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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

Los Angeles Rocked by Another Charter School Scandal: State Awards Two New Schools to Ethically Challenged Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2017 //
8

The Los Angeles Times ran a first-page story about the latest charter school scandal, only a day before the school board election that will decide whether charter advocates will take control of the Los Angeles school board.

There will likely be a low voter turnout for this special election, and the question is turnout: Will enough parents vote to save their public schools, or will the profligate spending of the charter industry on propaganda and false attacks ads enable them to privatize the schools of half the students in the district? If the charter billionaires win, look for more privately run charters that produce incompetence, plunder, profit, and power for the elite.

The big story today is about Celerity Education Group, a charter chain that is thriving with public money. Its CEO is Vielka McFarlane.

In 2013, she earned $471,842, about 35% more than Michelle King, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, makes today.

McFarlane was prospering, and it showed. She wore Armani suits, ate at expensive restaurants and used a black car service.

Financial records obtained by The Times show that, as Celerity’s CEO, she paid for many of these expenses with a credit card belonging to her charter schools, which receive the bulk of their funding from the state.

It could not be determined whether McFarlane, 54, ever reimbursed the charter schools for her credit card purchases. Neither she nor a lawyer hired by Celerity responded to requests for comment about the transactions.

At a time when charter school advocates are determined to increase the number of such schools in L.A., the story of McFarlane and the Celerity schools offers a case study of the growing difficulty of regulating them. The task of spotting and stamping out risky financial practices in charters largely falls to the school district’s charter schools division, which employs about a dozen people dedicated to monitoring the schools’ fiscal health.

But as the number of L.A. charter schools has grown to more than 220, enrolling about 111,000 students, oversight has become a challenge for district officials, who are at once competitors and regulators.

In 2012, L.A. Unified’s charter schools division made a routine request for financial records from the Celerity Educational Group.

When the school network’s credit card statements arrived that fall, many of the transactions had been blacked out. One page was nearly all black.

Concerned school district staff grew even more alarmed when they received the full records, which showed that McFarlane had paid for lavish meals and out-of-state travel on the nonprofit’s credit card.

In one month in 2013, she had spent $914 at the Arroyo Chop House in Pasadena, $425 at The Lobster, a seafood restaurant in Santa Monica, and $355 at Paiche, a now-closed Peruvian restaurant in Marina del Rey.

From the arrival of the credit card statements until 2015, when it refused to allow Celerity to open two new schools, L.A. Unified took a gentle approach to the charter group’s unorthodox practices. It sent notices urging the organization to institute tighter financial controls, but continued to renew the schools’ charters when they came before the school board.

L.A. Unified officials referred Celerity’s credit card transactions to the district’s inspector general, who eventually opened an investigation into the group’s finances. Then, in late January, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other agencies raided Celerity’s offices, as well as the headquarters of a related nonprofit, Celerity Global Development, and McFarlane’s home. The focus of the federal investigation is unclear, and the district’s inquiry is ongoing…

While the district investigated, Celerity went national, expanding into Ohio, Florida and Louisiana, where it operates four schools in addition to the seven it runs in Southern California. McFarlane launched Celerity Global Development, the parent company of the schools in her growing empire, and began offering herself as a consultant to other charter school leaders.

In 2015, McFarlane became the CEO of Celerity Global, an organization that took in millions of dollars in management fees from Celerity’s schools. But Global wasn’t just supporting the schools; it had the power to control Celerity Educational and could appoint and remove the school network’s board members.

The Celerity schools were often short on supplies, but McFarlane spent lavishly on herself and arrived at school in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

She told staff that education was a business. And she knew how to make money–for herself and her lavish tastes.

As the CEO of Celerity Educational Group — and now of Celerity Global — McFarlane steered hundreds of thousands of public dollars to several companies providing services to her schools. Those companies are registered to her, state records show, and list their addresses as either Celerity Educational’s or Global’s offices.

Celerity Educational Group’s check register for the 2015-16 school year shows payments totaling nearly $1 million to an information technology company called Attenture, a general contracting company called Celerity Contracting Services, and Celerity Development, a limited-liability corporation that buys properties and rents them to McFarlane’s charter schools.

The organization has also paid thousands of dollars to Orion International Academy, a private high school in Chino Hills that McFarlane founded in 2013, and where she is still the CEO.

The flow of money from the charter schools to Celerity Development is documented going back to 2011, when Celerity Educational Group signed a 10-year lease with the company, which at the time had only one owner — McFarlane. That made her, in effect, both landlord and tenant of the two sites in South L.A. on which she expanded Celerity Dyad Charter School.

McFarlane’s brother and son are on the company’s payroll. The financial entanglements among the many companies raise ethical and legal questions. Some quoted in the article suggest that there may be felonious behavior.

By late 2015, L.A. Unified officials decided they had seen enough.

Having concluded that Celerity’s financial issues had become too serious to tolerate, they recommended that the school board refuse the group’s request to open two new schools, and the board agreed. Celerity’s leaders appealed to the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which could have intervened, but chose not to.

“This is effective ongoing oversight,” Jose Cole-Gutierrez, the director of L.A. Unified’s charter schools division, said in a recent interview.

Not that it stopped Celerity’s Southern California expansion.

State law allows charter schools that have been denied at the local level to appeal to the state. Last November, over the objections of L.A. Unified and the county, the State Board of Education voted to let Celerity keep growing.

More public money will flow Celerity’s way this fall when it opens two new L.A. charter schools.

Question: In light of the FBI investigations, in light of the LAUSD investigations, in light of the concerns about conflicts of interest and self-dealing, why did the California State Board of Education overrule the LAUSD recommendation and the L.A. County Office of Education? Why did the State Board of Education decide that this charter chain should open two more charters before the investigations are completed? Why aren’t the legal authorities intervening to protect citizens and the law?

If you live in Los Angeles, vote tomorrow.

Vote for either Carl Petersen or Lisa Alva.

Vote for Steve Zimmer.

Do not vote for anyone endorsed by the California Charter School Association, which defends corporations like Celerity. Taxpayers should not pay for Armani suits, chauffeur-driven limousines, or expensive meals. Citizens should support those who want to strengthen and improve the democratically controlled public schools of Los Angeles.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

DeVos and the Charter Fraud in Michigan: $1 Billion Down the Drain

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2017 //
16

Michigan has one of the worst charter sectors in the nation, according to the Detroit Free Press, which conducted a year-long investigation of charters in the state. The people of Michigan pay $1 billion a year for a sector in which 80% of the charters operate for profit, in which there is neither accountability nor transparency, in which conflicts of interests don’t matter. Billionaire Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick and other members of the DeVos family control education issues in the Republican-dominated legislature with their generous campaign contributions. Governor Rick Snyder is DeVos’s personal puppet. And the state continues to waste public money on failing schools because they are privately run. No regulation needed!

 

This is Billionaire Betsy DeVos’s idea of how education should work!

 

The Detroit Free Press writes:

 

Michigan taxpayers pour nearly $1 billion a year into charter schools — but state laws regulating charters are among the nation’s weakest, and the state demands little accountability in how taxpayer dollars are spent and how well children are educated.

 

A yearlong investigation by the Detroit Free Press reveals that Michigan’s lax oversight has enabled a range of abuses in a system now responsible for more than 140,000 Michigan children. That figure is growing as more parents try charter schools as an alternative to traditional districts.

 

In reviewing two decades of charter school records, the Free Press found:

 

Wasteful spending and double-dipping. Board members, school founders and employees steering lucrative deals to themselves or insiders. Schools allowed to operate for years despite poor academic records. No state standards for who operates charter schools or how to oversee them.

 

And a record number of charter schools run by for-profit companies that rake in taxpayer money and refuse to detail how they spend it, saying they’re private and not subject to disclosure laws. Michigan leads the nation in schools run by for-profits.

 

“People should get a fair return on their investment,” said former state schools Superintendent Tom Watkins, a longtime charter advocate who has argued for higher standards for all schools. “But it has to come after the bottom line of meeting the educational needs of the children. And in a number of cases, people are making a boatload of money, and the kids aren’t getting educated.”

 

According to the Free Press’ review, 38% of charter schools that received state academic rankings during the 2012-13 school year fell below the 25th percentile, meaning at least 75% of all schools in the state performed better. Only 23% of traditional public schools fell below the 25th percentile.

 

Advocates argue that charter schools have a much higher percentage of children in poverty compared with traditional schools. But traditional schools, on average, perform slightly better on standardized tests even when poverty levels are taken into account.

 

In late 2011, Michigan lawmakers removed limits on how many charters can operate here —opening the door to a slew of new management companies. In 2013-14, the state had 296 charters operating some 370 schools — in 61% of them, charter boards have enlisted a full-service, for-profit management company. Another 17% rely on for-profits for other services, mostly staffing and human resources, according to Free Press research.

 

Michigan far exceeds states like Florida, Ohio and Missouri, where only about one-third of charters were run by a full-service, for-profit management company in 2011-12, according to research by Western Michigan University professor Gary Miron, who has studied charters extensively.

 

While the Free Press found disclosure issues with both for-profit and nonprofit companies, the state’s failure to insist on more financial transparency by for-profits — teacher salaries, executive compensation, vendor payments and more — is particularly troubling to charter critics because the for-profit companies receive the bulk of the money that goes to charter schools. In some cases, even charter school board members don’t get detailed information.

 

Without that, experts say there is no way to determine if a school is getting the most for its money.

 

Authorizers in Michigan receive 3% of the state tuition money for every student who attends a charter school they authorize. That means millions of dollars flow to the authorizing groups, who have no responsibility or accountability. Anyone can open a charter school in Michigan. Charter schools can fail and be reauthorized. Charter operators can run failing schools and get to open new ones. Success is unimportant. Michigan is a free-for-all with public money.

 

State law sets no qualifications for charter applicants

 

In Michigan, anyone and everyone can apply to open a charter school. There are no state guidelines for screening applicants.

 

And in many cases, authorizers have given additional charters to schools managed by companies that haven’t demonstrated academic success with their existing schools.

 

Central Michigan University, for example, gave two additional charters to schools managed by the for-profit Hanley-Harper Group Inc. in Harper Woods, before its first school had any state ranking and despite test scores that showed it below statewide proficiency rates in reading and math. The school’s first ranking, released last year, put it in the 14th percentile, meaning that 86% of schools in Michigan did better academically.

 

“We have a product, yes, we are trying to sell and constantly working to make … better and better and better,” company founder Beata Chochla, who has run several small businesses, including janitorial and home health care, told the Free Press in an interview.

 

Ferris State University has authorized a fourth Hanley-Harper school, expected to open this fall in Oak Park.

 

“We were convinced they had a good plan,” Ferris State’s interim charter schools director Ronald Rizzo said, adding that critics who believe an operator should have a successful academic track record before adding schools are “welcome” to their views.

 

Authorizers also have been slow to close poor performers. Among the oldest and poorest performing schools in metro Detroit:

 

■ Hope Academy, founded in Detroit in 1998, ranked almost rock-bottom — in the first percentile — in 2012-13.

 

■ Commonwealth Community Development Academy, founded in Detroit in 1996, ranked in the third percentile.

 

Both schools are authorized by Eastern Michigan University, which said in a statement that it is not satisfied with either. Yet just last year, EMU renewed Hope Academy’s charter.

 

The article includes a list of recent charter scandals:

 

■ A Sault Ste. Marie charter school board gave its administrator a severance package worth $520,000 in taxpayer money.

 

■ A Bedford Township charter school spent more than $1 million on swampland.

 

■ A mostly online charter school in Charlotte spent $263,000 on a Dale Carnegie confidence-building class, $100,000 more than it spent on laptops and iPads.

 

■ Two board members who challenged their Romulus school’s management company over finances and transparency were ousted when the length of their terms was summarily reduced by Grand Valley State University.

 

■ National Heritage Academies, the state’s largest for-profit school management company, charges 14 of its Michigan schools $1 million or more in rent — which many real estate experts say is excessive.

 

■ A charter school in Pittsfield Township gave jobs and millions of dollars in business to multiple members of the founder’s family.

 

■ Charter authorizers have allowed management companies to open multiple schools without a proven track record of success.

 

Want to get rich quick? Move to Michigan and open a charter school.

 

 

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

Carol Burris: Trump’s Plan for American Education Will Destroy Community Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2016 //
36

Carol Burris, veteran educator and executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about what the new Trump administration plans to do to American education. She foresees that President Obama’s “Race to the Top” will turn into President Trump’s “Race to the Bank,” as for-profit entrepreneurs find ways to cash in on the education industry. The ultimate goal is the elimination of public schools, which are a cornerstone of a democratic society.

She writes:

The elimination of democratically governed schools is the true agenda of those who embrace choice. The talk of “civil rights” is smoke and mirrors to distract.

The plan on the Trump-Pence website promotes redirecting $20 billion in federal funds from local school districts and instead having those dollars follow the child to the school of their choice — private, charter or public. States that have laws promoting vouchers and charters would be “favored” in the distribution of grants. Like Obama’s Race the Top, the competition for federal funds that states could enter by promising to follow Obama-preferred reforms, a Trump plan could use financial incentives to impose a federal vision on states.

The idea is not novel. Market-based reformers have referred to this for years as “Pell Grants for kids,” or portability of funding.

Portability, vouchers and charter schools have been hallmarks of Pence’s education policy as governor of Indiana. Unlike the Trump-Pence website, which frames choice as a “civil rights” initiative, Governor Pence did not limit vouchers to low-income families. He expanded it to middle-income families and removed the cap on the number of students who can apply.

Pence attacked the funding and status of public education with gusto as governor, following the lead of his predecessor Mitch Daniels:

It was promised that vouchers would result in savings, which then would be redistributed to public schools. What resulted, however, was an unfunded mandate. The voucher program produced huge school spending deficits for the state — a $53 million funding hole during the 2015-16 school year alone. That deficit continues to grow.

The “money follows the student” policy has not only hurt Indiana’s public urban schools, it has also devastated community public schools in rural areas — 63 districts in the Small and Rural Schools Association of Indiana have seen funding reduced, resulting in the possible shutdown of some, even after services to kids are cut to the bone.

In contrast, charters have thrived in Indiana with Pence’s initiatives of taxpayer-funded, low-interest loan, and per-pupil funding for nonacademic expenses. For-profit, not-for-profit and virtual schools are allowed. Scams, cheating scandals and political payback have thrived, as well. Former Indiana education commissioner Tony Bennett was forced to resign as the commissioner of Florida[1] after it was discovered that he had manipulated school rating standards to save an Indiana charter school operated by a big Republican donor who gave generously to Bennett’s campaign.

Burris shows how this kind of untrammeled school choice affected the schools of Chile and Sweden, where the far-right imposed Milton Friedman’s school choice theories. In Chile, the result was hyper segregation of all kinds; in Sweden, rankings on international exams fell. What was left of public schools were filled with the children of the poor.

Burris asks important questions:

Do we want our schools to be governed by our neighbors whom we elect to school boards, or do we want our children’s education governed by corporations that have no real accountability to the families they serve?

Do we to want to build our communities, or fracture them, as neighborhood kids get on different buses to attend voucher schools, or are forced to go to charters because their community public school is now the place that only those without options go?

Do we believe in a community of learners in which kids learn from and with others of different backgrounds, or do we want American schools to become further segregated by race, income and religion?

The most shocking instances of charter school scandal and fraud consistently appear in states that have embraced the choice “market” philosophy. Are we willing to watch our tax dollars wasted, as scam artists and profiteers cash in?

Public schools are not a partisan issue. People of all political parties serve on local school boards.

Trump’s plan is a radical plan, not a conservative plan. Conservatives don’t blow up traditional institutions. Conservatives conserve.

Now is the time for people of good will to stand together on behalf of public schools, democratic governance, and schools that serve the community.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, International, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Segregation, Supporting public schools, Trump, Vouchers

What John King Said at His Press Conference Yesterday: He Still Doesn’t Care About Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2016 //
21

Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy invited me and several others to submit questions for John King’s press conference at the National Press Club. I was interested in knowing what he thought about the NAACP’s call for a moratorium on new charter schools until there were assurances of accountability and unless they stopped diverting resources from public schools. You will note that Secretary King continued his full-throated advocacy for more charters and said that it was up to states to make the rules. Not only does he completely ignore the existence of the nation’s public schools, not only does he disregard the NAACP, he intends to keep shoveling hundreds of millions of federal dollars to new charter schools with no expectation of accountability or transparency.

Husseini wrote:


Some of the questions I got from folks were asked at the “news maker” event with Education Secretary John King at the National Press Club yesterday. Here are those questions — as asked by the moderator, which may be slightly different than how they were submitted — along with King’s responses. Here’s full PDF. Here’s full video. (Part of the first question here was from Diane Ravitch, as was the last question, below. The middle question was from my partner, Emily Prater, who is a third grade teacher at a Title I school in Washington, D.C.

MR. BALLOU: Charter Schools. You’ve said, “What I worry most about is we have some states that have done a really great job with charter authorizing and so have generally high quality charters and have been willing to close ones that are underperforming. On the other hand, you have states who’ve not done as good a job, 17 places like Michigan. We have a history of a low bar for getting a charter and an unwillingness to hold charters to high standards. What’s your view on where charter authorizing should be by the time you leave office, and how do you plan to get there? As someone who cites your own education in New York for saving your life and trajectory, and what of non-charter public schools? For some time, one of the arguments against charters was over resources about charters getting better resources than public education.

And there’s actually a second question sort of tied to this. A few days ago, the NAACP’s national; board called for a moratorium on new charter schools until laws are revised to make charters as accountable and as transparent as public schools. Do you agree with them, that charter schools should meet the same standards of accountability as public schools? And if you do, will you stop funding new charter schools as they recommend?

SECRETARY KING: So, let me start with this. We are fortunate, I think, as a country to have some high performing charters that are doing a great job and providing great opportunities to students. Charters that are helping students not only perform at higher levels academically, but go on to college at much higher rates than demographically similar students and succeed there. That’s good, we should have more schools like that and I think any arbitrary gap on the growth of high performing charters is a mistake in terms of our goal of trying to improve opportunity for all kids.

That said, where states are doing a bad job on charter authorizing, that has to change. You know, I’ve talked about the example of Michigan. We have states that have set a low bar for getting a charter, and then when charters perform poorly, they fail to take action to either improve them or close them, which is the essence of the charter school compact. Charter schools were supposed to be a compact, more autonomy in exchange for greater accountability. And yet, some states have not followed through on that compact. That is a problem.

Now, those decisions are made at the state level, they’re made based on state law. What we’ve done in the administration over the last eight years is two things. One is we’ve provided resources to improve charter authorizing in states and worked with states to strengthen their practices around reviewing the quality of charters, reviewing the quality of charter applications.

And two, we’ve invested in increasing the supply of great high performing charters. But, to the extent that what folks are saying is they want states to do a better job on charter authorizing, I agree. But where we have states that are doing a good job on charter authorizing and we have charters that are doing great jobs for kids that want to grow, they should be able to. And I think this is an issue where we’ve got to put kids first. We’ve got to ask what’s best for the students and parents.

As Arne would often point out, students and parents aren’t as concerned about the governance model as they are about is my child getting a quality education? We’ve got to be focused on that, which is one of the reasons why I think arbitrary caps don’t make sense, is we shouldn’t limit kids’ access to great opportunities.

MR. BALLOU: A lot of teachers have been writing. (Laughter) What do you propose to do about the equality of pay between teachers and administrators, for example, like yourself? One teacher says, “I worked 12 hours yesterday, I didn’t have time for lunch. Did you have time for lunch? I make $47,000 a year. How much do you make,” which of course is public record. “I can’t go to the bathroom when I need to. Can you go to the bathroom when you need to? And please don’t talk about how great teachers are. We don’t need empty rhetoric. We need resources, we need policies that actually help us teach, not help profiteers.” How do you– a pretty upset teacher there.

SECRETARY KING: Yeah, look. I think we see across the country, we see states that have not made the investment they should in their education system. We did a report earlier this year, the department, looking at the difference in state investment in prisons versus K-12 education. And what we found is that we see over the last 30 years rate of increase in investment spending on prisons that is three times as high as the rate of increase in spending on K-12 education.

That suggests to me that as a society, we haven’t put our resources where we should. So, are there states that should be spending significantly more on teacher salaries? Absolutely. And should we be paying more to teachers, especially teachers who are willing to serve in the highest needs communities and the highest needs fields where we have real demand? Absolutely. And the President’s proposed that. The President proposed a billion dollars for an initiative called Best Job in the World that would support professional development, incentives, career ladders for teachers who teach in the highest needs communities.

So we agree about the need for more resources and focusing those resources on teachers. One of the places I worry most about is in early leaning. We did a study on preK pay and found that in many communities around the country, pre-K teachers are making half what they would be making if they were working in an elementary school, which again suggests that our priorities are not right.

So this is a place where I agree with the questioner, we need to invest more resources in educators. We should pay our teachers very well because we know that teachers are essential to the future of our country. And we need to make sure the working conditions are good. It’s not just a question of teacher pay. I think of a place like Detroit, you know. If the water is leaking from the ceiling and there are rodents running across the floor, those working conditions are not ones that are going to make teaching a profession that people want or a profession people will want to stay in over the long term. And so we’ve got to make sure that working conditions are strong.

And the final point I’d make, is this is one of the reasons that supplement, not supplant, is so important because if you consistently under-resource the highest needs schools, the result will be poor working conditions in those schools and the inability to retain the great teachers that our highest needs students need.

MR. BALLOU: We’re running quickly out of time. Had an issue with one of your senior staff who had to resign over waste fraud and financial abuse. Have you been able to clean up the issues in the Inspector General’s office?

SECRETARY KING: So, this is about an employee in our IT department who made mistakes and was accountable for those mistakes, chose ultimately to resign. He’s no longer with the department. We have a very strong team around our IT and we are very focused, as folks are across the administration, on continuously strengthening cyber security. This is actually cyber security awareness month. Just came from a cyber security convening at the department this morning. We’re very focused on making sure that our IT systems are as strong as possible, that we protect the security of data. And that we insure that we’re providing good services.

So for example, Collegescorecard.ed.gov is a tool that we’ve built and through our investment in the strength of our IT systems, and work across the administration to leverage technology on behalf of taxpayers and students, Collegescorecad.ed.gov allows students to find information about every college, to find out about their graduation rates, how much people make who’ve graduated from that school, how able folks who’ve graduated from that school are able to repay their loans. It’s a great tool that we’ve made available and that is continuously evolving to try to provide services.

So IT is really a strength now of the department. But as is true across– for any employer, there are sometimes employees who make mistakes and we have systems in place to insure that that’s dealt with.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Reform, John King, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, U.S. Department of Education

Ann Cronin: Why Do State Officials in Connecticut Favor Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2016 //
4

Ann Cronin is puzzled by the stance that Connecticut officials take toward charter schools. They consider charter schools to be the salvation for children of color. They ignore the public schools, which enroll 98% of the state’s public school children, compared to 1.5% in charter schools.

Bear in mind that Connecticut has long been recognized as one of the best state systems in the country. Yet Governor Malloy and the legislature keep cutting funding for their excellent public schools in order to increase funding for privately managed charter schools. This despite the huge charter scandal in the state, when the governor’s favorite chain (Jumoke) imploded after the revelations of nepotism, misspent funds, and a lack of accountability. This despite the fact that most charters do not outperform public schools. This despite the fact that Connecticut is still bound by a court order to integrate its schools and charters are seldom integrated.

She invites her readers to thank the NAACP for calling for a moratorium on new charters.

Categories Accountability, Connecticut, Corporate Reform, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Segregation

Mercedes Schneider: SAT Whistle-Blower Calls Out Test Fraud

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
13

This is an astonishing post by Mercedes Schneider. She details the charges of a whistle blower at the College Board, who was hired by David Coleman but couldn’t tolerate the manipulation of test items and use of U reviewed items that were fixed after the actual testing. Manuel Alfaro has left the employ of the College Board, but he couldn’t remain silent about the abuses he witnessed.

Alfaro writes:

David Coleman and the College Board have made transparency a key selling point of the redesigned SAT. Their commitment to transparency is proclaimed proudly in public documents and in public speeches and presentations. However, public documents, such as the Test Specifications for the Redesigned SAT (https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/test-specifications-redesigned-sat-1.pdf), contain crucial statements and claims that are fabrications. Similar false claims are also included in proposals the College Board wrote in bids for state assessments—I got the proposals from states that make them public.

To corroborate my statements and allegations, I needed the College Board to administer the tests. If I had gone public before the tests were administered, the College Board could have spun this whole matter as “research” or some other nonsense. Now that the PSAT and SAT have been administered; now that the College Board has committed an insurmountable violation of trust; we the people can decide the future of the SAT.

He goes into great detail about the manipulation of data, the lack of transparency, and violations of trust at the College Board.

This is the open letter that he circulated to the staff at the College Board:

Dear Colleagues:

Over the last year, I’ve explored many different options that would allow me to provide students and their families the critical information they need to make informed decisions about the SAT. At the same time, I was always seeking the option that would have minimal impact on your lives.

I gave David Coleman several opportunities to be a decent human being. Using HR and others, he built a protective barrier around himself that I was unable to penetrate. Being unable to reach him, I was left with my current option as the best choice.

For me, knowing what I know, performing most tasks at the College Board required that I take a few steps onto a slippery slope. Where my superiors stood on that slope was influenced by the culture at the College Board, but ultimately it was their personal choice. They chose to conceal, fabricate, and deceive instead of offering students, parents, and clients honest descriptions of the development processes for item specifications, items, and tests.

I feel bad for all of us and wish that there was a better solution. Like you, I owed allegiance to the College Board, but my first allegiance was, is, and always will be to the students and families that we serve. Please understand that. Millions of students around the world depend on us to protect their best interests. When we forget that, and put the financial interests of the organization first, it is easy to justify taking a shortcut here and a shortcut there in an attempt to meet unrealistic organizational goals.

You are good people. You just need better bosses.

Best wishes,

M

Categories Accountability, Coleman, David, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Standardized Testing

Michigan: The Pathetic Failure of the Education Achievement Authority

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2016 //
7

Chris Savage at Eclectablog has been following the fortunes and misfortunes of the Michigan Education Achievement Authority since its inception in 2011.

 

Savage was thinking of writing a summary of the serial scandals, corruption, incompetence, and educational disaster, but decided the best way to show it was to post a list of the headlines of the stories he has written about the EAA.

 

This was Governor Rick Snyder’s pet program for “saving” the poor children of Detroit from their failing public schools. Instead of helping the public schools, Snyder decided to create this special district, in which all the lowest-performing schools were clustered. There, they would be under the control of a single administrator, selected by the Governor. The first EAA leader was John Covington, a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. He swiftly left his job in Kansas City (which lost its accreditation after he departed) to take the higher-paying job in Detroit. He left the EAA under a cloud.

 

This should be a documentary about the failure of corporate reform. Maybe someone who sees Chris Savage’s stories will start thinking of making that documentary. It is a very sad story, because the children of Detroit need a good education, and they are not getting it under Governor Snyder’s rule.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reform, Detroit, Education Reform, Michigan, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Why the NYU Study on School Closings is Fatally Flawed

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2015 //
12

Blogger Chaz’s School Daze explains why the NYU study on the “success” of closing large high schools and replacing them with small high schools is bogus.

He writes:

“This week, NYU released a study showing that students fared better with the closing of the many large comprehensive high schools and replaced by the Bloomberg small schools. The basis for the study’s conclusion was the increased graduation rate from the small schools when compared to the closed schools. However, the study is fatally flawed since the graduation rate is a bogus parameter and easily manipulated by the school Principal to allow students to graduate academically unprepared for college and career. Let’s look at how schools manipulate the graduation rate.”

I posted Leonie Haimson’s critique of this Gates-funded study, which relied on the views and insights of those in charge of designing and implementing the policy in the NYC Department of Education.

Chaz points out that the study ignored the pressure on teachers in the new small schools to pass students; the pressure on principals to raise graduation rates; and the widespread use of fraudulent “credit recovery” to hand diplomas to low-performing students.

The data on graduation rates are made meaningless by these corrupt practices. The researchers did not see fit to examine nefarious ways of graduating students who were unprepared for college or careers.

Chaz points out that educators in Atlanta went to jail and lost their licenses for changing grades. Why was there no investigation or prosecution of equally serious actions in Néw York City?

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Closing schools, New York City, Research, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes
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