Archives for category: Privatization
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The Pennsylvania Cyber Gold Rush

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
1

Pennsylvania has 16 full-time cyber charter schools. Of the twelve that have been around long enough to report on test scores, only one made AYP this year. Last year, two made AYP. Eight are in corrective action status. None has ever been closed. The other four were authorized earlier this year.

Last summer, the offices of the state’s largest cyber charter school was raided by the FBI, which apparently had many questions about where the money is going in an enterprise that collects more than $100 million every year. The board of that school fired its top staff but the investigation continues.

A review of the cyber charters by CREDO at Stanford University concluded that they get terrible results: their students have low scores, low graduation rates, and high attrition rates. A spokesperson for CREDO said: “whatever cyberschools are doing in PA is definitely not working and should not be replicated.”

But the cyber charters just keep growing, as they spend more and more money to recruit students and more and more money to lobby legislators.

So what does the future hold for cyber charters in Pennsylvania in light of evidence that cyber charters get poor education results and need greater oversight?

Eight more cyber charter schools just applied to the state for authorization.

The state auditor complained that the cyber charters overbill the state.

But aside from his report, has the governor or legislative leaders or the state commissioner of education expressed concern about the growth of the state’s lowest performing education sector?

Are you kidding? This is not about improving education. It’s not about “the kids.” This is the edu-business.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

This Union Is a Hero of Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2012 //
17

The United Teachers of Los Angeles has steadfastly refused to allow its members to be evaluated by the test scores of their students. Unlike the district leadership, UTLA understands that scholars have found that value-added assessment is inaccurate, invalid and unstable. By this method, excellent teachers may be labeled “ineffective,” and poor teachers who teach to the test may be labeled “effective.”

Despite intense pressure by the Los Angeles Unified School District leadership and the federal government, UTLA has insisted that its members should be evaluated by evidence-based methods, not by “value-added assessment” that has not been proven to work anywhere.

UTLA refused to sign off on the district’s request for $40 million in Race to the Top funding, which would have subjected its members to value-added assessment.

UTLA recognizes that accepting $40 million for RTTT would eventually cost the district hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with the federal government’s mandates. This has been the experience of other districts, where teachers have been laid off and class sizes have increased solely because of compliance with RTTT requirements.

Because it has remained true to principle, because it insists on evidence-based evaluation, because it insists on honest accounting for the public’s dollars, UTLA is a hero of public education and joins the honor roll.

Categories California, Education Reform, Honor Roll, Los Angeles, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education, Unions

Missouri Public Schools Under Siege

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2012 //
4

Citizens in Missouri have awakened to the rapid advance of the privatization movement. They have formed an organization called Missouri Public School Advocates to awaken the public and push back against the privatizers.

Missouri Public School Advocates
A Strong Voice for Missouri Public Schools

Calling All Public School Supporters!

The Public Schools are under siege throughout this country.

In Missouri, serious efforts by the State General Assembly to dismantle quality Public School programs date back to the implementation of term limits in 2002 and the large scale change in the membership of that body in 2004.

Learn more about what we do here.

The effort to downsize government and greatly reduce the available resources to fund the Public Schools and the effort to privatize the delivery of education services and erode the strength of the Public Schools is coming from right wing intellectual think tanks, wealthy corporations and individuals, and state legislators who either genuinely believe that the Public Schools are failing or see the delivery of education as a golden opportunity to secure government funding for private enterprise.

Because of these efforts, State Support for the Public Schools is at a low ebb.

Now a group of Distinguished Educators have said, “Enough is enough”. We have formed a non-profit organization entitled MISSOURI PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES to unite Public School Supporters throughout the State and make a difference.

We want your help to Stop State efforts to reduce Public School funding and to Stop State action to subsidize private education entrepreneurs. JOIN THE MISSOURI PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES AND LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.

Missouri Public School Statistics

>In 2010, 8 out of 10 Missouri Public School Districts reduced their number of classroom teachers. There are now 2500 fewer teachers for Missouri kids.

>For the current school year, the State Foundation Formula is $420 million dollars below its statutorily required level.

>Missouri now ranks 46th out of 50 states in average salary for Public School teachers and is more than $10000. per teacher below the national average.

>With regard to State Support of total Public School funding, Missouri is even worse ranking 47th. Missouri pays only 30.6 per cent of K-12 funding while the national average for State Support is 45.5 per cent.

>And in 2011, Missouri sank to 47th in per pupil funding for State Colleges and Universities. The average rate of tuition for Missouri’s four year institutions of higher learning has nearly doubled over the last decade.

How Do I Join Missouri Public School Advocates?

Go to the Missouri Public School Advocates (MPSA) website at mopublic
schooladvocates.org and click on Membership Button. Our current roster of MPSA members is listed online.

Memberships start at just $10.00!

When you become a member of MPSA, you will:

>Ensure that the Public Schools have a strong voice speaking out on their behalf,
>Unite Public School supporters throughout Missouri under an inclusive umbrella, which will provide real policital clout,
>Support candidates for the Missouri General Assembly who are truly Public Education Supporters.

About MPSA
MPSA is completely non-partisan. We are open to anyone who is a supporter of the Public Schools.

We believe the Public School is the Institution that has done the most to make our country great.

This Institution has provided an opportunity for every child to acquire an education and to become a productive and self-supporting human being.

For all inquiries or other communication, please contact us at the information below.

Contact Information
Address:
14373 Conway Meadows Ct. E.
Chesterfield, MO 63017
Email: Gary Sharpe, President
info@mopublic
schooladvocates.org
Phone: 573-230-3388

Please send all correspondance to Gary Sharpe at 14373 Conway Meadows Court E., Chesterfield, Missouri 63017 or info@mopublicschooladvocates.org. Thank you.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Vouchers in Chile: Greater Inequality

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
0

Valerie Strauss has a good post by Michael Pons about vouchers in Chile. The main effect seems to have widened the divide between rich and poor.

One correction I would offer to Pons. The testing and accountability framework for federal policy (No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top)  is no better than the voucher approach (Romney). In fact, the testing and accountability framework sets the stage for vouchers by the following scenario:

1) set an impossible goal of 100% proficiency or every child must raise his/her scores every year to the extent that the computer predicts

2) grade every school A-F based on test scores

3) convince the public that American education is failing because it can’t meet unreasonable targets

4) privatize the schools that are graded C, D or F

This is actually a process, not a choice of one policy or the other.

Choosing between NCLB/RTTT or vouchers is like choosing whether you prefer to be hung or shot.

The testing regime is part of the privatization plan.

Categories Accountability, International, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Vouchers

Charter Sponsor Is Very Successful

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
6

Vavan Gureghian runs a successful charter school called the Chester Community Charter School. The school is nonprofit, but Mr. Gureghian supplies its good and services through his for-profit company and collects millions of dollars as a management fee. Meanwhile the local Chester Upland public schools–whose funds pay for the students in the charter school–is in bankruptcy and under the control of a Governor-appointed “chief recovery officer.” Poor Chester Upland has been controlled by the state for most of the past decade,  yet gets blamed for the fiscal insolvency that the state has deepened and may now use as an excuse to eliminate its public schools.

The following is copied from the newsletter of the Keystone State Education Coalition, which sends out a daily newsletter with news from Pennsylvania:

“Vahan Gureghian was Governor Corbett’s largest individual campaign donor at $384,000.  His Charter School Management Company runs the Chester Community Charter School, Pennsylvania’s largest brick and mortar charter.  Chester is one of Pennsylvania’s poorest urban school districts. 

Does the $28.9 million noted below represent taxpayer funds that were NOT spent in the classrooms of Chester Upland?  We don’t know, because Mr. Gureghian has been fighting a Right-to-Know request for the past several years.  A controversial provision that would have exempted him from the Right-to-Know law was removed from SB1115, the charter school bill that was defeated last Wednesday.

http://homesoftherich.net/2012/01/pennsylvania-couple-building-20000-square-foot-palm-beach-mansion/”

Please open the link, here too.

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

How to Join the EduBusiness

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2012 //
10

A reader writes from Wisconsin:

After our Act 10 passed in Wisconsin, a few of my colleagues and I looked into what it would take to take our game to the private sector and start a voucher school in our town. What we learned was that it would be perfectly legal for us to rent an abandoned storefront in our town and lure students in with the promise of free technology that they could keep, even after they left the school. We could collect our voucher money from the state after the third Friday in September, when the state establishes your enrollment. To keep costs low and profits high, we could use Khan Academy as our curriculum and hire uncertified aides to monitor the students (we had a few recent HS graduates in mind who we thought would make good bouncers). The hastily sketched out business plan had us earning far more than we would as public school teachers, based on our best estimates.

But the real beauty of the plan kicked in after the third Friday in September. Immediately after that, we would start “counseling” kids out and sending them back to the public school. We figure that by Thanksgiving or at the latest Christmas, we would have our enrollment down to zero, then we could fire the bouncers, break the lease, take the voucher money and run. All totally legitimate, as far as we could tell by reading the law.

Categories Privatization, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Reform Insanity

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2012 //
2

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results is said to be a form of insanity.

Paul Thomas of Furman University in South Carolina shows how this definition of insanity applies to what is called “education reform” today.

Thomas’s error in this chart is assuming that the goal of the current restructuring of education is to improve or reform schools. If you think of the goal as privatization, it all makes perfect sense. That’s why I have changed my own vocabulary to use the word privatization to describe this movement.

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Two Contrasting Views of the New Orleans Story: LINK FIXED!

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2012 //
13

Is New Orleans a national model?

Simple formula: have a major catastrophe. Wipe out public education. Get rid of the unions. Hand schools over to private operators. A miracle. A national model for school reform. Read this article by a British reporter.

Or the contrary view: The New Orleans story is an example of hype and spin by entrepreneurs seeking new markets. The district ranks 69 of 70 districts in the state. Read this letter by a teacher in the state.

What do you think?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Louisiana, New Orleans, Privatization, Vouchers

Big Money to Buy School Boards

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2012 //
9

It’s happening in local school board races around the nation.

Out-of-state money is pouring in to capture seats on local school boards.

The money comes from billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Reed Hastings, owner of Netflix, and Alice Walton of the Walmart family. They fund candidates who support privatization of public education. Their resources overwhelm local candidates.

The first high-profile race to attract big money was last year in Denver, when large amounts of money arrived from businessmen with no previous interest in school board races, targeted to defeat Emily Sirota, a Denver mom. Sirota threatened control by hard-line privatizers.

Earlier this year, millions of dollars were spent by out-of-state donors to hand control of the Louisiana state school board to Governor Jindal, so he could pursue his privatization plans.

In Washington State, the charter referendum is financed by a handful of billionaires, some local, like Bill Gates, some not, like Alice Walton of Arkansas.

In Georgia, the charter referendum is funded almost entirely by out-of-state donors like Walton of Arkansas.

Now in little Los Altos, California, out-of-state money is targeting a charter school critic with negative ads. The school board member had raised questions about a charter school serving some of the wealthiest residents of the district.

The privatization movement may not have a popular base, but it is adept at marshaling big money to buy support and elections. The only way to stop them is to build an informed public.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Colorado, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Georgia, Louisiana, Privatization

The Business Model Does Not Work in Education

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2012 //
18

Here is the great journalist Juan Gonzalez interviewing CTU President Karen Lewis and Professor Lois Wiener on Race to the Top. Arne Duncan, and privatization.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Privatization, Race to the Top
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