Archives for category: Privatization
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Puerto Rico: Legislators Moving to Adopt Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
36

Another victory for the Trump-DeVos agenda of school choice, this one in Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from massive hurricane damage.

Politico Morning Education reports:

SCHOOL CHOICE PROPOSAL MOVES AHEAD IN PUERTO RICO: One of the island’s legislative chambers approved this week an education reform plan that would usher in charter schools to the territory and roll out a program of school vouchers in 2019. The plan was pitched by Gov. Ricardo Rossello as the island’s education system grappled with a tough recovery and mass migration to the states following Hurricane Maria. It has been criticized by teachers unions, which fear that turning over education to private entities will disrupt public schools there.

– The legislation allows for the creation of charter schools, or for the conversion of existing public schools into charters. Schools must be run by non-profit operators, and must be non-sectarian. Students from across the island would be able to participate in enrollment lotteries, though schools have to give preference to students in neighboring communities. Teachers who chose to work for charter schools in Puerto Rico would be given a leave of absence from the Education Department, which would hold their jobs for up to two years.

– Responding to concerns that Puerto Rico’s system would emulate post-Katrina New Orleans, where nearly all students attend charter schools, lawmakers instituted a cap on the number of charter schools equal to 10 percent of all public schools there.

– As for school vouchers, lawmakers are proposing a rollout in the 2019-2020 school year that would allow 3 percent of students to attend schools of their choosing – including private schools. That number would rise to 5 percent the following year. It’s unclear how much money would be granted to each student, but the legislation calls for no more than 70 percent of what is already allocated per public school student.

The lesson: If you can’t fund your schools adequately, offer school choice instead. It will intensify social and economic segregation and it won’t improve education, but it will give the illusion of reform.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

California: Why the State Board of Education Will Never Say No to KIPP

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
14

 

Expanding charter schools is the passion of Betsy DeVos.

Lest we forget, it was also the passion of the Obama administration, which spent eight years promoting the wonders of charter schools.

In the last months of the Obama Administration, with John King as Secretary of Education, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $100 million to California and to KIPP to open more charter schools. 

“KIPP Public Charter Schools and the California Department of Education have received federal grants together worth nearly $100 million to expand and start more public charter schools.

“The California Department of Education won $49.9 million to run a grant competition for charter school operators, to support nearly 500 new and expanded public charter schools.

“A consortium of the KIPP Foundation and the KIPP California Region won nearly $48.8 million over three years.

“Among schools benefiting from the award are four growing KIPP Bay Area schools: KIPP Heritage Academy and KIPP Prize Preparatory Academy in San Jose, KIPP Excelencia Community Prep in Redwood City and KIPP Bridge Academy in Oakland. Each of the schools may receive up to $500,000 over the three-year grant period for expansion.”

All that money to expand a charter chain that was first introduced to a national audience in performance at the Republican convention of 2000, when George W. Bush was nominated for the Presidency. 

Betsy DeVos will enjoy the results, but hold Secretaries Arne Duncan and John King and President Obama accountable. John King is now president of Education Trust, which supports high-stakes testing as the path to equity (which it never has been and never will be since all standardized tests mirror family income). Arne Duncan works for Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education

Roxana Marachi: KIPP Refuses to Abide by Conflict of Interest Law, But Gets Approved Anyway

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
8

Roxana Marachi, professor at San Jose State University, writes here that KIPP refuses to abide by the state’s conflict of interest law (that’s for the little people in public schools) but won approval of new charters by the state board anyway to open two new charters, despite public opposition.

Her post contains a wealth of documents showing the failure of KIPP to enroll the same proportions of ELLs and students with disabilities as nearby public schools, as well as documents about the damage that charters are doing to public schools in California.

This is great news for Betsy DeVos!

But bad news for public schools in California, where the state board rubber-stamps every charter proposal that comes before them, regardless of the views of elected local boards.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Education Industry, Funding, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Why California Should Ban For-Profit Charters and Hold All Charters Accountable

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
6

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig testified to a State Senate Committee on Education about why charters should be held accountable and be transparent. As chair of the California NAACP Committee on Education, he cites the findings of the national NAACP, which recommended banning for-profit charters and requiring that all charters be authorized ONLY by the local school district, to be sure that they meet local needs instead of replacing  public schools.

Yesterday, the State Board of Education approved two KIPP charters for districts that had rejected them. In California, a charter school can be rejected by the local board, rejected by the county board, and appeal to the state board, which was packed with charter supporters by charter-friendly Governor Jerry Brown.

At the charter hearing, Angela Der Ramos, the CTA State Board liaison for the Dr. Oscar F. Loya Elementary School, said:

KIPP is trying to muscle their way into the SF School District, despite the fact that the District and the County denied the charter.

There is no location, so they would force one of the public schools to share their space.

Over and over, the current state board approves charters that are not wanted by the community. The failure rate of these charters is alarming. 39% fail. And there are clear reasons why. Lack of oversight, lack of transparency, budget shenanigans…

The teachers tend to be uncredentialed, inexperienced, and unsupported, as evidenced by the high turnover rate of faculty.

NAACP is in the house speaking against this charter, as is SF School Board candidate Alison Collins, CTA, and reps from the district and county. They already said no twice. Will this board go against the wishes of the community and approve a charter at the expense of public schools?”

The state board gave its answer: Yes, we will go against the wishes of the community and approve KIPP charters at the expense of public schools. We don’t care what the local community wants.

WHY can’t KIPP find communities where they are welcome?

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

Michael Feuer: Advice to Secretary DeVos on How to Save Her Tenure in Office

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
30

 

Michael Feuer, dean of the graduate school of education at George Washington University, offers Betsy DeVos tips on how to make her time in office tolerable and perhaps useful. 

This is his first suggestion.

“The most important goal of the agency is to help improve public schools.

“Americans have voted with their feet: Even after 50 years of debate, advocacy, and research into mechanisms designed to privatize education, roughly 90 percent of our kids still attend traditional public schools. The secretary’s prior efforts notwithstanding, vouchers have not been taken up by large shares of the public, where they have been tried the results have been mixed at best and the American public and the high court remain uncomfortable with use of public funds to support religious education.

”Given her need to set priorities she should focus on bettering public schools — a central institution in all our communities.”

He has five other ideas for her.

Given her long history of advocacy for privatization, it doesn’t seem likely that she will take his advice.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Privatization

Steven Singer: Twenty-One Reasons Why People Hate DeVos

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2018 //
9

 

In the course of the infamous interview of Betsy DeVos on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl asked DeVos why she was the most hated member of the cabinet. DeVos said she didn’t know but assumed she was “misunderstood.”

Steven Singer asserts that DeVos is not misunderstood at all. She should wonder no more.

He offers twenty-one reasons why she is hated. 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Privatization

Betsy DeVos to National PTA: Public Schools Stink!

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2018 //
51

 

When she delivered her keynote remarks to the National PTA, Betsy DeVos took potshots at 60 Minutes, claiming the show edited her remarks. She apparently did not explain in what way she was misquoted.

“So, now that I have the opportunity to speak unedited, I’m not afraid to call out folks who defend stagnation for what it really is: failure,” she said, criticizing those who are against school choice given that U.S. students are ranked 40th in math, 23rd in reading and 25th in science compared to other countries.

“The Education secretary is a proponent of school choice, which encompasses policies such as letting students attend religious or charter schools with public funding.”

DeVos did not acknowledge that the US placed dead last in the first international assessment in 1964.

She did not acknowledge that the US was never a high scoring nation and typically scores around the median.

She did not acknowledge that test scores are the result of child poverty and that any effort to raise test scores must address as child poverty.

She did not acknowledge that the US is #1 in child poverty among the OECD nations.

She refuses to acknowledge that school choice does not produce higher test scores. On the whole, school choice lowers test scores. The prime example of the effects of school choice is Michigan, where NAEP scores have fallen since Betsy DeVos’s choice policies were imposed. The other examples are Milwaukee and Detroit, which demonstrate the null impact of choice. Milwaukee has charters, vouchers, and public schools that must take the kids the choice schools don’t want. Detroit has loads of charters. Both are among the lowest scoring urban districts tested by NAEP.

She has an agenda, but it has already failed. She is an ideologue and zealot, who pays no attention to evidence, not even in her own state.

She would destroy public education if it were in her power. But we will stop her. She is already an object of ridicule. It won’t get better.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Michigan, Milwaukee, Privatization

Tom Ultican: How DeVos and Her Allies Destroyed the Public Schools of Detroit

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2018 //
12

California teacher Tom Ultican has been systematically deconstructing the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” one claim, one city at a time.

In this post, he explores the disastrous consequences of the policies of school choice zealots, especially the DeVos family. Every intervention made things worse, especially for the poorest children, who live in Detroit. They were not simply abandoned. Their schools and city were ransacked by raiders of DPE.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Failure, Hoax, Michigan, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: DeVos Tries to Recoup Her Embarrassment on Twitter

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
4

 

Mercedes Schneider describes Betsy DeVoid’s effort on Twitter to recover from her awful interview on 60 Minutes, which made her appear ignorant and clueless, even about her own state.

In the interview, she feigned ignorance when Lesley Stahl said that the state’s scores on NAEP dropped precipitously over the past decade of choice, which Betsy engineered. But Lesley Stahl knew.

The best Betsy could come up with was that Detroit charters—which select their students— have higher scores than Detroit public schools. But even the charter scores were abysmal.

If Betsy wants to argue the miracle of choice, Detroit is not a good example. No miracle.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Privatization

Julian Vasquez Heilig: KIPP and #NotUs in California

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
5

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig calls BS on KIPP in California, where they are pushing a KIPP charter into a community that doesn’t want them.

The local district, already financially drained by charters, rejected them. The county district rejected them. As in, go away. Now they are applying to the state board, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Charter School lobby.

”KIPP is now trying to insert more schools into the San Francisco Bay Area. But they are having a problem. They ran into some snags in the local authorizing process. First, the local district said that there are now more charters than neighborhood public schools and they are teetering on financial disaster. Their march towards bankruptcy is occurring even with increased funding from the state the past few years because the loss of students to charters has resulted in massive budget shortfalls. After their 3-2 denial by the district, KIPP then went to the county for their second and final attempt at local authorizing. However, that didn’t go well for KIPP because the county wanted assurances that that KIPP would abide by AB 1090, which is a California financial conflict of interest law. KIPP refused to abide by California financial conflict of interest laws. What!?

“Charters talk on and on about how interested they are in transparency and accountability #NotUs. They tell legislators that they are abiding by the law #NotUs. Then they tell other people that the law doesn’t apply to them (See video below) #NotUs. This sort of malfeasance goes on and on because we allow charters to talk out of two sides of their mouth. We also allow the “good” charters to say, “We are good” and of course there is some “bad.” #NotUs Which ultimately provides cover for the entire sector at the expense of transparency and accountability for children, families and taxpayers.”

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