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No, Mike Petrilli, We Must Not Revive NCLB

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2023 //
57

Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, published an article in the New York Times yesterday in which he lamented the “learning loss” caused by the pandemic and called for a new national effort, like No Child Left Behind, to instill rigor and accountability, which he says will raise test scores. Time to bring back tough love, he wrote.

I have a hard time criticizing Mike Petrilli because I like him. When I was on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation/Institute, I got to know Mike, and he’s a genuinely good guy. But when I left the board of the TBF Institute in 2009, it was because I no longer shared its beliefs and values. I concluded as early as 2007 that No Child Left Behind was a failure. I wrote an article in the conservative journal EdNext in 2008 about NCLB, saying “End It,” paired with an article by the late John Chubb saying, “Mend It.”TBF sponsored charter schools in Ohio—a move I opposed because think tanks should be evaluating policy, not implementing it; also, during the time I was on the board, the charters sponsored by TBF failed.

By the time I left, I had concluded that the NCLB emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing was a disaster. It caused narrowing the curriculum, gaming the system, cheating, excessive test prep, and squeezed the joy of teaching and learning out of classrooms.

Furthermore, the very idea that Congress and the U.S. Department of Education were stigmatizing schools as failures and closing them was outrageous. I worked in the US ED. There are many very fine career civil servants there, but very few educators. In Congress, the number of experienced educators is tiny. Schools can’t be reformed or fixed by the President, Congress, and the Department of Education.

NCLB and Race to the Top were cut from the same cloth: Contempt for professional educators, indifference to the well-established fact that test scores are highly correlated with family income, and a deep but misguided belief that punishing educators and closing schools were cures for low test scores. Both the law (NCLB) and the program (RTTT) were based on the assumption that rewards and punishments directed at teachers and principals would bring about an educational renaissance. They were wrong. On the day that the Obama administration left office, the U.S. Department of Education quietly released a study acknowledging that Race to the Top, having spent billions on “test-and-punish” strategies, had no significant impact on test scores.

And as icing on the cake, Mike Petrilli wrote an article in 2017 about the latest disappointing NAEP scores, lamenting “a lost decade.” That “lost decade” was 2007-2017, which included a large chunk of NCLB and RTTT. In addition, the Common Core standards, released in 2010, were a huge flop. TBF was paid millions by the Gates Foundation both to evaluate them and to promote them. The NAEP scores remained flat after their introduction. Please, no more Common Core.

I wrote two books about the failure of NCLB and RTTT: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010) and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

Mercedes Schneider and I both wrote posts commending Mike Petrilli in 2019 when he wrote about the “dramatic achievement gains” of the 1990s and early 2000s before NCLB kicked in. He attributed those gains to improving economic conditions for families and declining child poverty rates. I wanted to give him a big kiss for recognizing that students do better in school when they are healthy and well-nourished.

So, what did No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top produce? A series of disasters, such as the Tennessee Achievement School District and Michigan’s Educational Achievement Authority, both gone. A landscape of corporate charter chains, for-profit charters, for-profit online charters, and now vouchers, in which red states commit to pay the tuition of students in religious schools and fly-by-night private schools. A national teacher shortage; a sharp decline in people entering the teaching profession.

Please, no more tough love. No more punishment for students, teachers, principals, and schools. Let bad ideas die.

Categories Accountability, Campbell's Law, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Disruption, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, For-Profit, History, Inequity, Joy, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Standardized Testing, State Takeover, Teach for America TFA, Turnaround Schools, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

EdNext: Republicans Debate If Accountability Should Be Required for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2023 //
20

Caroline Hendrie, a veteran journalist who wrote for many years at EdWeek, wrote an overview of the implementation of vouchers (or “Education Savings Accounts“) in states that have endorsed “universal” access, removing almost all limits on access to them. Vouchers for rich and poor alike. As Josh Cowen has written in many articles, most students who use vouchers never attended public schools. And those from public schools who use vouchers are likely to do less well academically than the peers they left behind. No longer do you hear that vouchers will “save poor kids from failing public schools” because they don’t. In red states, they are a gift of public funds to families who happy to collect $6,000-$10,000 to underwrite their private school tuition.

Hendrie explains that voucher fans fall into two camps: On one side are those who want voucher families to restrict their use of public funds only to authorized expenditures, like tuition, tutoring, computers, school supplies. On the others are parents who say they want no restriction on what they purchase.

Like Florida, the states of Arkansas, Iowa, and Utah have all enacted laws this year that would open ESAs—sometimes after a multiyear phase-in—to most if not all school-age children in their states. Those four followed Arizona and West Virginia, which started implementing similar universal programs in 2022.

That wave plus other legislative action in 2023 brought to 13 the number of states with one or more education savings account programs funded directly from state revenues. In addition, Missouri has an operating ESA program paid for through tax credits.

Amid this growth, controversies have flared over ESA implementation—most notably but not exclusively in Arizona.

Critics complain that voucher money has been spent on non-education expenses, like swimming pools, kayaks, bbq grills, greenhouses, chicken coops, pianos, pizza ovens, and trampolines.

But parent groups have advocated for maximum flexibility, in which parents get a debit card and are free to purchase whatever they want, with no oversight.

Of course, vouchers create new for-profit opportunities. A company named ClassWallet has emerged to provide financial services to voucher states.

In 2019, Arizona contracted with the company ClassWallet to facilitate ESA transactions on its online spending-management portal. ClassWallet is also used by ESA programs in Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.

On its website, the Florida-based ClassWallet lists its offerings:

ClassWallet is a digital wallet with an integrated eCommerce marketplace, automated ACH direct deposit, and reloadable debit card with pre-approval workflows and audit-ready transaction reporting. ClassWallet reduces overhead costs, saves valuable time, and better visibility and control for decentralized purchases.

Save Our Schools Arizona, which led the campaign to stop voucher expansion in 2018, is convinced that the state’s new commitment to universal vouchers will prove harmful to public schools, where most students are enrolled.

Save Our Schools Arizona, which advocates for public schools and opposes the 2022 ESA program expansion, argues that ongoing disputes over implementing the broader program prove it has become, as the organization’s executive director, Beth Lewis, puts it, “too big to succeed.”

Lewis said that the program is “wide open” for fraud. “It is interesting to watch my taxpayer dollars be used to build a garden in everybody’s backyard, when my public school can’t afford one,” she said. “It’s just this unspoken rule of, if you see it in a public school, then it’s approvable.”

Other states should view Arizona’s move to universal eligibility not as a model but as a cautionary tale, Lewis argues. She sees evidence of that happening in states such as Arkansas and Iowa, where newly passed laws call for incremental, multiyear expansions before getting to universal eligibility.

“I think they looked at Arizona and saw that this is a complete disaster and is not serving families well,” Lewis said. “There’s no way to ensure transparency. And they said, ‘Well, at the very least, we need to phase this in.’”

School-choice advocates tend to defend Arizona and see its uneven expansion process as par for the course when states try something different to promote educational freedom.

The last thing the choice lobby worries about (if ever) is the well-being of public schools, even though they enroll the vast majority of students in the state.

Categories Accountability, Deregulation, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Vouchers

Mercedes Schneider: Kauffman Leadership Academy in Texas Closes with One Week’s Notice

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2020 //
4

The charter industry is nearing a flection point. The number of schools that open each year is almost the same as the number that close. The charter industry is rushing to open new schools before the public is fully woke to the crisis of charter corruption.

The Network for Public Education started a hashtag (#) on Twitter called #AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal. Every day a new scandal, sometimes two or three.

Mercedes Schneider describes the latest charter debacle in Texas, where Betsy DeVos has dropped many millions to open new charters.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will be closing the Kauffman Leadership Academy (KLA) (Cleburne) charter school with one week’s notice, as reported in WFAA.com.

In this February 13, 2020, letter to KLA leadership, TEA cites, “the [closure] order was issued as a result of the financial situation at the charter school having deteriorated significantly, including federal tax liens and levies issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that had frozen all accounts of the charter school.”

KLA filed with the Texas Secretary of State (SOS) as a business entity on August 23, 2010 (search here; KLA’s taxpayer ID# is 32042519895). According to KLA’s charter application dated 02/23/11 and on file with TEA, KLA planned “to open in August 2011 operate as a private school, pending charter approval.” These archived web pages from July 2011 and May 2015 have KLA identifying itself as an “open enrollment private school pending charter approval.”

According to the IRS, KLA received nonprofit status in August 2014, and according to KLA’s website, the school opened as a charter school in August 2016.

What took TEA so long to identify KLA’s suspicious financial situation is a looming question.

According to the IRS, KLA has only ever filed 990-N tax forms, also known as “e-postcards,” because according to KLA, for tax years 2013 to 2017 (the most recent filing,) KLA has reported “gross receipts not greater than 50,000.”

So, for five tax years, KLA told the IRS, “We have almost no money,” and the public– including TEA– had ready access to that information.

Meanwhile, on its website, KLA states, “every employee of the Academy earns the same salary, $35,000,” a statement that has remained consistent on its website since the time KLA received its charter in fall 2016, as evidenced by this October 2016 archived web page announcing KLA’s grad opening celebration.

If KLA had $50K or less per annum in 2016, that would have been enough for only a single KLA employee based upon state funding for perhaps 8 students.

Red flag, no?

Question: Why didn’t they just write to the Waltons or John Arnold or any number of other billionaires to get an infusion of cash?

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Texas

Jack Schneider: Why Are Americans Turning Against Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
22

 

Jack Schneider, a historian of education who often collaborates with Jennifer Berkshire, analyzes the fading allure of charter schools. After years of claims that they would “save” public schools and poor children, the public has given up on them. Why? They have not delivered, and the public gets it.

For most of the past thirty years, charters seemed unstoppable, especially because their expansion was backed by billions from people like the Waltons, Gates, and Broad, as well as the federal government. But they have not kept their promises.

Today, however, the grand promises of the charter movement remain unfulfilled, and so the costs of charters are being evaluated in a new light.

After three decades, charters enroll six percent of students. Despite bold predictions by their advocates that this number will grow fivefold, charters are increasingly in disrepute.

First, the promise of innovation was not met. Iron discipline is not exactly innovative.

Second, the promise that charters would be significantly better than public schools did not happen. In large part, that is because the introduction of charters simply creates an opportunity for choice; it does not ensure the quality of schools. Rigorous research, from groups like Mathematica Policy Research and Stanford University, has found that average charter performance is roughly equivalent to that of traditional public schools. A recent study in Ohio, for instance, concluded that some of the state’s charters perform worse than the state’s public schools, some perform better, and roughly half do not significantly differ.

Finally, charters have not produced the systemic improvement promised by their boosters.

Competition did not lift all boats. In fact, competition has weakened the public schools that enroll most students at the same time that charters do not necessarily provide a better alternative.

Schneider does not mention one other important reason for the diminishing reputation of charters: scandals, frauds, embezzlement, and other scams that appear daily in local and state media. A significant number of charters are launched and operated by non-educators and by entrepreneurs, which amplifies the reasons for charter instability and failure.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Competition, Corruption, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Innovation, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

My New Book Was Just Announced!

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
67

I am very excited!

My new book was just announced!

The title is: SLAYING GOLIATH: The Impassioned Fight to Defeat the Privatization Movement and to Save America’s Public Schools. 

It will be published on January 14, 2020, by Knopf, the most prestigious publisher in America. The editor is the brilliant Victoria Wilson, who is also an author, having written the definitive biography of Barbara Stanwyck.

In Slaying Goliath, you will read about the heroes of the Resistance, those who stood up to Big Money and defeated disruption in their schools, their communities, their cities, their states.

It is a book of inspiration and hope.

It shows how determined citizens—parents, students, teachers, everyone—can stand up for democracy, can stand up to the billionaires, and win.

Please consider pre-ordering your copy so you can be sure to get the first edition.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Resistance, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Testing, Vouchers

Los Angeles: Another Charter Executive Will Be Charged in Embezzlement of Millions

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2019 //
5

The charter schools of California continue to be riddled with corruption, and to date, the state has ignored the multiplying scandals. California has more Charters than any other state (about 1300) and virtually no regulation.

Another leader at the Celerity Charter Network will Be Charged with Embezzlement and other charges.

“The former CEO of Los Angeles charter school network Celerity Educational Group is expected to be arraigned next month on federal charges of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle public funds.

“Grace Canada, 45, of Torrance is the second ex-Celerity official to be charged with corruption by Los Angeles federal prosecutors. Celerity founder Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty earlier this month to a conspiracy charge that she misspent $2.5 million in public education funds intended for students.

“Canada — currently principal of Kelly Elementary in Compton — was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in downtown Los Angeles on nearly the same charges as McFarlane and is expected to be arraigned on Feb. 11, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

South Carolina: Taxpayers Waste $350 Million on Failing Virtual Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2017 //
8

Legislators in South Carolina must have been following an ALEC script when they authorized Virtual charter schools to enroll students and take money away from their underfunded public schoools. Or maybe they were paid off by lobbyists. There is certainly massive evidence, even from charter advocates, that virtual charters get terrible results. Yet no matter how much they fail, they are never closed or held accountable.

Consider this report in the “Post & Courier” in South Carolina:

“Online charter schools have grown exponentially across South Carolina and the nation — and questions about their effectiveness are growing, too.

“Today, the state has five virtual charter schools that together enroll roughly 10,000 students, up dramatically from about 2,100 students nine years ago when the state’s first cyber schools opened. A 2007 bipartisan bill fueled their growth by authorizing the state’s virtual schools program, and since then, taxpayers have footed the bill to the tune of more than $350 million.

“Despite this hefty investment, online charter schools have produced dismal results on almost all academic metrics, according to state and district data. On average, less than half of their students graduate on time. At one cyber school, nearly a third of students dropped out last school year. Data from the S.C Public Charter School District, which oversees these schools, shows just one in two virtual students enroll for a full year.

“Supporters of online education, including U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, praise virtual schools for their flexibility, innovation and reach. For struggling, home-bound or bullied students, advocates argue, these schools are lifelines.

“But critics contend state taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars lining the pockets of the for-profit companies that manage these schools at the expense of their flailing students.

“It concerns me,” said Don McLaurin, chairman of the S.C. Public Charter School District Board of Trustees. “Right now, for a variety of reasons, the virtuals are having performance problems, at least some of them. … We may have more than we need.”

The online charters have a graduation rate of 42%, compared to the state rate of 82.6% for public schools.

But, says DeVos, we need more failing virtual charters because parents choose them.

Categories Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, South Carolina, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

God Bless Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe!

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2017 //
30

As reported earlier today, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed legislation that would have allowed privately managed charters to be authorized without the approval of the local school board. This legislation would have invited into Virginia all the scandals, frauds, scams, and profiteering that have marred the charter industry in other states.

The state’s major newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispath, blasted Governor McAuliffe’s veto. It claimed that the Governor was stopping innovation, yet it didn’t name a single innovative practice that charter schools engage in. Is it innovative to treat children like convicts in a chain gang, punishing them for the slightest infraction? Punishing them if their shirt is not tucked in? Punishing them if they speak out of turn? Punishing them if they don’t walk in a straight line?

Is it innovative to expect teachers to work sixty or seventy hours a week, so they leave after a year or two, burned out?

The newspaper says Virginia should have charter schools because Florida and North Carolina have charter schools. Does the editorial demonstrate that charter schools in these states have produced better education? No. Does it admit that charter schools in these states are enriching entrepreneurs who profit by leeching taxpayer money from public schools? Does it acknowledge the hundreds of charter schools in Florida that have closed because of financial or academic deficiencies? Does it acknowledge that charters in some states–like Nevada and Ohio–are among the lowest performing schools in the state? No.

The newspaper falsely claims that charter schools are public schools; they are not. Whenever they are hauled into court for violating the rights of students or teachers, they defend themselves by insisting they are NOT state actors, they are private corporations with state contracts. Let’s take their word for it. They are private contractors, not public schools.

The newspaper doesn’t acknowledge that privately managed charter schools are not obliged to accept children with disabilities or English language learners. Leaving them out falsely boosts the scores of charter schools.

The newspaper editorialist might learn from the example of Michigan, which embraced charters at the behest of Betsy DeVos and saw its national rankings plummet from the middle to the bottom 10% on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Governor McAuliffe was absolutely correct to veto this legislation, which would have undermined local control and given free rein to raiders of public funding.

The legislation was probably written by ALEC (the noxious American Legislative Exchange Council, which hates public education and any role for government).

Governor McAuliffe, the Network for Public Education thanks you for standing up for the 90% of children who attend public schools, real public schools under democratic control. Your vote strengthened our democracy and warded off the privatization plans of Betsy DeVos and ALEC.

God Bless Governor McAuliffe!

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Virginia

Thomas Ultican: America Has an Amazing Public School System, Don’t Listen to the Naysayers

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2017 //
21

Tom Ultican teaches physics in San Diego after a career in the private sector. He likes evidence. He reviews the failure of various privatization schemes. Vouchers have failed to “save” children, and voucher schools are often far worse than public schools. Charters are scandal-ridden, supported too often by profit-seekers.

He writes: American Schools Rock!

Don’t be fooled.

“By the middle of the 20th century, cities and villages throughout the USA had developed an impressive educational infrastructure. With the intent of giving every child in America the opportunity for 12 years of free education, this country was the world’s only country not using high stakes testing to deny the academic path to more than a third of its students. The physical infrastructure of our public schools was of high quality and schools were staffed with well-trained experienced educators.

“This system that is the foundation – to the greatest economy in the world, the most Nobel Prize winners and democratic government – has passed the exam of life. It is clearly the best education system in the world. To diminish and undermine it is foolhardy. Arrogant greed-blinded people are trying to steal our legacy.”

Categories Charter Schools, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Supporting public schools, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

North Carolina: Voucher Program After Three Years: An Expensive Failure

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2017 //
15

Duke University reports on North Carolina’s voucher program after three years.

The report adds to the growing evidence that “escaping” a public school to a religious or other private school does not “save” children.

Findings.

Vouchers may be as much as $4,200, far below the tuition of elite private schools ( which don’t have empty seats and are unlikely to accept students with low test scores anyway).

” The number of children receiving vouchers has increased from approximately 1,200 in the first year to 5,500 in 2016-17. The General Assembly has authorized an additional 2,000 vouchers for each year over the next decade, bringing the total to 25,000 by 2027.”

The current annual expenditure is $60 million. By 2027, the program will have cost $900 million.

 Based on limited and early data, more than half the students using vouchers are performing below average on nationally-standardized reading, language, and math tests. In contrast, similar public school students in NC are scoring above the national average.”

93% of the vouchers are used at religious schools.

There is virtually no accountability for voucher schools. “Accountability measures for North Carolina private schools receiving vouchers are among the weakest in the country. The schools need not be accredited, adhere to state curricular or graduation standards, employ licensed teachers, or administer state End-of-Grade tests.”

Vouchers are evidence-free. Rifhtwing ideologues believe that choice is the goal of choice. They promise dramatic gains that never materialize. One can only conclude that they they don’t care about the children because choice is an end in itself.

Categories Betsy DeVos, North Carolina, Religion, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Vouchers
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