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction 2018, a project of EdVoice. EdVoice officials did not respond to an interview request.

“Contributors to EdVoice include venture capitalist Arthur Rock, who gave $3 million, real estate developer Bill Bloomfield who gave $2.9 million and philanthropist Eli Broad who gave $1.3 million….

“Neither candidate can be simply characterized as “pro-charter” or “anti-charter.” Each has said there is a role for effective charter schools in public education and that the schools need greater transparency and oversight. They both support a ban on for-profit charter schools that was recently signed into law.

“But Tuck and Thurmond have differed over how to handle the growth of California’s charter schools, which in some areas have attracted students and state funding from traditional school districts. Thurmond has hinted he could support a moratorium on new charter schools. Tuck opposes that idea and has instead called for the state to keep in place funding for districts affected by charter school growth for a time, so those districts can adjust to lower enrollment.”

There is the key difference between them. Tuck wants to manage the continued shrinkage of public schools, while Thurmond wants to stop the shrinkage and rebuild public schools.

Here is a Tuck supporter:

“Rebecca Morgan — a former Bank of America executive and former Republican state senator from the South Bay — cited Tuck’s time in Los Angeles, where he led Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school network, and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, as one of the reasons she supports him. Morgan has contributed $500,000 to EdVoice.

“Marshall has proven that he understands education and he knows how to turn around school districts, as he has done in Los Angeles,” Morgan said. “He is not in the pocket of any organization, as Thurmond is with the teachers union.”

“Asked how much more she is willing to spend to elect Tuck, Morgan said, “Lots.””

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

Jim Miller: Who Will Save Us from the Billionaire “Saviors”?

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
26

Jim Miller, professor at the San Diego City College, has posed exactly the right question: Who will save us from “our billionaire saviors?” The question was inspired by Andrea Gabor’s excellent new book After the Education Wars, and by the possibility that billionaire Michael Bloomberg will run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

In New York City, we remember him as a data-driven, test-loving, top-down Reformer, who hired non-educator Joel Klein to terrorize teachers and principals and introduce choice and charters. The result was a public relations success and an education failure. Much boasting, vast disruption, constant reorganization. Change for the sake of change. Bloomberg is one of the billionaires identified in the NPE report about the super-rich who fund anti-public education candidates in state and local elections.

Miller writes:

After failing to prop-up Antonio Villaraigosa’s flagging gubernatorial campaign last June, Michael Bloomberg apparently spent the summer pondering whether it would be wiser for him to personally save the United States rather than waste his time trying to rescue California by proxy. Last week the New York Times reported that Bloomberg was mulling a run for the Presidency as a Democrat because that represented the most viable path to victory. As the Times story observed, while Bloomberg has engaged in some good work on guns and the environment, many of his other positions might not be very likely to win over the liberal base of the Democratic Party…

As Andrea Gabor, (ironically) the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College/CUNY, writes in her excellent new book After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform, Bloomberg’s reign in New York hardly represented a golden era for education: “to be an educator in Bloomberg’s New York was a little like being a Trotskyite in Bolshevik Russia—never fully trusted and ultimately sidelined…”

The business reformers came to the education table with their truths: a belief in market competition and quantitative measures. They came with their prejudices—favoring ideas and expertise forged in corporate boardrooms over knowledge and experience gleaned in the messy trenches of inner-city classrooms. They came with distrust of an education culture that values social justice over more practical considerations like wealth and position. They came with the arrogance that elevated polished, but often mediocre (or worse), technocrats over scruffy but knowledgeable educators. And most of all, they came with their suspicion—even their hatred—of organized labor and their contempt for ordinary public school teachers.

What this has resulted in, according to Gabor, is that the corporate reformers “adopted all the wrong lessons from American business.” Rather than innovating by harnessing “the energy and the knowledge of ordinary employees,” who are the most “knowledgeable about problems—and solutions” because they know the process, the billionaire boys club has favored a punitive, hierarchical, undemocratic, one-size fits all approach that has hurt students more than it has helped them.

Wedded to a factory-style approach to education, corporate reformers “focused on a Taylorite effort to standardize teaching so that teachers can be easily substituted like widgets on an assembly line. This despite the fact that, on average, ‘unions have a positive effect on student achievement’ and the best charter schools are often the independent charters that give teachers voice, often via union contracts.” All of this reflects the fact, Gabor reminds us, that “the corporate education-reform movement has deeply undemocratic roots.”

What this movement has brought us is not pretty. We have systematically devalued the “art” of teaching in favor of a dumbed-down, accountability regimen that prefers standardization and over-testing to empowering educators and students to think more creatively and independently. It has assailed teachers and attacked educational culture to such a degree that it should be no surprise that our society has become increasingly anti-intellectual and hostile to fact-based analysis. As Gabor observes of the Trump era:

[T]he election of this larger-than-life Chucky demagogue, with his multiple bankruptcies and divorces, his sexual predations and business malfeasance, his hate-filled speeches and tweets, also represented a failure of corporate-style education reform as it has taken shape over more than twenty years. Among an electorate that often favors “ordinary” people they can identify with, Trump, the consummate philistine—unread and uninterested, crude, unthinking, and disdainful of facts and any attempt at rational truth—holds up a dystopian mirror of the electorate…

It may not have been the intended outcome of those who simply wished to produce a more useful workforce, but it does show the profound limits of their debased instrumentalism. Hence Gabor again observes: “Corporate education reformers cannot be directly blamed for the ascendance of Trump. However, over two decades of an ed-reform apparatus that has emphasized the production of math and ELA test scores over civics and learning for learning’s sake has helped produce an electorate that is ignorant of constitutional democracy and thus more vulnerable to demagoguery.”

Gabor’s thorough study does more than just criticize the failures of corporate education reform. She outlines how multiple examples of innovative educational practices across the country have defied the technocratic dictates of the well-heeled and focused instead on “bottom-up” strategies that have relied heavily on “a participative, collaborative, deeply democratic approach to continuous improvement, drawing on diverse constituencies—including students, teachers, and local business leaders—in their effort.”

Thus, there are some insights to be found in approaches that rely on “local democracy” that can help do right for our children and the society at large. Following these examples, rather than the lead of self-important billionaires, is where we can find hope for a better education system and a more democratic society.

As for Bloomberg, maybe he should just go away and let the people lead. We’ve had too much “reform” from self-declared rich saviors and philanthrocapitalists already. In fact, it’s long past time that we save ourselves from them.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Data, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Ohio: Inspector General Holding Up Report on For-Profit Deal for “ECOT Man”

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2018 //
11

Bill Phillis writes:


State Inspector General holding up a report of an investigation into a multi-million contract that the state steered to IQ Innovations, a company owned by the ECOT Man

The ECOT Man’s donations to political campaigns and political party organizations opened up several spigots connected to state revenue streams. IQ Innovations, created by the ECOT Man, received millions via a contract steered to it by state officials. The Ohio State University was a section of the pipe through which the funds flowed. The chancellor of the Board of Regents was an operative in turning on the spigot.

The attached news release provides yet another sordid piece of the ECOT scandal.

Why the corruption? Because some state officials not only allow it to happen but helped it happen.

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”
– John Adams, September 10, 1785

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 | ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://www.ohiocoalition.org

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization

Texas: IDEA Charter Chain Plans to Saturate El Paso Region with 20 New Charters

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2018 //
13

The IDEA charter chain has plans to open 20 new charter schools in a part of Texas that doesn’t need them. We have plenty of evidence that charters do not outperform traditional district schools. Instead, they suck out resources and the students they want, weakening the district schools like a parasite.

David Knight and David deMatthews warn the people of El Paso that “choice” is not all that it is cracked up to be.

You will not be surprised to learn that IDEA is funded by the usual billionaire “philanthropists,” who want to disrupt public education and privatize it.

The IDEA charter chain is known for having a high graduation rate, but also known for the large number of its graduates who flunk out of college.

Knight and deMatthews write:

The development of 20 new schools represents a major shift in how educational resources will be distributed across the region. Currently, together the Canutillo Independent School District and the Clint ISD have only 24 schools and the El Paso ISD, the region’s largest school district, has 91 schools.

Adding 20 schools through the region can create significant inefficiencies. Districts like El Paso ISD and Ysleta ISD are currently losing enrollment as most of the region’s population growth exists on the East and West sides of the city. As enrollments decline, school districts lose money and operating schools becomes more expensive. Consequently, superintendents are often compelled to close under-enrolled schools due to cost, despite public outcry.

At the same time, districts like Clint, Canutillo, and Socorro are experiencing continued growth in student enrollments. These districts invest millions to plan and build new facilities. If new charters open in close proximity to newly built facilities, districts may find their state-of-the-art campuses under-enrolled.

IDEA’s growth can also create an undue burden and disrupt natural proportions of students with disabilities enrolled in traditional public schools if they engage in what has been called “creaming” or “cherry-picking” students. According to 2016-17 publicly available data, all IDEA charter schools in Hidalgo, Texas, enroll only 4.8 percent of students with disabilities, while the state average is 8.8 percent.

Importantly, the Texas statewide average is already the lowest in the nation at 8.8 percent. The Texas Education Agency has been investigated by the U.S. Department of Education, which concluded that many Texas schools and districts engaged in practices that delayed and denied special education to eligible students. IDEA’s 4.8 percent identification rate should be especially concerning to all parents, but especially those of children with disabilities.

Both traditional public and charter schools are eligible to receive philanthropic donations. IDEA has received millions of dollars from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The El Paso based Council on Regional Economic Expansion and Educational Development has pledged $10 million.

Yeah, both are “eligible to receive philanthropic donations,” but somehow all those big bucks end up in the pockets of the charter operators, not the public schools. The Dells, the Waltons, and the Gates don’t believe in public education. They believe in the marketplace, disruption, and competition. Not for their children, of course.

The authors think that charter schools are “public schools.” No, they are not. They are privately managed corporate schools. Federal courts have ruled that charter schools are “not state actors.” The NLRB has ruled that charter schools are “not state actors.”

Public schools are state actors. Charter schools are not state actors. They are private contractors.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Texas

Angie Sullivan: We Want Magnets, Not Charters!

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
17

Angie Sullivan teaches first grade in a Title 1 school in Clark County (Las Vegas) with large numbers of English learners.

She sends her missives to legislators and journalists in Nevada.

ASD is the all-charter district modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District. A complete and total failure that Nevada copies.

Angie writes:


We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

ASD Rebecca holds her annual school grab.

She does not know what she is doing. Do not allow her or Jana to take your school.

Parents may have say in future of Clark County’s failing schools

Parents in Vegas can convert their neighborhood public school into a charter? And that has worked where?

Every successful white person Vegas charter – is sitting next to a successful white person public school. All in white neighborhoods full of five star “choices”. Successful Nevada charters are white. They support segregation and white flight.

The place folks need a real choice – charters do not work.

Get ready Vegas Parents to fight for your school. Our community will not be served by white folks in a white charters. Nor they will be served by young white folks imported into Nevada to do the takeover job.

For profit charters and corporate takeover is a scam.

Non-profit ASD is defunct. Futuro stinks. Agassi stinks. Do not go into that crap. ASD is now the worst district in Nevada. It used to be Nevada Charters were the lowest performers but now it is this new piece of garbage with 100% failure.

Where is the ASD data?

Is the ASD built to hide data?

Everyone involved needs to demand accountability for this new disfunction NVDOE is using to grab schools.

_______________________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

_______________________________

Look at the list closely attached to the bottom of this file.

Keep in mind that Vegas has 349 schools. 39 are struggling – they seem to all be in minority impoverished areas of town. Most serve language learners who research has shown need several years to learn academic English. Not difficult to figure out how to fix a money and support problem. Those schools need money and support. Lower class sizes and supplies.

NVDOE and the ASD will try to grab CCSD schools.

They do not know our students.

They do not love our students.

They will not serve our students.

They will grab schools listed because parents will not be informed.

Spread the word – no to ASD charters.

If they want to give a school money to improve – with research based best practice – great.

Turning any Vegas school into a charter is a scam.

If ASD Rebecca wants to come into your school and show a crappy charter video – tell her to hit the road.

We already know how to read a science book to kids or plug students into the computer. That is not teaching or effective.

Privatization is not education.

___________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

Every year I get angry that our community is targeted while the rest of the state flounders. NVDOE – do your job. You have plenty to grab. Go to these white areas and get it done.

Look at Elko. 100% of its schools are in severe failure. What is happening there? Those schools are along the Carlin Trend and heavily susidized by mining proceeds in a primarily white English speaking area. What is going on?

Look at Washoe which has pages on that list. A heavy heavy percentage of those schools are struggling – with more per pupil than Vegas. And again largely English speaking and middle class areas. What is going on?

Rural Nevada is sinking. When a school fails in a small town – it may be the only school in town. Better address those first. Charter “competition” kills the public schools and does not help small towns. It leaves expensive and hard to educate special education students in public schools and allows “choice” to everyone else.

Again the NV Charter schools are sinking. These schools serve white flight families. They are failing. Severely. That data which at least includes more of their 80+ campuses – is bad – extremely bad considering there are 24 charters and a large chunk are the lowest performers – again. Every year. Again.

It is not Vegas that is the high priority problem.

Folks who are brown do not want to be a target.

This has to stop.

Did not work in New Orleans.

Did not work in Tennessee.

Is not working in Nevada.

How many students have to be hurt to stop this ASD madness?

________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

The Teacher,

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Inequity, Injustice, Nevada, Privatization

Gary Rubinstein: CONFIRMED! The Complete and Total Failure of the Tennessee Achievement School District at a Cost of $100 Million

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
21

Gary Rubinstein reports that the latest Tennessee school rankings were just released. Now we know. The Tennessee Achievement School District was a complete and total failure. $100 million down the drain, which came from Race to the Top funding. The same money might have been used to reduce class sizes in these schools. Instead, it was used to induce charter operators to come to Tennessee and work their magic. It failed.

Would someone tell Bill Gates, John Arnold, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and the other billionaires who are still spreading the phony claim of charter miracles?

Spread the word to states like Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina, which created their own “achievement school districts” based on the Tennessee model.

Seven years ago, as part of Tennessee’s Race To The Top plan, they launched The Achievement School District (ASD). With a price tag of over $100 million, their mission was to take schools that were in the bottom 5% of schools and, within five years, raise them into the top 25%.

They started with six schools and three years into the experiment, Chris Barbic, the superintendent of the ASD had a ‘mission accomplished’ moment where he declared in an interview that three of those six schools were on track to meet that goal.

But a year later, the gains that led to that prediction had disappeared and it wasn’t looking good for any of those six schools. By the time the five year mark had been reached, in the Fall of 2016, Chris Barbic had already resigned and taken a job with the John Arnold Foundation.

The thing about 2016, though, is that whether or not the ASD schools met the lofty goal could not be determined, officially. Tennessee releases their official ‘priority’ list of the bottom 5% schools every three years. And, conveniently enough, the last one was in 2015. So even though it was clear in 2016 that the original 6 ASD schools would not be in the top 25%, an even more important question — how many of those schools remained in the bottom 5%? — would not be known officially for two more years, in the Fall of 2018.

A few days ago, Tennessee finally released the long-awaited 2018 priority schools list, and for the ASD, the results were decisive and devastating.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Race to the Top, Tennessee

The Business of Charter Schools: Real Estate!!!!

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2018 //
20

Charter operators don’t get rich on tuition, although many have a business model that relies on cost-cutting, low-wage teachers, TFA, and replacing human teachers with technology. Those wonderful computers don’t expect health or pensions. When they break, you can repair them or discard them.

The big bucks are in real estate!

ESJ properties
https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/08/04/aventura-firm-makes-45m-addition-to-its-portfolio-of-school-properties/

It is traded as EPR properties (Entertainment properties in the graph you show

Investing in Enduring Experiences

And they also own the BASIS schools.
https://insightcenter.eprkc.com/basis-schools/

In Arizona, if the school goes under, they get to keep the property, even though the taxpayers have paid for it.

And look at this
https://insightcenter.eprkc.com/education/

This is what is known as “legal graft.”

It is a theft of public assets.

In plain sight.

The bond industry issued warnings against charter schools, because they endanger the financial ratings of school districts and cities.

Mercedes Schneider: Municipal Analysts Call for Charter Financial Transparency

Municipal Analysts Ask Whether Charter Schools Make the Grade

Moody’s: Charters Pose Serious Risk to Struggling Cities

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

The Business of Charter Schools: A $45 Million Charter Deal

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2018 //
28

Long, long ago, almost everyone went to the neighborhood public school. The school had a principal, who was overseen by the superintendent. The superintendent answered to a local school board. Those were not idyllic times, to be sure, but no one ever imagined that there was profit to be found in the public schools, or that the public schools would one day be part of “the education industry.” All that is changed now. There are still neighborhood public schools, but now there is an industry that relies on entrepreneurs and market forces. You don’t have to be an educator to manage or operate or start a charter school (think tennis star Andre Agassi or football hero Deion Sanders). There are tax breaks for investors in charter schools. Charter school properties are bought and sold, like franchises or just ordinary real estate. They have no organic connection to the local community. The profit for entrepreneurs is to be found in the real estate transactions.

A recent real estate deal brought this change into focus. There is a buyer and a seller; there are investors. There is return on investment. The world has changed. The charter industry has profits and losses. They open and close. It is not about education. It is a business.

school

[more intro]

A $45 million charter deal suggests profits on the horizon

by Tom Chorneau
Graduation mortar board cap on one hundred dollar bills concept
August 09, 2018(Fla.) A private real estate fund, which boasts of pioneering big money investments in charter school properties, announced this week a $45 million deal to buy four schools in three states.

ESJ Capital Partners, based in the Miami area, added the schools to a portfolio that includes a number of more traditional investments, including apartment buildings, medical offices and tourist attractions.

But the firm also owns 28 charter school properties that they say are valued at more than $650 million.

The firm promises to “provide optimum returns for our investors through disciplined procedures, selective investment criteria and structured processes,” according to their website.

Although for-profit investment in charter schools accounts for only a small slice of the movement nationally, there are examples of commercial enterprise within the system.

In some instances, a lender might be able to take advantage of a tax break because of their investment in a school that is located in an economically challenged neighborhood. In other cases, an investor might be interested in the consistent, government-back rent that charters can pay.

There is probably far more invested by a handful  of very wealthy patrons of charters, who view the movement has providing a much needed competition to traditional public schools.

Whether driven by profits or politics, the growing availability of financial support for charters is much needed, supporters say.

In comparison to traditional public schools, charters have much more difficulty borrowing money. The banking community has traditionally viewed charters operators has carrying far more risk of insolvency than traditional public schools.

Charters in most states must also pay for school improvements or new construction out of operating budgets.

A number of big philanthropic organizations have stepped in to improve the fiscal landscape for charter facilities.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has been very active in the Los Angeles area, as has the Gates Foundation in Washington State.

Earlier this year, the Walton Family Foundation—led by the heirs of Walmart founder—announced the creation of two nonprofit entities to help finance the cost of building and maintaining new charter schools. Combined, the investment from the foundation is expected to be close to $300 million.

But there apparently is also money to be made too.

In 2016, ESJ sold five Florida charter schools for $72 million to Charter School Capital, a financial services company specializing in charter schools. The partners did provide the purchase price of the schools.

The partnership’s latest acquisition are schools located in in the Phoenix area, Washington D.C. and Toledo, Ohio.

All of them are operated by Virginia-based, Imagine Schools.

ESJ reportedly has $100 million invested in properties operated by Imagine Schools.

“The Imagine campuses that we just acquired have been open over 13 years and are thriving financially and academically, with consistent high enrollment,” Matthew Fuller, chief investment officer of ESJ, said in a statement.

According to a release from the partnership in announcing the 2016 transaction, ESJ was one of the first investment groups nationally to see the potential in charter schools.

“At the height of the Great Recession, ESJ identified a niche in developing charter schools as an alternative to their traditional commercial investments,” the release said. “The real estate asset management group predicted this asset type would evolve and scale into a mainstream, single tenant investment category, attracting more institutional investors, lenders and bondholders.”

…read more

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

Who Is Hakeem Jeffries?

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2018 //
82

Hakeem Jeffries is a Democratic Congressman from Brooklyn. He is part of the Democratic leadership team. Some people believe he might be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, the successor to Nancy Pelosi. He is a favorite of hedge fund managers and the charter school industry. He recently was honored by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as an African American charter school leader (why the organization established a racially segregated award is unclear, as it is unclear why Congressman Jeffries would accept it).

It is not “progressive” to support privatization of public services. It is not progressive to support schools staffed by non-union teachers. It is not progressive to support a “movement” that ignores racial segregation and even celebrates it. It is not progressive to support a movement financed by the anti-union Waltons, the DeVos family, the Koch brothers, and ALEC.

Progressives support public schools.

Dorothy Siegel, a longtime activist in the Working Families Party, wrote this comment about Congressman Jeffries:

“I know Hakeem well. I worked very hard to get him elected, first, to the NYS Assembly, and then to Congress, in order to defeat the even worse Democrat Ed Towns. I even raised a bunch of money for him. Then I saw him slip over to the dark side. But, make no mistake, I believe that his embrace of privatization is NOT (as he claims) primarily about wanting poor black and brown kids to get a good education, but about the fact that there is more money and power on that side than on the side of public education. That money, the hedge funders who provide it, and the corporatist establishment Democrats, were the drivers of Hakeem’s political rise. Money and power have totally corrupted him. Hakeem, like Cuomo and Booker, has and will continue to sell out our public schools when they are in the inner sanctum of their party leadership positions. Hakeem’s rise within Congressional Dem leadership is helping him to thwart ALL our efforts to reign in Congressional support for privatization. On education issues, he wis arguably more powerful than all the new progressive congresspeople we will elect in 2018, combined.

“Sad to say, we must recognize that Hakeem is THE ENEMY. He can not be defeated in his very safe Brooklyn seat, so we must all ORGANIZE to EXPOSE him as the corporate shill that he is. We must tell our progressive Congressional friends that it is NOT ok to go along with Dem leadership (Hakeem) on charters and privatization. Believe me, Hakim will have the tools he needs to fight harder for his corporate friends than anyone on our side will have, so we need to be loud and clear. We also have to insist that, for politicians to gain our support, it’s NOT ok to be “progressive” on reproductive choice and Medicare for All, etc, etc, but anything less than TOTALLY AGAINST corporatism and privatization. Time to take a stand!

“BTW, Hakeem was a key supporter of Zellnor Myrie, the victor in one of the races against the IDC traitors we defeated in the NYS Dem primary. We need to watch what Zellnor does in Albany to make sure he doesn’t pay back his mentor by supporting Hakeem’s education agenda. I’m not at all worried about the other five IDC-slayers. They are solidly and deeply pro-public education. Zellnor may be, too, but he will certainly get pressured by Hakeem and that ilk. So we need to let him know that “progressive” means 100% pro-public education.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, New York, Privatization
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