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Steve Ruis: How Many People Died of COVID Because They Took Trump’s Advice?

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2024 //
44

Steve Ruis has been wondering how many people died of COVID because they followed Trump’s advice? Early on in the pandemic, as people’s fears were high, Trump suggested two treatments to ward off the deadly virus: injecting yourself with bleach or taking a drug called hydroxychloroquine, which usually prescribed for malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

He found a recent scientific study that estimated the number of people who took hydroxychloroquine and died, in five countries. Were they following Trump’s advice? Very likely. How would they have learned about this drug if he had not touted it?

We don’t know yet how many people injected bleach.

Ruis notes that Trump got the best medical treatment when he had COVID. It did not include bleach or hydroxychloroquine.

Categories Elections, Health, Hoax, Research, Science, Stupid, Trump

North Carolina: Federal Education Official Involved in Charter School’s Financial Woes

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2023 //
13

Dr. Peggy Carr is Commissioner of the National Center on Education Statistics, a prestigious, major federal agency. NCES preceded the U.S. Department of Education by more than a century, having been created by Congress in 1867 to report on the progress and condition of American education. NCES releases regular reports on education. It also oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal testing agency.

T. Keung Hui of the Charlotte Observer reported that Dr. Carr is ensnared in a state investigation of a charter school called Children’s Village Academy and its financial affairs. The school’s charter is up for renewal in 2024.

A North Carolina charter school is being accused of misspending thousands of taxpayer dollars, including funds spent on behalf of a high-ranking federal education official who is a leader at the school.

Staff from the state Department of Public Instruction this week presented reports alleging conflict of interest violations involving the spending of state and federal dollars at Children’s Village Academy in Kinston. Many of the questions revolved around money exchanged between the school and its board vice chair Peggy Carr, who is also commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.

Specific concerns include Carr getting $155,000 in interest payments on a $188,000 loan she gave the school 15 years ago. Other allegations include the school improperly using taxpayer dollars to reimburse Carr for furniture and utility bills for a home she owns and rents to the school in the summer….

In 2008, Carr gave the school a $188,000 loan that is still being repaid. DPI says there was inadequate documentation of the loan , resulting in misstatement of the school’s finances because it wasn’t listed as being a liability..

McFadden said that Carr has been paid back, with interest, $314,000. But by the time the loan is fully repaid, McFadden said the school will have paid an estimated $155,505 in interest — $109,268 more than it was originally projected to repay.

“DPI is concerned with the legality and validity of the loan payments to date since there is no documentation or evidence that substantiates the CVA Board agreed to or understood the total amount to be paid including interest based on the annual decisions being made,” according to a DPI report.

In addition, DPI has questions about the $894 a month it says Children’s Village is paying to reimburse Carr for small business loans for buildings the school uses…

DPI identified $5,003 in “unallowable costs,” from the summer program, including $4,438 for furnishings that Carr purchased and requested reimbursement for at a house she partially owns in Kinston.

The school leases the home for two months a year for the summer program, DPI says. Items purchased included dining room tables, dining room chairs and decorative items such as a wall mirror, “colorful cows” and pillows. Some of the items were purchased in Maryland, where Carr lives, and shipped to Kinston.

“Per contracts for the property where the furnishings are used, the property is only used for 2 months out of the year,” according to a DPI report. “The furnishings in question are also not a reasonable purchase as they are typically found in a household, they are not furnishings typically found in an academic setting.”

In addition, DPI says the school paid the entire utility bill for the house for two summer months even though part of the property was used by an independent contractor who is related to Carr. That person is the school’s operations manager. A U-Haul business is also in that building.

Even after the summer program ended, DPI says the school paid the utility bills for the home. Altogether, DPI found $3,238 in unallowable utility costs that must be repaid….

DPI outlined a list of other questioned costs, including:

▪ A custodian was paid $17,000 in federal summer program grant month for July through September.

▪ A different custodian/bus driver who is married to the K-5 principal was paid $15,000 in federal grant dollars in July and August. The K-5 principal is also Carr’s sister.

▪ DPI found $8,877 in unallowable costs related to personal expenditures such as a tire replacement for the finance officer’s car, holiday gifts to employees, $500 gift cards to four employees and costs related to a daycare center operating on the campus. McFadden said the daycare owner is related to Carr.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article282963048.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Data, Education Industry, NAEP, North Carolina, Research, Scandal, U.S. Department of Education

Tulane Research Center Funded by Charter Advocates Will Study National Impact of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2023 //
21

When Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education, she gave $10 million to establish a research center on school choice; she chose carefully. Given who she is, she was not likely to give the money to academics likely to throw cold water on her life’s work. She gave the grant to Tulane, smack dab in the middle of the only city that has no public schools. The organization she funded is called the National Center Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH), led by economist Douglas Harris.

REACH has not been a cheerleader for choice but neither has it been notably critical. The all-charter New Orleans district has not offered much to cheer about. Just days ago, the Orleans Parish School Board closed The Living Charter, which has a large proportion of English learners, because of its test scores. It was the ninth charter school closed in New Orleans since 2018.

Two of the nation’s most active funders of charter schools just awarded nearly $1 million to REACH: the Walton Foundation and the City Fund.

Walton is the single largest private funder of charter schools in the nation. The City Fund was created by billionaires Reed Hastings (Netflix) and John Arnold (ex-Enron) specifically to spur the growth of charter schools.

Tulane announced:

The latest research on school choice suggests that the availability of charter schools alongside other options is producing impacts across entire school systems. However, what works in New Orleans may not work in Arizona. How can we better understand variations across contexts in order to design more effective policies at the system-level?

The National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH) at Tulane University received a total of $975,964 in funding from both the Walton Family Foundation ($485,914) and City Fund ($490,050) to jointly support a three-year research project on the system-level effects of charter schools at the national level. The goal is to learn how charter schools improve student outcomes and better understand the role of policy in fueling these changes.

Is it too much to suggest that their sponsorship is akin to cigarette companies funding research on the benefits and risks of nicotine?

Harris implied in his comments on the grant that a district with 100% market share was subject to “diminishing returns.” Does he mean that it’s useful to have some public schools to take the students that the charters don’t want?

According to REACH Director and Tulane School of Liberal Arts Professor of Economics Douglas Harris, “This funding will help us improve the functioning of the charter sector by better understanding the roles played by factors such as access to quality teachers and the design of charter policies, including charter school funding. We will also learn about the various mechanisms throughout which charter schools affect students, including indirect effects on traditional public schools. Finally, places like New Orleans have gone 100% charter, but we see some evidence of ‘diminishing returns’ to charter market share.” He added, “We are thankful to both The Walton Family Foundation and City Fund for their generous support of our work.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Research, School Choice, Walton Foundation

National Education Policy Center: Closing the Gap Between Research and Practice in the Teaching of Reading

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2023 //
20

The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado posted a useful analysis of research in the field of reading and how it should inform practice.

Key Takeaway: Some research claims of the “science of reading” movement are overly simplistic, so policymakers should seek different approaches to legislating reading.

Find Documents:

Publication Announcement: https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication-announcement/2022/09/science-of-reading
NEPC Publication: https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/science-of-reading

Contact:

Alex Molnar: (480) 797-7261, nepc.molnar@gmail.com
Faith Boninger: (480) 390-6736, fboninger@gmail.com
Paul Thomas: (864) 294-3386, paul.thomas@furman.edu

Learn More:

NEPC Resources on Reading Instruction

BOULDER, CO (September 13, 2022) – How students learn to read and how reading is best taught are often the focus of media, public, and political criticism. In a new NEPC policy brief, The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach to Reading Instruction, Paul Thomas of Furman University explores the controversial history of the reading reform movement.

Throughout the decades, a striking amount of attention has sporadically been focused on how teachers teach reading—typically with a specific concern for phonics instruction. This attention has then spread to standardized test scores (including international comparisons) and a changing list of hypothetical causes for disappointing test scores (including progressivism, whole language, and balanced literacy).

Disappointing reading achievement has been sometimes attributed to how reading is taught, sometimes to social influences on students (such as technology and media), and sometimes to both. Widespread and ongoing criticism over the last 80 years has targeted a wide array of culprits:

  • State and federal reading policy;
  • The quality of teacher education and teacher professional development;
  • Theories of learning to read and reading instruction;
  • The role of phonics and other reading skills in teaching reading; and
  • The persistent gaps among classroom practices, reading policy, and the nature or application of science and research.

These discussions have not been evidence-free. In fact, scholars and literacy educators have over this time conducted extensive research into these and other issues. But the research has only limited impact on policy and practice.

Specifically, in contrast to much of the public debate and policymaking, these researchers have found reading instruction and learning to be complex, complicating the design of effective policy and classroom practice. Overall, this robust research base supports policies and approaches that acknowledge a range of individual student needs and that argue against “one-size-fits-all” prescriptions. Among literacy educators and scholars, then, important reading debates continue but do so without any identified silver-bullet solutions.

The current public debate is different. Since 2018, the phrase “science of reading” has been popularized as loosely defined shorthand for the broad and complex research base characterizing how children learn to read and how best to teach reading. Simplifying the issue for the public and for political readers, and failing to acknowledge the full complement of research findings, prominent members of the education media have used the term when framing the contemporary debate—often as pro-phonics versus no phonics. Various types of vendors have also found the shorthand term “science of reading” highly useful in branding and marketing specific phonics-oriented reading and literacy programs.

As the “science of reading” movement has grown, scholars have cautioned that advocates and commercial vendors often exaggerate and oversimplify both the problems and solutions around reading achievement and instruction. Yet these advocates have been extremely effective in lobbying for revised and new phonics-heavy reading legislation across most states in the U.S., producing rigid and ultimately harmful policy and practices. Still, in pursuing reform to address identified challenges, the movement does provide an opportunity for policymakers to investigate different approaches to reading instruction and to develop more nuanced policy.

Accordingly, Professor Thomas provides recommendations for state and local policymakers to provide teachers the flexibility and support necessary to adapt their teaching strategies to specific students’ needs.

Find The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach to Reading Instruction, by Paul Thomas, at: https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/science-of-reading

Categories Education Reform, Literacy, Research, Teachers and Teaching

National Education Policy Center: Are ESAs as Bad as Vouchers—Or Worse?

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2023 //
3

The National Education Policy Center published this valuable analysis of the difference between “education savings accounts” and vouchers.

Termed “education savings accounts” (ESAs) these vouchers on steroids were the subject of 79 percent of the 111 voucher-related bills introduced in state legislatures in 2023. Five states enacted new ESAs (AR, IA, MT, SC, and UT). In addition, four states expanded existing ESA programs (FL,IN, NH,TN).

In most ways, ESAs are similar to traditional vouchers that parents have used for decades to pay for private schools at public expense. It’s just that they go a step farther, permitting parents to use the funds not just for private school tuition but for other education-related expenses such as school uniforms, homeschool curricula, and gym memberships.

In a recent article in the Brown Center Chalkboard, a publication of The Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based think tank, NEPC fellow Joshua Cowen of Michigan State University writes that he already sees signs that ESAs are following in the footsteps of traditional vouchers, which studies suggest lead to a flood of new providers, many of which quickly close, as well as tuition hikes at existing voucher schools.

“Unfortunately, the voucher research literature suggests that even with new schools opening, there simply are not enough effective private schools to go around,” he writes. “This might explain the dismal academic results over the last decade—and suggests a very real risk in today’s ESA initiatives if they produce large increases in private school enrollment.”

Drawing upon past research on traditional vouchers, Cowen predicts that ESAs will lead to lower student achievement. Evidence on traditional vouchers’ impact on rates of high school graduation and college enrollment is more mixed—but when positive effects were found, they were associated with students spending all four years of high school in a private school. However, private high schools that accept vouchers often experience high rates of churn. In Milwaukee, which Cowen has studied, 20 percent of voucher students left private schools annually. Academic improvements occurred once students returned to public schools.

Voucher advocates disappointed with academic results have blamed over-regulation for the poor outcomes.

Yet Cowen writes that “the only empirical evidence of the effects of accountability on a voucher program found that once voucher schools were required to use the same testing and reporting requirements as their public counterparts, voucher performance improved substantially.”

He added: “The lack of accountability is already raising problems in newer programs. In Arizona, for example, families had a number of questionable expenses approved, and in North Carolina, some private schools are claiming more vouchers than students actually enrolled.”

Unlike earlier traditional voucher programs, today’s vouchers are more likely to be universally available rather than to be offered to certain populations-such as students from low-income families.

“How these new, expanded programs will function is perhaps the key open question for research moving forward,” Cowen writes.

Data from traditional voucher programs has indicated that the larger the program, the worse the results tend to be. In the best case, that’s because there are too few effective private schools to serve expanded voucher programs; in the worst case, there are inherent limits to the choices parents can make when vouchers allow private schools to choose their students as well.

For example, private schools that accept vouchers may implement admissions criteria that screen out students with disabilities, students with low test scores, or emerging bilinguals.

Voucher-accepting schools are also permitted to refuse to accept LGBTQ+ students or families, and to fire or refuse to hire LGBTQ+ staff.

“[I]t remains to be seen how the new expansion of private school choice programs will ultimately affect educational opportunity,” Cowen writes. “But research on traditional vouchers suggests extreme caution when expecting new, favorable results simply because parents of children outside of public school can now spend public dollars on costs beyond tuition.”

Categories Bigotry, Disruption, Education Industry, Research, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Watch Dr. Marvin Dunn, the Brave Scholar of Black History in Florida

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2023 //
12

At the recent conference of the Network for Public Education, one of the truly outstanding speakers was Dr. Marvin Dunn, professor emeritus at Florida International University. Dr. Dunn has written several books about Black history in Florida, most notably A History of Florida Through Black Eyes. I read that book and realized that Dr. Dunn was the right recipient for NPE’s annual “David Award,” which goes to someone who spoke out and acted on behalf of justice against the powerful, regardless of the personal risks.

Dr. Dunn is not only an author but an active preservationist of Black history. To make sure that the massacre at Rosewood, Florida, would never be forgotten, he bought five acres there and regularly brings students and teachers to learn about it. He tells the story of visiting his land with his son; a “neighbor” tried to run them over in his truck. Dr. Dunn filed a complaint with the police, and the man was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dr. Dunn asked to have the sentence reduced, and it was dropped to only one year. The audience was impressed by his generosity of spirit. However, Dr. Dunn tweeted several weeks later that the now-released felon hung a toy skeleton where Dr. Dunn could see it. You don’t need to study Critical Race Theory to know that Racism lives.

I think you will agree that his remarks are highly inspiring.

Categories DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, History, Injustice, Justice, Network for Public Education, Race, Racism, Research

Peter Greene: Fordham Institute Debunks “Study” of Charter School Innovation

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
8

Peter Greene writes faster than most people can read, and what he writes is always worth reading. In this article, he describes a remarkable occurrence: the pro-charter Thomas B. Fordham Institute debunked a study by charter advocates claiming that deregulation spurs innovation in the charter sector.

In his latest article, Greene writes:

It’s an ordinary day when a pair of charter school boosters conclude that charters work best when mean old government doesn’t make them follow a bunch of rules and stuff. It is an ordinary day when someone points out they’re full of regular non-innovative baloney. It is a less ordinary day when the baloney is being called out by a piece in the house organ of the Thomas Fordham Institute.

So let’s pretend for a moment that the question of regulations vs. charter innovation is a real question. David Griffith, the Fordham Associate Director of Research, frames this as the old tension between autonomy and accountability, which makes more sense than talking about charter school innovation, because after a few decades of charter proliferation, the amount of innovation they have produced is somewhere between jack and squat. Despite being billed as “laboratories of innovation,” charter schools haven’t come up with much of anything that public schools were not already well aware of.

The study argues for less regulation of charters. Greene responds:

The more regulation, the less innovatiness in charter schools. For charter fans, it’s simple–more options means they can move more product, and while I get their point, it is also true that we would have far more innovation in the food industry without all those government regulations about poison and stuff.

The study was thoroughly demolished by David Griffith, Fordham’s associate director of research.

Greene writes:

Griffith makes a similar observation. Their technique of quantifying “innovation” gives the charter points for being unusual, and that’s problematic:

From a purely normative perspective, an obvious problem with the authors’ approach is that it is content neutral. So, for example, a school that was grounded in Satan Worship would count as highly innovative (provided it didn’t start a movement), as would one that imparted no knowledge whatsoever (as seems to be the case for many virtual schools).

And he doesn’t think “innovation” means what they think it means either, noting that many of their “innovations” aren’t particularly new but instead include “longstanding programs such as Core Knowledge (est. 1986), Waldorf (1919), and Montessori (1907), not to mention “single-sex” education (Harvard, circa 1636) and “project-based” learning (the Pleistocene).” (That is Griffith’s snark there, not mine).

Kudos to David Griffith and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Deregulation, Education Industry, Fake News, Research

Nancy Bailey: Don’t Believe the Hype About Grade Retention

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2023 //
27

Regardless of claims to the contrary, holding kids back (flunking them) is a terrible idea. I recall attending a meeting of the National Association of School Psycholfists where the president of the organization said that the three worst fears of children were: 1) the death of their parents; 2) going blind; 3) flunking in school.

The third was deeply humiliating. It meant losing your friends and being branded a dummy. Yet there are states that continue to employ third grade retention, thinking they are helping children and knowing they are boosting fourth grade reading scores.

Nancy Bailey reviews the evidence here. Her inclusion: there are better, more humane strategies than grade retention.

Categories Cruelty, Ethics, Failure, Research, Students

Josh Cowen: The Latest Research on Vouchers

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2023 //
6

Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, summarizes the latest research on vouchers for the Brown Center Chalkboard, a publication of the Brookings Institution.

He finds several salient points:

  • In 2023 alone, seven states passed new school voucher programs and nine expanded existing plans—highlighting a push that is largely coming from red states.
  • The last decade of achievement studies have shown negative voucher impacts, with more mixed or inconclusive results on attainment.
  • Data from traditional voucher programs has indicated that the larger the program, the worse the results tend to be.
  • Most students who use vouchers never attended public schools.
  • Many private schools raise their tuition to take advantage of voucher funding.
  • Many pop-up schools of dubious quality are created to receive voucher money.

Please open the link and read the rest of the article.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Research, Vouchers

NPE Releases Bombshell Report on Latest CREDO Study!

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2023 //
117

The Network for Public Educatuon just released a careful analysis of the latest CREDO study, which claimed that charter schools get better results than public schools.

Not so fast, writes Carol Burris, executive director of NPE. Burris reviewed the data and methodology and found multiple problems with both. The statistical differences between the two sectors, she saw, were the same in 2023 as in CREDO’s first charter study in 2013, which were then described as insignificant.

Even more troubling, CREDO’s work is funded by pro-charter billionaires. How is this different from a study of nicotine safety funded by the tobacco industry? And yet mainstream media accepted the CREDO report without questioning its data, its methodology, or its funders.

Billionaires behind the bias: Unmasking CREDO’s agenda

The Network for Public Education released a response to CREDO’s third national report, revealing the true agenda of a research arm of the conservative Hoover Institution. In its report, CREDO uses cherry-picked charter management chains and flawed methodology that embellishes results and discredits public schools and “mom and pop” charter schools.

NEW YORK, NY — Today, the Network for Public Education released ‘In Fact or Fallacy? An In-Depth Critique of the CREDO 2023 National Report a well-researched response that traces the funders and the bias in CREDO’s data, reporting methods, and conclusions.

CREDO’s report is meant to compare test score growth in math and reading for students in charter versus public schools. But once the curtain is pulled back, the conclusions are dangerously misleading to the public as well as policymakers who depend on accurate research to make informed education-related decisions and policies.

Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author, says: “CREDO is not a neutral academic institution. They are an education research arm of the pro-charter Hoover Institution, and it’s time they are treated as such. We call on policymakers, the general public, and parents to disregard the results of CREDO studies that take tiny results and blow them up using CREDO-invented “Days of Learning.” Their studies are becoming nothing more than propaganda for the charter industry.”

CREDO’s latest report identifies two nonprofits as underwriters of the latest study – The City Fund and The Walton Family – which gave CREDO nearly $3 million during the years of the study. The City Fund is bankrolled by pro-charter billionaires, including John Arnold, Reed Hastings, and Bill Gates. They have a well-established history of supporting the expansion of charter schools and funding agendas to break up school districts and turn them into a patchwork of “portfolio districts.” The goal of the City Fund is to transform 30-50% of city public schools into charter schools.

CREDO also masks its connections to the conservative think tank the Hoover Institution, but the CREDO report authors’ current biographies and resumes link the organizations. CREDO’s Director and the report’s first author is the Education Program Director for Hoover.

NPE says it is time for state agencies to end their research relationship with CREDO and offer detailed student data to credible and independent research organizations instead.

The NPE report takes an honest look at CREDO’s report with the following key sections:

  • A history of CREDO and its connection to the Hoover Institution.
  • Scholarly critiques of CREDO methodology.
  • Trivial differences exaggerated by the CREDO-created construct, ‘Days of Learning’
  • Bias in the “Virtual Twin” methodology.
  • Serious errors in the identification of schools run by Charter Management Organizations.

According to Diane Ravitch, the President of the Network for Public Education, “CREDO and the billionaires who fund them are trying to discredit public schools to persuade the public that public schools are inferior to privately-managed schools. How is this different from the tobacco industry funding research on cigarette safety?”

“It is clear the CREDO reports are now part of a long-game strategy to undermine, weaken, and defund public education. Why does CREDO consider differences that favor public schools in their first report as “meaningless” and “small” but characterize nearly identical differences favoring charters in its third report to be “remarkable”? Same outcomes. Different characterizations,” Ravitch said.

In light of our findings, The Network for Public Education asks CREDO the following question:

Does CREDO represent the interest of its funders and the pro-school choice Hoover Institution or the interests of the public, who deserve an unbiased look at real outcomes for our nation’s charter and public school students?

“Unless CREDO is held accountable, its reports will continue to move from “in fact” to misleading fallacies. And that does a disservice to the charter and public school sectors alike,” concludes the NPE report. 

The Network for Public Education is a national advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students.

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Categories Accountability, Bias, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Dark Money, Data, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Research, Walton Foundation
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