Archives for category: Privatization
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Laura Chapman: The Great Vampire Reform Squid with Many Tentacles

By dianeravitch
December 29, 2017 //
10

Laura Chapman writes here about the beast that wants to Destroy Public Education, which has many names:

Many of these schemes are part of the Education Cities initiative. I may have commented about this before.

About Education Cities: FUNDERS Laura and John Arnold foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation.

PARTNERS

“Education Cities works with leading organizations to help our members achieve their missions.”

“Bellwether Education Partners works with Education Cities on research and capacity building projects. Bellwether is a nonprofit dedicated to helping education organizations—in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors—become more effective in their work and achieve dramatic results, especially for high-need students.”

In Cincinnati, Bellwether was the recruiter for the “Accelerate Great Schools,” initiative that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, pushed by high profile local foundations and deep pockets in the business community—all intent on marketing the need for “high quality seats” meaning you close and open schools based on the state’s weapon-ized system of rating schools. You also increase charter schools and hire TFA. (We have a TFA alum on the school board). The CEO of Accelerate Great Schools recruited by Bellwether was a TFA manager from MindTrust in Indianapolis. He lasted about 18 months and accelerated himself to a new job. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2017/01/24/ceo-quietly-quits-school-accelerator/96997612/

“Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the University of Washington partners with Education Cities to analyze and identify policies that create the conditions that allow great schools to thrive. Through research and policy analysis, CRPE seeks ways to make public education more effective, especially for America’s disadvantaged students.”

CRPE should be regarded as an operational arm of the Gates Foundation. It marketed the Gates “Compacts.” These are MOUs (memoranda of understanding) designed to create a “make-nice-with-your-charter schools who want to have you for lunch.” The MOUs mean that districts agree to give central office resources to charters (e.g., deals on meals and transportation) with charters promising to share their “best practices” and other nonsense. The bait to districts included $100,000 up front with the promise of more money to the district if they met x, y, z, terms of the MOU. Only few districts got extra money. Many reasons, some obvious like the departure of the people who signed the MOUs.

“Public Impact” partners with Education Cities (and Bellwether Education Partners) on research and capacity building projects. With a mission to dramatically improve learning outcomes for all children in the United States, Public Impact concentrates its work on creating the conditions in which great schools can thrive. The Opportunity Culture initiative aims to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets. Public Impact, a national research and consulting firm, launched the Opportunity Culture initiative’s implementation phase in 2011, with funding from The Joyce Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” Current work is funded by the Overdeck Family Foundation and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.”

Get past the self-aggrandizing rhetoric and you see that Public Impact is marketing 13 school turnaround models, almost all of these with reassignments of teachers and students to accommodate “personalized” something. One arm of the “opportunity culture” website is a job placement service for teachers. In prior USDE administrations, Public Impact and Bellwether worked together to get federal support for charter schools.Both have political clout.

“Thomas B. Fordham Institute partners with Education Cities to analyze and identify policies and practices that create the conditions that allow great schools to thrive. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute works to advance educational excellence for every child through research, analysis, and commentary, as well as on-the-ground action and advocacy in Ohio.”

Well, we have a pretty good idea in Ohio of how all of that pontification worked out.

Here are the cities in the foundation-led move to eliminate democratically elected school boards and fold public schools into a portfolio of contract schools that receive public funds but are privately operated. At one time the number of Education Cities was 30, then 28, now 25.

Albuquerque, NM, Excellent Schools New Mexico
Baton Rouge, LA New Schools for Baton Rouge
Boise, ID Bluum
Boston, MA Boston Schools Fund, Empower Schools
Chicago, IL, New Schools for Chicago
Cincinnati, OH, Accelerate Great Schools
Denver, CO, Gates Family Foundation, Donnell-Kay Foundation
Detroit, MI, The Skillman Foundation
Indianapolis, IN, The Mind Trust
Kansas City, MO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Las Vegas, NV, Opportunity 180
Los Angeles, CA, Great Public Schools Now
Memphis, TN, Memphis Education Fund
Minneapolis, MN, Minnesota Comeback
Nashville, TN, Project Renaissance
New Orleans, LA, New Schools for New Orleans
Oakland, CA, Educate78, Great Oakland Public Schools Leadership Center, Rogers Family Foundation
Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia School Partnership
Phoenix, AZ, New Schools for Phoenix
Richmond, CA, Chamberlin Family Foundation
Rochester, NY, E3 Rochester
San Jose, CA, Innovate Public Schools
Washington, DC, Education Forward DC, CityBridge Education

These cities have been targeted by national and local non-profits for capture by promoters of choice, charters, and tech. This is a national effort designed to make school “reform” look like it is a local initiative, inspired by generosity and driven by civic values and “partnerships” in combination with “forward thinking” associated with a chamber of commerce campaign. Look at the names of these initiatives; New Schools, Education Forward, Comeback, Renaissance, and so on. Marketing market-based and corporate managed education is the aim and it is sought by pushing the idea that established public schools are failures

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

Peter Greene: The End Game of the Privatization Movement

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2017 //
46

Jennifer Berkshire pointed Peter Greene to a paper published by the libertarian Heartland Institute in 2002, nearly 18 years ago. It lays out the goals of the privatization movement very clearly. The main goal was nothing less than the elimination of public schools in America, replaced by a free-market system. The paper was written by Joseph Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute.

Whenever you hear someone refer to public schools as “government schools,” you can be sure you are in the presence of a free-market zealot.

“Bast expresses a childlike faith in the magic of the marketplace. “Privatization is so effective it typically costs a private firm half as much as the government to produce a product or service of similar (often superior) quality.” It’s a cute notion, for which he offers zero evidence. What was clear even in 2002, but what Bast never acknowledges, is that privatization allows private operators to hoover up a big pile of tax dollars that would otherwise have gone to the public sector. But Bast belonged to the Cult of Competition, believing that competing schools would reward schools that please parents, stimulate parent involvement, be more efficient, and penalize failure. None of these things are related to the goal of providing a high quality education for every single child in America, but then, that’s not his goal.

“Bast had some clever (if not reality-based) ideas about how vouchers would satisfy many reformy constituencies. For instance, by setting voucher amounts below current per-students spending levels, vouchers would lessen the taxpayer cost. Because, I guess, the private schools would accept the low voucher amount. Because when I tell the dealer that I can’t afford a Porsche, he just says, “Well, then, I’ll just lower the price to what you would like to pay.” Because that’s how free market competition works…

“His big vision?

Pilot voucher programs for the urban poor will lead the way to statewide universal voucher plans. Soon, most government schools will be converted into private schools or simply close their doors. Eventually, middle- and upper-income families will not longer expect or need tax-financed assistance to pay for the education of their children, leading to further steps toward complete privatization. Vouchers could remain to help the truly needy.

“Use the poor to get vouchers started. Shut down public education entirely. Let the wealthy go back to their exclusive top-tier schools, and set up some cheap ones for everyone else. Boom. No public education, and no forcing taxpayers to pay a bunch of money to educate Those People’s children…

“If you take nothing else from this piece, remember this– for many of the most ardent voucher supporters, school vouchers are not a destination, but just a stop-gap, something that will have to do until they can finally move on their real goal– the complete dismantling of public education in this country, replaced with a loose system of unaccountable, unregulated private schools. That fully privatized system, not a voucher system, is the goal. Keep your eye on the ball.”

Heartland Institute is supported by the DeVos family, the Koch brothers, and all the usual rightwing foundations.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Privatization

Most Educators, including Conservatives, Oppose School Choice

By dianeravitch
December 26, 2017 //
12

[A NOTE TO READERS:I am posting on a limited schedule for the next week.]

A poll conducted by Education Week found that most educators—including those who voted for Trump—oppose school choice.

Opposition to vouchers is stronger than to charters, but both are opposed.

“Overall, however, charters were viewed almost as negatively as private school vouchers by the educators who participated in the October survey of 1,122 educators conducted by the Education Week Research Center.

“A plurality of those surveyed—45 percent—“fully oppose” charter schools, while another 26 percent “somewhat oppose” them. And 58 percent don’t support using government funds to help students cover the cost of private school, while 19 percent said they “somewhat oppose” vouchers. Meanwhile, about half oppose or “somewhat oppose” tax-credit scholarships, which give individuals and corporations a tax break for donating to scholarship-granting organizations.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Opinion Polling, Privatization, School Choice

A Great Story of Courage And Survival

By dianeravitch
December 24, 2017 //
9

I enjoyed reading this story. I think you will too. It appeared in the National Geographic. It is about a man who fell overboard, was surrounded by sharks and other dangerous creatures, yet managed to survive. What was it? Character. Courage. Hope. Faith. All of the above.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/alone-lost-overboard-brett-archibald/

At first, I wondered, does this have anything to do with education?

Yes, I answered myself. We are swimming in shark-infested waters. The sharks want to destroy our public schools. They want to replace teachers with machines and call it “personalized learning.” They want to test our children until they cry. They want to monetize education and put their investment on the New York Stock Exchange. They want to take the money meant for public schools and distribute it to private schools, religious schools, for-Profit schools, and vendors of schlock. They want the public to pay money to schools that discriminate against children of certain groups, practices that are against our civil rights laws. The sharks don’t care about civil rights laws, although they claim to be the leaders of “the civil rights issue of our time.” They don’t care about children either. Don’t ever believe a shark. They lie.

We will survive. We will not let the sharks devour what matters most to us. We will prevail.

Categories Character, Corporate Reformers, Courage, Education Industry, Privatization

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter Gets Renewed for 9 Years While Bankrupting Local School District

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
7

In the bizarro world of charters in Pennsylvania, the receiver of a bankrupt district (Chester Upland) granted a nine-year renewal to a low-performing charter school (The Chester Community Charter School), pushing millions towards its sponsor.

The charter enrolls 70% of the primary school students in the district. It has been the prime mover in bankrupting the district, drawing away resources and students. In exchange for not opening a high school (which it did not plan to do), the receiver gave it another nine more years.

What is behind this sweet deal?

The owner of the school was one of the biggest contributors to former Republican Governor Tom Corbett and a member of his transition team.

He has profited handsomely by supplying goods and services to his Chester Community Charter School.

CSMI’s founder and CEO is Vahan H. Gureghian of Gladwyne, a lawyer, entrepreneur and major Republican donor –the largest individual contributor to former Gov. Tom Corbett. And though CSMI’s books are not public – the for-profit firm has never disclosed its profits and won’t discuss its management fee – running the school appears to be a lucrative business. State records show that Gureghian’s company collected nearly $17 million in taxpayer funds just in 2014-15, when only 2,900 students were enrolled.

The receiver is a Republican accountant who served as treasurer of Corbett’s campaign.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, whose office has scrutinized the Chester school’s finances in the past and who has often called the state’s charter law “the worst in the country,” was unaware of the renewal until he was told this month by the Inquirer and Daily News.

DePasquale, a Democrat, said he had never heard of such a lengthy charter school renewal, and questioned whether the move limited the district’s authority to demand improvements, especially at a school where test scores are so low.

Things are going well on the financial side for the charter company, but not so well on the academic front. Its schools have shown very low performance. But poor academic performance is no deterrent to its longevity or its profitability!

CSMI, its parent company, has long been a prominent player in the charter world – and not just in Chester. The company runs a school in Atlantic County, N.J., and until last year had another in Camden – New Jersey denied its renewal because of low academic performance.

Chester Community has also struggled to succeed. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams released in September showed that Chester Community had some of the lowest scores among charter schools in the region: Less than 16 percent of students passed PSSA reading tests in the last school year; 6 percent passed math.

The scores were lower than all but one of the four Chester Upland district schools that have K-8 students.

When the State Education Department tried to remove the receiver of the district, who has the same powers as a superintendent, Chester Community Charter School defended him, and he held on to his position.

Two weeks after the receiver was reappointed, the charter school filed its request for a nine-year extension and the receiver agreed.

By the way, the charter founder-owner has dropped the price of his Palm Beach mansion to only $64.9 million. It is a steal It is almost a $20 million drop from the original asking price.

The owners of a never-occupied, eight-bedroom mansion in Palm Beach cut their asking price by $5 million to $64.9 million.

The new $64.9 million asking price for the French Chateau-style mansion is almost $20 million below the original asking price when it was listed for sale more than two years ago.

The 35,993-square-foot residence at 1071 North Ocean Boulevard is still the most expensive home listed in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service…

The owner is a trust linked to Philadelphia-area lawyers Vahan and Danielle Gureghian, who initially planned to occupy the custom-built home.

The Gureghians’ Palm Beach residence features a bowling alley, home theater, pub room and library, plus dual ocean balconies and an eight-car garage.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Detroit: Charters Lag Far Behind State Averages by Almost Every Metric

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
4

Doug Ross, a charter founder in Detroit, wrote an opinion piece for the Detroit News in which he shows that Detroit charters outperform the much abused Detroit public schools. This’s is no surprise since charters are free unlike public schools) to choose their students and to push out the students they don’t want. The public schools must enroll the students not wanted by the charters. This is hardly a meaningful comparison.

Ross wants to make the point that the charters get better results than public schools—without acknowledging the fundamental difference mentioned above—but he does acknowledge that the charters are far below the statewide averages on every measure (except high school graduation rate, which is easily manipulated). No charter miracles here.

Curiously, the Detroit public schools have higher SAT scores than the charters.

The Detroit charters perform far worse than the state averages in math and reading.

The percent of students rated proficient in reading in grades 3-8 is 12.3% is public schools; 23.6% in charter schools; and 47.3% statewide.

Ross concludes:

“The next few years are not about DPSCD-charter competition. They are about learning together across DPSCD-charter lines about the best ways to help Detroit children get the education they deserve, and providing the quality public schools the city urgently requires if it is to continue to move forward.”

He is right. Where we part company is on the basic concept of charters, that they have the freedom to choose their students while the public schools take the kids unwanted by the charters.

That is not a formula for high quality public schools or for equity.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Detroit, Privatization

Carol Burris: The Malicious Reformer Assault on Public Schools in Indiana

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
6

Indiana was once renowned for its public schools, which were beloved community institutions. Then rightwing zrepublicans took control of the state, and the result was disruption, chaos, and community division. Instead of working together to improve their public schools, the public was enticed to pursue private choices, all under the false promise of “reform.”

Carol Burris went to Indiana, visited schools, met educators, and has written a three-part series about the corporate attack on public education in the Hoosier State. At the center of destruction are two men: Mitch Daniels, the former governor who is now president of Purdue (a soft landing he engineered), and Mike Pence, the pious evangelical who is now Vice-President.

Here is part 1 of Carol’s gripping story of the attack on public education in Indiana.

“Entire public school systems in Indiana cities, such as Muncie and Gary, had been decimated by funding losses, even as a hodgepodge of ineffective charter and voucher schools sprang up to replace them. Charter school closings and scandals were commonplace, with failing charters sometimes flipped into failing voucher schools. Many of the great public high schools of Indianapolis were closed from a constant churn of reform directed by a “mindtrust” infatuated with portfolio management of school systems.

“When I asked who was most responsible for the downward spiral of public education in the state, the answer was always the same: Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s 49th governor.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indiana, Privatization

Sinclair Media is Spreading Rightwing Propaganda Against Public Schools, And Coming to a Station Near You

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
15

This is a truly frightening story.

Far-rightwing media giant Sinclair Broadcasting has won approval from the FCC to buy Tribune Media. It will control the news feed into 72% of all homes, writes Jaisal Noor reporting from Baltimore.

Jaisal Noor writes:

“The Trump administration’s FCC recently changed local media ownership rules, paving the way for Sinclair Broadcasting to buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion dollars. When the deal goes through, Sinclair has access to 72 percent of households nationwide. The Hunt Valley-based Sinclair is the largest distributor of local news in the country, and forces its stations to run commentary from pundits such as former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn and frequently offers up news with an unabashed, pro-administration spin (“Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russia investigation of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn?”).

“While Sinclair consolidates its grip on the nation’s local TV market, in Baltimore, Sinclair is ramping up its local coverage with Project Baltimore on local affiliate Fox45, which aims to “save” Baltimore schools by bashing them. Project Baltimore’s propaganda is subtler than Sinclair’s employing click-bait headlines, skewed statistics, and half-truths to push a narrative that portrays Baltimore schools as beyond redemption and casts Project Baltimore as coming to the rescue.

“Its austere logo, in red, white, and blue offers up the tagline, “Save Our Schools.”

“Although Project Baltimore launched in March, recent stories have gone viral raising its profile and influence. A Nov. 8 report from Chris Papst titled “13 Baltimore City High Schools, zero students proficient in math” reported that over a dozen Baltimore City High Schools had zero students proficient in the math PARCC test—a test that’s part of the Common Core curriculum, aimed at evaluating students and teachers. Project Baltimore’s story was picked up by national right-wing outlets such as Breitbart and Fox News.

“While Papst’s reporting is technically accurate—13 city schools do indeed have no students that are math proficient—the story does not mention that in 2016 some of the highest performing schools in other parts of the state (including Montgomery County’s elite Walt Whitman High School) also have few if any students who scored proficient. Also not mentioned is that the PARCC test is not aimed at measuring achievement, rather measuring proficiency with Common Core curriculum. More than half the states administering the PARCC test have stopped using it due to concerns over the effectiveness of the test in measuring academic achievement and the burden it places on students. The test is also usually given on computers, which many Baltimore students lack access to at home or in their classrooms.”

Categories Accountability, Baltimore, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

John Merrow Compares Eva Moskowitz to Mussolini: The Trains Run on Time LINK ADDED!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2017 //
12

John Merrow overheard a conversation in which someone compared Eva Moskowitz to Benito Mussolini. He made the trains run on time—the saying of his defenders—and she gets results: high test scores.

Moskowitz and Mussolini

Merrow used to cover “reformers” like Michelle Rhee and Eva Moskowitz sympathetically. He seems to have had a conversion experience, not unlike my own. His last show about Rhee marked a turning point. He became disillusioned.

He is not happy with the uncritical puff pieces found in many publications about the education model created by Eva Moskowitz. He was especially disappointed by Chalkbeat editor and CEO Elizabeth Green’s adulatory article. He wonders why she didn’t ask the tough questions about Eva’s harsh disciplinary regime.

He writes:

“How did Il Duce get the trains to run on time? Could he have ordered them to do whatever was necessary to stay on schedule? Perhaps he issued a directive: ‘If people are still trying to get on the train, but it’s time to leave–just leave.’ He might have added, ‘If a flock of sheep, or some school children, are on the tracks, don’t slow down but toot your horn and plow on through so you can stay on schedule.’ Perhaps there was a third fiat: ‘If a train is so crowded that it cannot get up to full speed, just toss some passengers off the moving train and get back up to speed.’

“If tactics like that enabled Mussolini’s trains to stick to the schedule, then he and Eva Moskowitz have something in common, because the latter has a long history of discarding students who don’t meet her exacting standards. As Kate Taylor in the New York Times (also here). Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News (here), (here) and (here), and my colleagues and I on the PBS NewsHour have reported, Success Academies use a wide variety of questionable tactics to weed out students who are not performing–or do not seem likely to perform–well on bubble tests. Those tactics keep her trains running on time, I.E., scoring at the top of the charts on standardized tests.

“Elizabeth Green’s endorsement of Success Academies and their approach to education The Atlantic, headlined “How Charter Schools Won,” is particularly disappointing. Green mentions Taylor’s New York Times reporting but only in the context of Moskowitz’s attacks on her. Green ignores reporting done by Gonzalez, a two-time recipient of the George Polk Award. If she had contacted me, I could have introduced her to a Success Academy custodian who told us about regularly emptying student vomit from the wastebaskets. Although he declined to appear on television, I believe he would have gladly educated Green.

“The omissions in Green’s article (and, to be fair to Green, in most coverage of Moskowitz) are almost too numerous to mention: She does not tell her readers that Moskowitz drives away children–some as young as five–by excessive use of out-of-school suspensions. Banning kids from school for days at a time is an effective device for getting rid of children, particularly when the parents have jobs outside the home. And it’s easy to get suspended from Success Academy. On my blog I published Success Academies’ draconian list of offenses that can lead to suspension, about 65 of them in all. “Slouching/failing to be in ‘Ready to Succeed’ position” more than once, “Getting out of one’s seat without permission at any point during the school day,” and “Making noise in the hallways, in the auditorium, or any general building space without permission” can get a child an out-of-school suspension that can last as long as five days. The code includes a catch-all, vague offense that all of us are guilty of at times, “Being off-task.””

He has much more to say. I urge you to read it.

Categories Democracy, Discipline and Suspensions, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Texas: Low Graduation Rates for Charter Schools, Far Lower than District Schools

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2017 //
49

Texas charter schools have a graduation rate overall of 62%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the state’s public school. Results like this help to explain why public support for charters is dropping fast in opinion polls, like that of the pro-choice, pro-charter Education Next. EdNext reported an 11-point drop in public support for charters in just the last year, among members of both parties.

Texas Public Radio reported:

“When the exclusions and exceptions the state grants charter schools are stripped away, Texas charter schools have an average graduation rate almost 30 percentage points lower than the state’s traditional school districts.

“According to a 2017 report from the Texas Education Agency, just 62 percent of Texas charter school students graduated on time in 2016, compared to more than 90 percent of students from traditional school districts.

“The discrepancy doesn’t show up on campus or district level accountability reports, however, because most charter schools with low graduation rates are rated under alternative standards or have high numbers of students excluded from the graduation count.

“But it’s a statistic the Intercultural Development Research Association believes Texas should be paying attention to. The San Antonio-based research and advocacy group released a report last week highlighting the difference in graduation rates.

““A 90 percent versus a 62 percent graduation rate — it’s huge. That’s incredible because charter schools are seen as these kind of rescue schools,” said David Hinojosa, program director for IDRA. “Yet, then when you look at the outcomes for these charter schools and this diversion of resources towards charter schools they’re not paying off.”

“IDRA’s calculation includes the graduation rates of all charter schools, including those that have asked the state to be rated under alternative standards. Under Texas law, schools can ask to be measured under alternative standards if most of their students are classified as at risk of dropping out of school. About 22 percent of Texas charter schools are rated under alternative standards.

“Hinojosa said looking at the graduation rates of all charter schools “offers a fair comparison” because the statewide percentage of charter school students Texas considers at risk of dropping out is about the same as the rate of at-risk students in traditional school districts: a little more than 50 percent.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, High School Graduation, Privatization
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