Archives for category: Privatization
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Nancy E. Bailey: Time to Stop Calling Under-Resourced Schools “Dropout Factories”

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2017 //
22

Nancy E. Bailey writes here about the corporate reformers’ love for the term “Dropout Factories” to refer to public schools, especially those in impoverished communities.

She says the term is used to disparage public schools and their teachers. It received wide recognition when it was featured in the abominable pro-privatization film “Waiting for Superman.”

Bailey offers a list of research-based strategies for improving struggling schools, which are almost invariably schools with high proportions of students who live in poverty.

She notes that the originator of the term Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins has close ties to the reformer industry.

A valuable and informative post.

P.S. Nancy Bailey and I are updating the Edspeak glossary and thank readers for their many wonderful suggestions. “Dropout Factories” will definitely be an addition!

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Poverty, Privatization

A Chronology of Ohio’s Recent Charter School Scandals

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2017 //
7

Progress Ohio has compiled a list of recent charter school scandals, covering only the past four years. Someone should take on the job of making the list comprehensive. But this is long enough.

This is an industry wracked with self-dealing, profiteering, political pay-offs, fraud, and corruption.

Please read the article and see for yourself.

And the amazing thing is that Arne Duncan’s Department of Education gave Ohio an additional $71 million to open more charter schools, apparently with complete indifference to what was happening on the ground.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Scandals

Steven Singer: No, Mr. Trump, You Can’t Curb the Federal Role While Imposing Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2017 //
25

Steven Singer dissects Trump’s latest diktat: He wants to limit the federal role and return control to states and districts. Or he might make available billions for school choice (like Obama’s Race to the Top) while slashing Title 1 and other programs.

At the same time, he wants to impose school choice on states and districts. He might even make federal aid conditional on states and districts accepting vouchers and charters.

Steven Singer says it is impossible to do both.

Categories Common Core, Privatization, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Good News! Tennessee Fails to Pass Voucher Law for Seventh Straight Year!

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
24

Advocates for vouchers in Tennessee failed again to pass voucher legislation, despite an intensive campaign, and narrowing the legislation only to Memphis.

The big stumbling block was how to hold voucher students and voucher schools accountable.

Chalkbeat reports:

“It’s an anticlimactic ending after months of debate and hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars spent to boost legislation allowing public money to be spent on private school tuition.”

The issue will be fought out again in 2018.

Interesting that the pro-voucher group calls itself the “Campaign for School Equity,” when it should be the “Campaign for School Privatization.” Honesty is the best policy. But the privatizers always name themselves what they are not.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Michigan: Officials Promise Investigation of Charter Board Decision Not to Seek Repayment of $5 Million from Convicted Director

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
8

Blogger Anita Senkowski has kept a close watch on the Grand Traverse Academy charter chain in northern Michigan. Two years ago, its founder was convicted of tax evasion, but apparently the board of directors did not require repayment of the $5 million that went missing. Now, due to Senkowski’s persistence, the state has promised an investigation. The founder of the charter chain, Steven Ingersoll, is an optometrist who claimed to have a unique way of teaching children through a method he called “integrated visual learning”; he recruited other optometrists to serve on the charter board.

Two years after Steven Ingersoll’s March 10, 2015 federal tax evasion and conspiracy convictions, Michigan authorities, including the office of its Attorney General, Bill Schuette, are finally investigating Ingersoll’s related-party financial transactions, the GTA’s debt write off process and its decision not to seek repayment of the money that may have been misappropriated by Ingersoll between 2007-2013, estimated at $5.0 million.

Kicked into action by a formal complaint I filed on March 31, 2017, the Michigan Department of Education confirmed to me in an April 4, 2017 that it is investigating the decision by the GTA’s Board of Directors to “write off” a $1.6 million debt owed to the school by Ingersoll, its calculation of the amount—and the three optometrists who looked at a charter school full of children and saw only a cash-rich “golden goose”: Steven Ingersoll, Mark Noss and Brad Habermehl.

After dithering publicly for months in 2014 about its “plan” to collect money owed to the Grand Traverse Academy (GTA) by its former manager, optometrist Steven Ingersoll of Smart Schools Management, Inc. (SSM), the Traverse City, Michigan, charter school’s annual fiscal audit revealed its board decided to just “write off” $1,623,000 to bad debt, and not pursue collection.

The GTA board included a $1,813,330 “repayment” by Ingersoll into its write off calculation — an amount credited against his debt, estimated in by Ingersoll at $3.58 million as of June 30, 2012.

Ingersoll began serving his 41-month prison sentence in February in Minnesota.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Michigan, Privatization

Rob Levine: The Walmart Plan to Kill Public Schools in Minneapolis

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
42

Rob Levine describes in this post the concentration of corporate reformers on Minneapolis, where millions of dollars are pouring in to the city to turn it into the New Orleans of the north, a mecca for charter operators without public schools.

He writes:

In Minneapolis there are now 34 operating charter schools that enroll almost 12,000 students. In St. Paul there are now 37 operating charter schools enrolling more than 13,000 students. By comparison both districts currently enroll about 36,000 students. While it’s obviously true that students who enroll in a charter school in one city don’t necessarily hail from there, the numbers are a good benchmark.

The Walton Family Foundation has started 46% of all open charter schools in Minneapolis

And charter advocates are hard at work enlarging that total, in Minneapolis, at least. The charter advocacy and startup organization Charter School Partners (CSP – now Minnesota Comeback), is in the middle of a five year plan to open 20 new charter schools in Minneapolis. Last year Comeback announced that it had secured $30 million in commitments from philanthropies, which it plans to use to create “… 30,000 new rigorous and relevant seats – particularly for students of color and low-income students” by 2025 in Minneapolis.

Though it has existed for barely a year Comeback has already collected $1.4 million in grants from the Minneapolis,Joyce and WEM (Whitney MacMillan) foundations.

Whatever “rigorous and relevant” means, 30,000 new “seats” in a district that has a student population of about 36,000 students is essentially a plan to kill that public school district. As Alejandra Matos wrote in the Star Tribune a year ago, some Minneapolis education officials “…suspect Minnesota Comeback is out to undermine the traditional public school system by replacing it with a vast network of charter schools, like in New Orleans or Washington, D.C.”

How might that happen? In 2013 Moody’s Investors Services issued a report warning that charter schools could drain enough money from regular school districts to in effect create a mini death spiral. It warned that in response to lost revenue districts might “…cut academic and other programs, reducing service levels and thereby driving students to seek educational alternatives, including charter schools…”

It’s worth remembering that in 2016 the Minneapolis school district experienced an unexpected $20 million shortfall.

So the corporate reformers plan to add “30,000 new rigorous and relevant seats.” Where is the store that sells those seats? Can anyone buy one? Or are those high-quality seats sold only to charter operators?

Funny that so many evaluations show traditional public schools outperforming charter schools, even though the charters say they have a monopoly on those special chairs. Maybe it is because the traditional public schools are staffed by real teachers, not TFA.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Privatization, Teach for America, Walton Foundation

North Carolina: Legislators Propose Special Perks for Corporate Charters

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
13

Under a bill proposed in the North Carolina legislature, corporations would gain the power to set aside half the seats in a new charter for their employees if they contributed funds, land, or equipment. For their generosity, the corporation would also have seats on the charter boards. The charter would become a perk for corporate leaders and valued employees, kind of like a company store.

The state House is considering a collection of bills that would change who can start a charter and how quickly the schools can grow. Corporations would be able to reserve spaces in schools for their employees’ children, and two towns would be able to set up charter schools for their residents. Under current law, charters are open to any student in the state, although schools can give preference to siblings and school employees’ children.

“This is loosening the restrictions on how charters operate and what they’re allowed to do,” Rep. Graig Meyer, an Orange County Democrat, said of the collection of bills the House Education Committee approved Monday in divided votes.

Under one bill, up to half a charter school’s seats could be reserved for children whose parents work for companies that donate land, buildings or equipment to the school. Employees of those companies would also be able to join the charter school’s board of directors.

Rep. John R. Bradford III, a Mecklenburg Republican, framed the bill as an economic development tool that could help attract companies to rural counties. Companies would be able to offer classroom seats as employee perks, Bradford said, equating charter enrollment to companies paying for employee meals.

“This creates a vehicle where a company can create an employee benefit,” he said.

Meyer objected, saying the provision would have taxpayer money going to company schools.

“This moves closer to privatization than North Carolina has ever allowed before,” he said.

Another bill would allow charter enrollment to grow 30 percent a year without approval from the State Board of Education. Charters are now limited to 20 percent annual growth without board approval. Some Democrats objected on the grounds that it could fuel growth in schools that aren’t good. Allowing charters with bad records to expand would not be fair to taxpayers, parents or students, said Rep. Bobbie Richardson, a Louisburg Democrat.

At the same time, the legislature imposed a mandate to reduce class size without any new funding, which will cause layoffs of thousands of teachers and overcrowding in grades not included in the mandate.

North Carolina blogger-teacher Stuart Egan calls the corporate-control bill “The Privatization of Public Schools Bill.”

Can there be any question that the NC legislature is systematically privatizing the schools of the state?

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization

Pennsylvania: More on the Disastrous HB 97 for Charter $$$$$

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
2

Lawrence Feinberg of the Keystone State Education Coalition writes about HB 97, which is being considered today:

HB97 is on the House calendar for today.

Instead of insisting on an omnibus charter reform bill, the legislature should consider a stand-alone, separate bill creating a charter school funding commission modelled after the successful Basic Education Funding Commission and Special Education Funding Commission, with a task of work limited to charter school funding issues and comprised solely of legislators and executive branch members.

This would be a significant first step in untying the Gordian knot that PA charter reform has become.

HB97 would stack the state’s Charter Appeals Board in favor of charter proponents.

HB97 would increase the terms of charter authorizations and renewals; shouldn’t taxpayer’s elected officials be able to review and approve the expenditure of tax dollars annually?

HB97 does virtually nothing to address the total lack of transparency for public tax dollars spent by charter management companies.

Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts never authorized the 13 chronically underperforming cyber charters and many districts offer cyber programs at significant savings to taxpayers yet all 500 districts are required to send tax dollars to cyber charters.

The legislature should consider a separate piece of legislation dealing solely with cyber charter issues.

#HB97 None of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman .@SenatorBrowne’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter.

In 2015-16 they had to pay over $19.5 million in cyber charter tuition.

Not one of Pennsylvania’s 13 cyber charter schools has ever achieved a passing score of 70 on the School Performance Profile.

Many school districts have in-house cyber programs that are able to serve students at considerable savings over cyber charter costs.

#HB97 None of House Appropriations Committee Chairman .@RepStanSaylor’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $3.8 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 None of gubernatorial candidate .@SenScottWagner’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $11.9 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 None of Senate Education Committee Minority Chairman @SenatorDinniman’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $13.4 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 None of House Education Committee Chairman Eichelberger’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $11.6 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 Neither of House Speaker .@RepTurzai’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $1.8 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 None of Senate President .@senatorscarnati’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $9.4 million in cyber charter tuition.

#HB97 None of Senate Majority Leader .@JakeCorman’s school districts ever authorized a cyber charter. In 2015-16 they had to pay over $5.1 million in cyber charter tuition.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Pennsylvania: Call Your Legislator at Once to Stop “Horrible” Charter Bill

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
3

Pennsylvania’s state auditor said not long ago that the state has the worst charter legislation in the nation.

It is about to get worse if HB97 passes. Public school advocates at the Keystone State Education Coalition say the bill is in trouble and can be defeated. If you live in Pennsylvania, get on the phone at once and contact your legislator.

EdVotersPA: PA House Poised to Ram Through Horrible Charter Bill

Education Voters PA

We need your help to stop HB 97…

We had hoped that the PA House would work toward charter reform that would protect taxpayers and students and improve PA’s system of public education.

Our hopes were misplaced.

On Tuesday this week, members of the House Education Committee passed HB 97 out of committee on a vote of 17 to 10. Before they voted, lawmakers were assured that HB 97 was a work in progress and would be amended to address many significant problems and deficiencies in the bill.

That didn’t happen.

During the House session on Wednesday, Republican leadership and most Republican lawmakers opposed nearly every substantial amendment that was introduced to fix HB 97.

Tell your state representative to oppose HB 97. The House will be in session next week and is poised to ram through HB 97 without any further improvements.

· HB 97 does not address the $100 million profit (and growing) that charters reap off students with disabilities each year from the broken special education funding system.

· HB 97 does nothing to address the continued abysmal academic performance of the state’s cyber charter schools — none of which have met the minimum proficiency standard on the state’s school performance profile.

· HB 97 creates separate performance standards by which to evaluate charter/cyber charter schools and district schools, making a comparison of education quality between the two sectors impossible. Cyber charter performance won’t look as bad if cyber charters are compared only to other charter schools, many of which are also very low-performing.

· HB 97 strips local control from school boards. If HB 97 becomes law, local school boards would be prohibited from requesting any information from charter applicants beyond the information in a state-created application form; local school boards would be subjected to the whim of charter operators to amend their charter; and local school board decisions regarding charter applications and renewals would be at the mercy of the state’s Charter Appeal Board, which would be stacked with charter school supporters.

HB 97 improves ethics and transparency standards for charters and temporarily makes very small reductions in school district payments to cyber charters. In exchange for these modest modifications to the current law, legislators are handing charter lobbyists their wish list with a bow on top.

Making charters play by similar rules as other publicly funded entities should not earn the PA legislature high praise. These are necessary and important changes to the PA legislature’s broken law that should have been made years ago.

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

Florida: Stop the Charter Theft of Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
8

Kathleen Oporeza, executive director of Fund Education Now in Florida, urges all Florida citizens to contact their legislators–by email, by telephone, in person–and urge them to vote against any legislation that refers to “Schools of Hope,” which is a blatant effort to hand public schools over to charter entrepreneurs.

Urge the House & Senate to oppose any bill containing “Schools of Hope/HIgh Impact Charters” language

This dangerous concept has worked its way into at least a dozen bills, making it intentionally harder to track. All of this activity feeds the goal of making it easier to slip this bad public policy into one of several massive “train” bills far removed from public view.

Take action now. Tell our Senators and Representatives to oppose all bills, including HB 5105, SB 796, and SB 1552, that contain “Schools of Hope/High Impact Charter Networks” language.

“Schools of Hope”/“High Impact Charter Networks” create two separate, unequal publicly funded school systems – one under the control of duly elected school boards and the other controlled by outside private corporations under the direction of the appointed State Board of Education.

The deck is stacked. The BOE picks and chooses which district turnaround plans are accepted or rejected while at the same time exercising oversight authority over competing High Impact Charter Networks.

Because the BOE determines cut scores on state assessments and the calculation of school grades which can be manipulated to increase the number of D and F district schools this language will clearly drive the expansion of “Schools of Hope/High Impact Charter Networks.”

Use your voice now! One click easy. Please do not let “Schools of Hope/High Impact Charter Networks” trigger the immediate transfer of 115 “D & F” public schools and their 77K students into private, for-profit hands.

This isn’t about helping our most vulnerable students; it’s about promoting unmitigated charter school growth in an effort to erode district schools.

The Charter “Schools of Hope/High Impact Charter Networks” exponentially expand the effort to allow for-profit charters to keep grabbing tax dollars and tapping new markets to beef up the annual reports of corporate charter chains. None of this has been proven to help students or improve education.

Please tell the Florida Legislature to vote no on the “Schools of Hope/High Impact Charter Networks” language, SB 796, SB 1552 and HB 5105 with its $200M slush fund and block its inclusion in the Senate Budget and prevent it from being slipped by either chamber into a “train” bill.

Your voice has power. Our children are depending on us

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization
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