Archives for category: Privatization
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GOP Tax Plan Will Hurt Teachers and Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2017 //
21

In Education Week, Allyson Klein and Andrew Ujifusa report that the GOP tax proposal will have negative effects on funding for public schools.

“The Republicans’ much-anticipated legislation to change the federal tax system includes a victory for school choice advocates: It would allow families to use up to $10,000 in savings from 529 college savings plans for K-12 expenses, including private school tuition.

“Overall, the bill released Thursday would slash corporate and some individual tax rates, offsetting the cost by nixing other deductions. That includes a $250 deduction that teachers can use to cover classroom expenses, such as books, art supplies, and rewards for students. The bill would also eliminate the deduction for state and local income and sales taxes, a step advocates warn could pinch K-12 spending at the district and state level. More on that below.

“And the legislation would put an end to the so-called Coverdell Accounts, tax-free accounts which families currently can use to cover up to $2,000 of K-12 costs, including private school tuition, in favor of the 529 change. Families could also use 529s to cover the cost of apprenticeships and could open an account when a child is “in utero” or “unborn.” We previewed the possibility of a 529 benefit for K-12 back in August. It has strong support from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank…

The inclusion of 529 plans for K-12 in the tax package represents the first tangible win in the Trump era for school choice, a huge priority for DeVos.

But a tax credit for donations to fund private school scholarships, which some speculated would be a part of changes to the federal tax code, does not appear to be in the bill. Congress has also rejected the administration’s budget proposals to create a federal voucher program.”

The reduction in the deductibility of state and local taxes will hurt public school funding by reducing revenues.

“Teachers’ unions are unhappy about the elimination of the state and local tax deductions—but also upset about the decision to scrap the tax deduction to help teachers furnish their classrooms. During the 2012-13 academic year, teachers spent a total of $1.6 billion out of their own pockets for classroom expenses, according to a survey by the National School Supply and Equipment Association. A separate survey conducted during the 2015-16 school year found that each teacher spent $600 on average of his or her own money on those supplies and materials every year.”

SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE GOP TAX PLAN! IT TAKES AWAY THE SMALL DEDUCTION THAT TEACHERS USE TO COVER THE COST OF SCHOOL SUPPLIES THAT THEY PAY FOR, WHILE ENABLING WEALTHY FAMILIES TO CLAIM TAX CREDITS FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION.

The Network for Public Education is encouraging everyone to write to their members of Congress to vote against this unfair and unwise tax plan. It will hurt public schools and aid wealthy families.

Categories Funding, Privatization, Republicans, Teachers

Rochester, New York: L.A.-Based Charter School in Financial Trouble

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2017 //
4

Ref Rodriguez founded a charter chain. Most of the charters are in Los Angeles. One is in Rochester, New York.

Ref is in trouble with the law. Until recently, he was president of the LAUSD school board. Faced with felony indictments, he stepped down as chair, but remained on the board. More indictments came, but he refuses to leave the board. The salary for board members was recently raised and is substantial.

Joy Resmovits of the L.A. Times reports that the charter school in Rochester that is part of Ref’s former chain is in trouble.

Unlike Arizona, New York state officials don’t like conflicts of interest.

When the New York state comptroller’s office recently audited a charter school in Rochester, N.Y., investigators found a number of troubling financial practices, including inadequate oversight.

One issue auditors noted was that the local school contracted out its financial management to the national charter network it was part of — and membership on the Rochester school’s board and the school network’s board overlapped.

Rochester’s PUC Achieve is the only school outside California in the 18-school Partnership to Uplift Communities charter school network co-founded by L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez. Rodriguez and his PUC Schools co-founder Jacqueline Elliot were flagged for being on both of the boards.

“While not prohibited by law, these situations create a conflict of interest,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote when the audit was released in May.

Rodriguez has more pressing concerns in Los Angeles, where he faces three felony and 25 misdemeanor charges for alleged campaign money laundering.

But problems in Rochester broadly echo some questions recently raised in L.A. about Rodriguez’s conduct and PUC’s management practices.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, New York, Privatization

North Carolina: When Did Conservatives Become Opponents of Local Control?

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2017 //
11

North Carolina is undeterred by the abject failure of Tennessee’s “Achievement School District,” which turned control of low-performing schools to charter operators. North Carolina will try exactly the same strategy but will call it the “Opportunity School District.”

School board members are miffed that it is taking so long to select five schools for their experiment. Many likely takeover schools have fought back and resisted, with community support.

The state board is adopting a strategy that has no evidence that it works. It removes local control and gives public money to charter operators. Board member Olivia Holmes Oxendine is certain that what failed in Tennessee will succeed in North Carolina, even though Tennessee had many additional millions in Race to the Top funding.

Since when did conservatives become enemies of local control?

Can’t they come up with a better idea than to copy the plan that failed in Tennessee?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Tennessee

Los Angeles: Will Pro-Charter School Board Dare to Hold Charters Accountable?

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2017 //
5

When charter schools were first launched in the late 1980s-early 1990s, it was taken as a given that charters would gain autonomy in exchange for accountability. The promise at the time was that they would save public dollars by having no bureaucracy. So they would cost less, get better results, and be held to high standards of fiscal and academic accountability. As the charters have grown into a politically powerful industry supported by deep-pocketed entrepreneurs, they have increasingly demanded more autonomy, more public money, and less accountability.

The Showdown will come at the next meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board. Billionaires and Dark money have spent many millions to elect a pro-charter majority. That majority hangs by a slender thread since one of its members, Ref Rodriguez, clings to his seat despite being under indictment on multiple charges of campaign finance violations.

At its next meeting, the board will decide what to do about a recommendation by district officials to close 10 charters.

“Charter school leaders, who say they are standing up against regulations they find onerous, won’t back down and will leave it to board members to decide their schools’ fates Tuesday.

“They may get a sympathetic ear because the board majority is the first to be elected with major financial support from charter backers.

The futures of six other charter schools also are at risk over the same issues. All told, there have never been as many L.A. charter schools facing potential closure at one time — certainly never over conflicts they instigated.

If the charters don’t prevail, they still could appeal any denials to the county or state education boards.

Both the district and charter operators say they are looking out for students.

A key point of dispute is the authority of the district’s inspector general to conduct long-running investigations of charter schools. Charter operators want to narrow this power and say state law supports such limits…

The district’s charter division recommended denying renewed authorization to eight Alliance College-Ready Public Schools campuses and two Magnolia Public Schools campuses. Six KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools may be reauthorized on the condition that they demonstrate compliance with district rules in the near future. KIPP administrators have not agreed to that condition.

Three proposed charters, which hope to open in the future, also are at risk in this dispute: one each from KIPP, Equitas Academy Charter Schools and STEM Preparatory Schools.”

The public will soon learn whether the school boards works for the public or for the billionaires who funded their campaigns.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: Democrats Will Continue to Lose if They Continue to Trash Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2017 //
75

Over the past decade, the Democratic party has lost over 1,000 state elections–for governor and legislature. Why? This period of decline coincides with Democrats’ embrace of the Republican philosophy of school choice, closing public schools, bashing teachers, and embracing test-based accountability. If Democrats act like Republicans, why vote for them? If Arne Duncan looks and sounds like Betsy DeVos (with the sole exception of vouchers), why vote Democratic?

Jeff Bryant makes the case here the Democrats are doomed if they can’t support public schools, which are a bedrock democratic institution.

Jeff reviews a “Third Way” document that sounds very much like the Duncan-DeVos agenda for education.

“Here we go again,” was what many left-leaning folks likely felt after seeing a recent announcement about a new effort by wealthy donors to rescue the Democratic Party from its electoral doldrums. Backed by $20 million, the “New Blue” campaign, coming from politically centrist think tank Third Way, promises to lead the party out of the “wilderness” of its minority status to a pathway to “achieving progressive majorities up and down the ballot.”

But Third Way’s offer sounds more like a continuation of the old losing ways. This is especially true on the issue of education where Third Way continues to bang the drum for a failed agenda that voters mostly reject.

The Third Way is Duncan-DeVos all the way:

In its education manifesto “The New Normal in K-12 Education,” Third Way declares that the contentious arguments over important education matters — such as charter schools, standardized testing, and how to recruit and retain teachers – are essentially over and that those who are “fighting in the trenches” just need to get with the program.

The “program,” Third Way advances sounds very much like what’s been in place for the past 15 years, especially during the Obama administration under the leadership of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The title of Third Way’s document is borrowed from Duncan’s own words to describe the need for schools to go along to get along with the “new normal” of Republican fiscal austerity coupled with ever harsher accountability mandates and more competition from charter schools.

Duncan’s calls for higher class sizes and leaner compensation for teachers didn’t sit well with parents then, and Third Way’s support for charter schools, more standardized testing, and cuts for experienced teachers is not popular now.

Support for charter schools has dropped by double digit percentages among Democrats and Republicans, according to a recent poll. Another recent survey found the public is also generally opposed to using voucher money to send students to private schools, an idea pushed by current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that Third Way completely ignores (maybe because it’s too divisive). That survey also found most of voters don’t find test scores to be the best indicators of school quality. Lack of funding continues to be the issue most often cited by voters as the biggest problem schools face. But Third Way says nothing about that either.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Take This Survey to Help Document the Path of the Privatization Movement

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2017 //
4

Dr. Jim Scheurich of Indiana University and his colleagues have spoken out against the ongoing effort to privatize the Indianapolis public schools. He has developed a brief survey and invites readers to fill it out.

I encourage you to help him. Please revolt the survey if you have your own blog.

HELP US STOP THE DESTRUCTION

OF DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED PUBLIC SCHOOLS

A national effort by wealthy, conservative and rightwing, individuals and organizations to privatize schools, particularly those in urban centers, and turn them into sources of profit is well underway.

Some of us fighting this effort in Indianapolis have identified ten elements or characteristics of what we are calling a national model to destroy democratically controlled public schooling.

The elements or characteristics we have identified come from our experience in Indianapolis, public information about other urban centers, and those fighting the same national effort in other cities

However, we are now trying to more systematically collect national information on this destructive model.

Please help us by completing the survey below along with minimal information about you.

If you have questions, please contact Dr. Jim Scheurich, Professor, School of Education, Indiana University – Indianapolis (IUPUI) at jscheuri@iupui.edu.

Click here for the survey: https://goo.gl/forms/cC8Lrn7a5OPNVpsc2

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indianapolis, Privatization, School Choice

Los Angeles and Elsewhere: Your Chance to See Backpack Full of Cash

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2017 //
3

Here is the current schedule for screenings of Backpack Full of Cash.

It is showing in Los Angeles next week.

This is your chance to see the controversial film about the rightwing corporate attack on our public schools.

Don’t miss it!

Screen Shot 2017-10-18 at 2.54.40 PM

Please save the date to join LAANE on Wednesday 11/8 at Occidental College for a free documentary film screening of Backpack Full of Cash, a film that explores the growing privatization of public schools and the resulting impact on America’s most vulnerable children.

As you may know, LAANE has been working with the Reclaim Our Schools LA coalition over the past two years to advocate for funding, accountability, and resources for every public school student in Los Angeles. We are excited to partner with Active Voice Lab to bring this film to Los Angeles and continue this crucial conversation. Following the film, we will host a Q&A session to answer questions and discuss opportunities to further raise awareness about issues facing our public schools in Los Angeles.

Narrated by Matt Damon, this feature-length documentary showcases Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville and other cities, taking viewers through the tumultuous 2013-14 school year and exposing the world of corporate-driven education “reform” where public education — starved of resources — hangs in the balance.

I hope you will join us for this event. Seating is limited so RSVP today.

Click here for more information about the film and to watch the trailer.
RSVP Here
In Solidarity,

Roxana Tynan
LAANE Executive Director
LAANE is a leading advocacy organization dedicated to building a new economy for all. Combining dynamic research, innovative public policy and the organizing of broad alliances, LAANE promotes a new economic approach based on good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment.
Donate to support LAANE’s work!
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Philadelphia, Privatization

Michigan: Leaders of Failing Charter Sector Will Meet to Celebrate Themselves as “Innovators”

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2017 //
7

The charter industry in Michigan might be the worst in the nation, although it has stiff competition from the charter industry in Nevada, Ohio, and California. About 80% of charters in Michigan operate for-profit, and their academic results are unimpressive. The few high-performing charters use the usual tricks of excluding the kids they don’t want. A few years ago, the Detroit Free Press conducted a year-long investigation into the state’s charter sector and described it as a $1 Billion (Billion with a B) a year industry that is unaccountable and produces results no better than, and often worse than, public schools.

In early December, the failing but profitable charter industry is holding its annual conference. Will it discuss its problems? Will it honestly assess its failings?

Of course not! It will celebrate its role as “Innovators.” If anyone knows of any innovation that the Michigan charter industry has produced, please write in here and let us know. Its biggest innovation seems to be stuffing its pockets with taxpayers’ money that was supposed to support public schools, not enriching greedy entrepreneurs.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Innovation, Michigan, Privatization

Is This the Worst Charter Scandal in the Nation? Part 2

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2017 //
6

Yesterday I wrote about the for-profit Benjamin Franklin Charter Chain in Arizona, which is owned by a member of the legislature, Rep. Eddie Farnsworth. He is paid $18 million by the state for his four schools. Although Arizona law says that charter boards must have open public meetings, he has won an exemption from the law because he is the only member of the board. As a one-person Board, he holds no public meetings.

It turns out there is more to the story. Jim Hall of Arozonans for Charter Accountability documents that the Benjamin Franklin charters are the only ones in the state that spend more on administration and buildings than on instruction.

“Representative Farnsworth profits from charter ownership

“It is unclear how much Representative Farnsworth profits from his sole ownership of BFCS because for-profit corporations do not have to reveal salary information. We do know that Representative Farnsworth is a multi-millionaire – BFCS has over $3 million in stockholder equity and Farnsworth is the only stockholder. BFCD also has assets of $6.7 million in cash and another $35 million in real estate holdings.

“Farnsworth profits from the ownership of his real estate firm LBE Investments LTD (LBE) as well. LBE actually owns each of the BFCS campuses and leases the schools back to BFCS at substantially more than the mortgage payments and property taxes due.”

Why do taxpayers in Arizona put up with this misdirection of public funds?

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

The Koch Brothers Are Targeting Hispanic Families with School Choice Message

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2017 //
18

Politico reports that the Koch Brothers are promoting School Choice to Hispanic families in 11 states with an organization called the Libre Initiative.

The Kochs and their political action group Americans for Prosperity are relentless in trying to replace public schools with charters and vouchers and eliminate unions.

“While the Koch network has long been involved in school choice battles, the push by Libre represents a new front in the fight by targeting Hispanic families — and a recognition that with Congress gridlocked, it’s on the ground at the state level where the network can disrupt the educational status quo. The Koch message on schools is shared by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime ally.

“Across the [Koch] network, there’s a greater commitment to advancing this because we do see it as critical to advancing a free and open society,” Libre’s Executive Director Jorge Lima told POLITICO.

“The group has had some initial success — for instance, helping to thwart a moratorium on charter school expansion in New Mexico. But it’s also created bitter divisions in the Latino community and led to accusations the Kochs are trying to undermine public education — and even in some cases, to subvert the Democratic process.

“Don’t let so-called Hispanic organizations such as the Libre Initiative deceive you …” Geoconda Arguello-Kline, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, wrote last year in a guest column published in the Las Vegas Sun. “Libre is not looking out for Nevadans’ best interest; it is working to benefit its billionaire Koch funders.”

“Despite such criticism, the group is hunkering down for the long haul in states it views as ripe for change even as it eyes new states for expansion. Lima says it’s on track to make contact with more than 100,000 Hispanic households this year on school choice.

“Besides Nevada and New Mexico, Libre is organizing in Arizona, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. Its recent efforts, with other Koch-backed groups, include:

— A planned “six-figure” spend in Nevada on “deep canvassing” in Hispanic neighborhoods to build support for educational savings accounts, which enable families to use state tax dollars to pay for private school. Although such a program was passed by the Nevada Legislature in 2015, it never took effect after the funding mechanism was ruled unconstitutional.

— A lawsuit brought by Americans for Prosperity, among others, aimed at stopping a 2018 Arizona referendum asking voters whether they want to keep a school choice law passed earlier this year. The law would expand the availability of education savings accounts to more than 30,000 families — a move that public school supporters fear would divert millions of dollars from financially stretched public schools.

— A “six-figure” Libre and Americans for Prosperity campaign in Colorado this summer to promote charter schools and education savings accounts and another ahead of a Nov. 7 school board race by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation to push choice-friendly issues.

— A seven-figure investment In Virginia’s gubernatorial race by Americans for Prosperity that includes a video criticizing Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, for his opposition to education savings accounts.”

Americans for Prosperity opposes all government programs. Its primary purpose is to protect the Koch billions from taxation to pay for any programs that benefit others. If it was up to the Koch Brothers, they would eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and every other social programs. They are rabid libertarians who oppose taxation and government. Their interest is protecting the Koch billions, not anyone else.

Why they suing to block a referendum in Arizona? They know they will lose. Their strategy is to block democracy.

Will they fool Hispanic families into supporting the billionaires’ self-interest?

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Privatization, Propaganda
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