Archives for category: Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Why For-Profit Education So Often Fails

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2017 //
27

This is an interesting article by Jonathan A. Knee of the Columbia Business School about the perils of making a profit in the education sector. I note that he has a book coming out, fleshing out his case studies and arguments about for-profit investing in education.

Knee describes the many visionaries who saw the possibilities of transforming education into a for-profit bonanza but lost their shirts.

Earlier this year, LeapFrog Enterprises, the educational-entertainment business, sold itself for $1 a share. The deal came several months after LeapFrog received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange that it would be delisted if the value of its stock did not improve, a disappointing end to the public life of a company that had the best-performing IPO of 2002.

LeapFrog was one of the very last remaining of the dozens of investments made by Michael Milken through his ambitiously named Knowledge Universe. Founded in 1996 by Milken and his brother, Lowell, with the software giant Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, as a silent partner, Knowledge Universe aspired to transform education. Its founders intended it to become, in Milken’s phrase, “the pre-eminent for-profit education and training company,” serving the world’s needs “from cradle to grave.”

Knowledge Universe businesses included early-childhood learning centers, for-profit K–12 schools, online M.B.A. programs, IT-training services for working professionals, and more. Milken’s penchant for secrecy makes a comprehensive assessment impossible—most of the businesses were privately held and some were sold to private buyers for undisclosed sums. But of the companies about which there is public information, most, like LeapFrog, ended badly. Education remains untransformed.

Milken was far from alone in the belief that education could be revolutionized through radical new business models. In 2012, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein established the Amplify division within News Corp. At the time of his initial investment, Murdoch described K–12 education as “a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed.” Their idea was to overturn the way children were taught in public schools by integrating technology into the classroom. Although inspirational, the idea entailed competing with a series of multibillion-dollar global leaders in educational hardware, software, and curriculum development. After several years and more than $1 billion, with no serious prospect of ever turning a profit, Murdoch and Klein sold their venture for scrap value to Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, last year.

Professor Knee does see a role for for-profit businesses, but it is on the margins, not as school operators.

Frankly, the scariest for-profit ventures are the tech companies that hope to replace teachers and schools with their “scalable” models.

If the subject interests you, as it should, you should be sure to read Samuel Abrams’ Education and the Commercial Mindset, which documents the Edison Project disaster.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Privatization

Carol Burris: Three Problems with School Choice That Advocates Won’t Talk About

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
19

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote an analysis of the major problems with school choice that advocates refuse to address.

She begins by writing that privatized school choice directly threatens public education:

Privatized school choice is the public financing of private alternatives to public schools. Examples include charters run by corporate boards, private schools funded by vouchers, online learning charters and publicly subsidized home schooling. Then there are the disguised voucher plans such as Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs, which give taxpayer money on debit cards to parents with little oversight as to how it is spent.

Privatized school choice, in its various forms, has been rapidly gaining ground in many of our states. The thinly veiled agenda of privatized choice is the destruction of public schools, which Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her allies refer to as “government schools.”

What the privatizers never talk about is that every dollar that goes to school choice is taken away from public schools. To adjust for the loss of revenue, public schools have to lay off teachers and close down programs. So the great majority of students are injured so a few can attend a charter or use a voucher.

Voucher programs almost always begin small–targeted at poor children, or children with disabilities, or foster children, or military children–but then expand to apply to all students. Sometimes the privatizers admit that they are pursuing a camel’s nose-under-the-tent strategy, but usually they claim to want “only this small program.”

Unaccountable, unsupervised privately-managed schools waste taxpayers’ dollars with bloated administrative salaries and overhead. In these conditions, without public oversight, fraud and corruption go undetected, and when a whistleblower complains, we learn that hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars were squandered or stolen.

She writes:

When we turn our backs on our public schools, we turn our backs on our most profound American values. We are not embracing conservatism; we are embracing consumerism. It is as simple and sad as that.

I would put it somewhat differently. I would say that the privatizers’ goal is not only to destroy public education but to encourage us to think as consumers, not as citizens. As citizens, we support public services that are for everyone, even if we don’t use those services. Thus, childless people pay taxes for public schools, even though they don’t use them, as do people whose children are grown. But consumers take care of themselves only. In the future, if this movement for privatization prevails, taxpayers may well reject bond issues because they don’t want to pay taxes for private choices. If we think only of ourselves, we lose the sense of civic responsibility that a democracy requires in order to protect and serve the interests of all its citizens.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Citizenship, Democracy, Deregulation, Fraud, Privatization, School Choice

Can Schools Cure Poverty?

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
29

Jennifer Berkshire posted this interview with economist Harvey Kantor in response to a column in the New York Times by David Leonhardt suggesting that schools were the best way to address poverty.

Leonhardt wrote that education “is the most powerful force for accelerating economic growth, reducing poverty and lifting middle-class living standards.” He then goes on to argue that vouchers don’t work, but charters do. This runs contrary to Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie’s study of charters in Texas, where they found that attendance in charter schools had no effect on future earnings.

What Kantor has to say is crucial in this discussion.

Kantor says what I have come to believe is bedrock truth. Poverty should be addressed by reducing poverty. No matter how high the standards, no matter how many tests, no matter how swell the curriculum is, those are not cures for homelessness, joblessness, and lack of access to decent medical care. This realization explains why I changed my mind about the best way to reform schools. It is not by turning schools over to the free market but by seeing them as part of a web of social supports for families and children.

Here is part of a fascinating discussion:

One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.

If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.

Berkshire: But isn’t part of the attraction of today’s education reform movement, that it holds out the tantalizing possibility that we can correct the effects of poverty without having to do anything about, well, poverty?

Kantor: That’s right. What’s interesting about our our contemporary period is that we’re now saying schools can respond to problems of achievement and we don’t need to address any of these larger structural issues. When you think about these larger questions—what causes economic inequality? What causes economic insecurity? How are resources distributed? Who has access to what?—they’ve been put off to the side. We’re not doing anything to address these questions at all.

Please read the entire discussion. It is very important in understanding the attack on schools and the fruitlessness of corporate reform, which ignores the causes of poor student achievement.

It will help you understand why billionaires and right-wingers love corporate reform. It enables policymakers to forget about the necessity of social policy that affects the conditions in which many families live.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Poverty, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Pennsylvania: How the State’s Charter Law Cripples Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2017 //
4

I don’t begin to understand the complexities of Pennsylvania’s formula for allocating dollars to public schools and charter schools, but this article explains how the formula cripples public schools.

Chester Upland School District keeps raising taxes to overcome its deficit but it can’t keep up.

Chester Upland spends about $16,000 a year on average for each special ed student in its traditional district schools. But the state’s formula has forced it to pay more than $40,000 per student to charters, regardless of the child’s level of disability.

Those payments crippled Chester Upland so badly that Gov. Tom Wolf and the courts stepped in.

But this is far from just an issue in Chester Upland. Newly analyzed state data show that a combination of quirks in the charter law have caused a statewide problem, because charters across Pennsylvania are enrolling a greater share of the least needy, least costly special ed students.

The special ed funding formula’s intricacies are infamous. But the problem in a nutshell is this: when the neediest students concentrate in district schools, that drives up the per-pupil payments that districts must pay charters.

It’s a paradox that can drain the budgets of traditional school districts while infusing charters with cash. And it creates incentives for districts like Chester Upland to do what they can to keep special ed students from migrating to charters and cyber-charters.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Special Education

Peter Greene: Is Betsy DeVos Misunderstood?

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2017 //
19

Peter Greene tries to determine whether Betsy DeVos is wrongly portrayed by the media and her critics.

She’s no dummy, he says, but she does have the misfortune of saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times.

True, she is often a punch line for late-night TV comics.

Her problem is that she knows so little about American education, almost nothing about public education, and she has only one idea: school choice. Is it her fault that she is totally out of touch?

“DeVos…holds up some Florida choicey programs as a model of excellence, which if nothing else shows once again that DeVos has not done her homework. But her praise of the Miami-Dade system shows, again, where her heart is. She does not praise it for providing excellent education; she praises it for providing lots of choice. This is the greatest danger we face from Choice True Believers– given the options of a no-choice system that provides a great education for every child, and a super-choicey system that delivers lousy educational results, they would choose the latter because when it comes right down to it, they value choice more than they value education.

“DeVos calls public schools the backbone of the system, which is, I suppose, better than calling them the spleen, but not as good as recognizing that they are the education system, and modern choice is just a flock of leeches.

“Then DeVos throws in a line straight out of 2010– “What we will not do, however, is accept the status quo”– which is a hilarious line because the status quo is, of course, a bunch of public schools being undercut and gutted, strapped to bad standards with the bungee cords of toxic testing, while charter- and voucher-privatizers hold positions of high office that they use to further attack and dismantle public education so that they can sell off the parts. The more typical reformster stance is to rail against schools that haven’t existed for decades, but since DeVos has no real frame of reference for public schools, she can cast back even further. DeVos throws out the old saw about public education being stuck in the 19th century which only makes sense if you’re someone who has spent no real time in a public school.

“Technology! she declares, and you might think that this is, again, because she hasn’t been in public schools to see that we actually have them new-fangled computer machines, but it turns out that she has particular tech in mind:

“Today, it’s possible for every student to learn at their own pace, with responsive technologies advancing them through topics they’ve already mastered and delving deeper into areas where they’re struggling.

“So, competency based education, or personalized learning, or computerized training modules for the underclass, or whatever we’re calling it this week.

“She also thinks it’s foolish to assign schools based on where you live, which is another way of saying that’s it’s foolish to let a community organize, maintain and run its own schools. Having previously failed metaphorical framing by suggesting that education should be a Uber, DeVos now compares schools to banks and video rental stores, neither of which need bricks and mortars any more, and both of which are totally like public education. Also, a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves.

“DeVos frames these ideas as necessary because (again harkening back to the 2010 reformster playbook) we are falling behind our economic competitors in the world, because having students who score better on standardized tests would totally make up for having someone in the White House who keeps discovering that governmenty things are hard.”

But, but, but, it’s all about the kids! Of course!

“As I said– any shred of sympathy I might have felt for DeVos is pretty much shredded when she starts talking. Is she occasionally criticized unfairly? Yes, I think she is. But is she misunderstood, with her policy goals unfairly maligned and misrepresented? I think not. We have a person in charge of our nation’s public education system who does not value that system and would happily preside over its destruction, a dismantling she has worked for her entire adult life and never disavowed.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Privatization, School Choice

James Meredith to Trump: Please Don’t Claim the Mantle of Civil Rights When You Betray Its Purpose

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2017 //
14

In a recent article, civil rights icon James Meredith expressed his frustration with Trump and DeVos claiming that education is “the civil rights issue of our time” and that school choice is the remedy.

He writes:

Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are attempting to improve our schools with “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, cyber-charters, privatization, putting uncertified “temp teachers” with six weeks training into our highest-needs schools, and shackling public schools to the mass standardized machine-testing of children.

This represents a doubling-down on a quarter-century of failed bipartisan efforts at education reform, few of which have a track record of success, even when measured by the dubious metric of standardized test scores. The achievement claims of Potemkin-style “miracle schools” rarely stand up to serious scrutiny. Education is an exquisitely difficult and complex system, and there are few magic bullets, quick-fixes or shortcuts….

The main problems in American public education are poverty, decades of neglect and segregation of our high-poverty schools, and a system that is today driven not by parents and teachers but by politicians, bureaucrats, ideologues and profiteers with little if any knowledge of how children learn.

The education system has been hijacked by money, much of which is being squandered. We are wasting tens of billions of dollars annually on failed experiments, bloated bureaucracies, unproven and unnecessary technology products, and ineffective teacher professional development. A dystopian culture of constant, pointless, mass standardized machine-testing of children is crippling the schools and students it is supposed to help. The continuation of these trends threatens to hollow out and destroy our urban schools, and pull the rest of the system down with them.

Meredith goes on to explain what children today need, and what would constitute genuine reform in education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Will Birmingham Be the Next New Orleans?

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
12

Public education activists in Birmingham are afraid that their school board is getting ready to appoint a Broadie–or worse–to be the next superintendent of schools. They fear that the plan is to deliberate this crucial decision in complete secrecy, then spring someone on the schools who wants to demolish them and turn them over to profit-driven, unaccountable charter schools. They are aware of what has happened in New Orleans, where academic gains–if any–are limited, segregation remains intact, and communities and are disempowered and silenced.

Read here to see the lengths the board will go to so as to shield their superintendent search from public view.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Alabama, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: The Management Company That Owns the #1 High School in the Nation is in Deep Trouble

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
9

Mercedes Schneider has done a deep dive into the financials of the BASIS Schools. It is an eye-opener.

BASIS charter schools won the top spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s high schools.

BASIS Scottsdale was rated number 1 in the nation.

If you were thinking of sending your son or daughter there, think twice.

This is not a typical American high school. It is focused to an extreme on AP exams.

Turns out that AP test scores matter much in the US News high-school-ranking system, and BASIS high schools require their students to take at least eight AP courses and six AP exams. In 2016, the average BASIS graduate took over 11 AP exams. BASIS contends that “AP exam scores are by no means the focus of our curriculum”; however, the same page boasts that “many BASIS.ed graduates take as many as 20 AP Exams.”

These are the demands that make BASIS #1, but these are clearly not models for other high schools. They are for students who are academically driven.

But what about those financials?

The owners of the BASIS chains pay themselves millions. Yet BASIS is in debt.

Schneider asks: “Which Is Higher at BASIS Schools: Its AP Scores, or Its Debt?”

Which Is Higher at BASIS Schools: Its AP Scores, or Its Debt?

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Missouri: Legislature Likely to Pass a School Choice Bill, Despite State Constitution

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
19

Legislators in Missouri are about to pass an expansive school choice bill that paves the way for vouchers and privatization of public education.

Here is the language of the Missouri state constitution:

“Section 5. The proceeds of all certificates of indebtedness due the state school fund, and all moneys, bonds, lands, and other property belonging to or donated to any state fund for public school purposes, and the net proceeds of all sales of lands and other property and effects that may accrue to the state by escheat, shall be paid into the state treasury, and securely invested under the supervision of the state board of education, and sacredly preserved as a public school fund the annual income of which shall be faithfully appropriated for establishing and maintaining free public schools, and for no other uses or purposes whatsoever.

“Section 8. Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation, shall ever make an appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any religious creed, church or sectarian purpose, or to help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by the state, or any county, city, town, or other municipal corporation, for any religious creed, church, or sectarian purpose whatever.”

But what does the constitution mean anyway when you want to put kids into private and religious schools with public funds?

NPR reports:

“A wide-ranging education bill is expected to make it through: one that would establish a tax credit program known as education savings accounts, or ESAs, which could be used by foster children, children with disabilities, and children of military personnel to enroll in private schools. It would also expand Missouri’s student transfer law, allowing students in unaccredited districts to attend a public school in another district, or go to a private nonreligious school, charter school or virtual school.

“Backers of the measure say that the bill, known as a “school choice” measure, allows parents to make the best choices for their kids. But opponents believe it’s a way to put public money toward private schools instead of better-funding public schools.”

However, the legislature is not likely to increase charters outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.

In Arizona, voucher supporters started with the same limitations and expanded the program bit by bit to extend vouchers to almost everyone.

Why should a detail like the state constitution get in the way?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Missouri, Privatization, Vouchers

DeVos Will Visit a Charter School in California Tomorrow: May Day!

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2017 //
10

Betsy DeVos will visit a charter school in Woodland Hills tomorrow.

On Monday, DeVos is slated to tour the CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School, a charter school in Woodland Hills.

Monday also happens to be May Day, and labor and community groups throughout the region are planning major protests.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, head of the Los Angeles teachers union, put out this statement:

“The timing raises questions. Los Angeles is poised for a record-breaking May Day march to resist the Trump/DeVos agenda, and to stand up for human rights and educational justice. Rather than support families and communities who march for immigrant rights and public schools, she visits a charter school, in School Board District 4. Either she is tone deaf to the educational needs of our community, or more likely, she is actively promoting her privatization agenda here in LA. With her well-known collaboration with wealthy corporate charter school backers in LA, it also begs the question: Is she here to support the charter lobbyists’ endorsed candidates, Nicholas Melvoin and Kelly Fitzpatrick-Gonez?”

Perhaps the California Charter Schools Association will organize a demonstration to welcome her and thank her for her contributions to the charter industry.

Categories Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »