Archives for category: Students
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

New York State Education Department: Students Have a Right to Opt Out

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2019 //
21

 

After months of threats and bribes and warnings, the New York State Education Department released a statement affirming that students have the right to opt out of state testing.

This is a victory for the Opt Out movement, the parents, superintendents, principals, and teachers who have said that the exams are flawed and of novalue to students.

This is the statement:

 

As students in grades 3 through 8 take New York’s state assessments this week, we appreciate the efforts of school leaders to ensure parents have all information to make a decision about the assessments that is right for their family. We would like to remind school leaders of the importance of honoring requests received by parents to opt their children out of the exams. While federal law does require all states to administer state assessments in English language arts and mathematics, parents have a right to opt their children out of these exams. To be certain, the vast majority of schools honor parents’ requests to have their children not take the tests; however, we have also heard of isolated but troubling reports of parents’ requests being ignored.
We thank New York’s parents, teachers, and school administrators for their support and understanding as we continue to work together in the best interest of all students.
Categories New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Students

California: Palo Alto Superintendent Offers Bribes to Students to Reduce Opt Out Rate

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2019 //
19

“

 

Last year, a majority of juniors at Palo Alto High School did not take the state tests. State law protects the right of students to opt out. The tests have no value other than to prop up the testing regime.

Now the district superintendent, in an all-Out effort to break the opt out, is pulling out all the stops and offering prizes and awards to students who take the tests. 

“All juniors at Palo Alto High School will be required to participate in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress this year, in an effort by the school board to assemble a higher participation rate, according to Supt. Don Austin.

“The Palo Alto Unified School District is offering incentives to students who complete all of the CAASPP examinations next week, according to an email forwarded to Paly parents by Assistant principal Tom Keating, from Superintendent Austin.

“Through a raffle, students will be able to win student parking permits for the 2019-20 school year (which usually cost up to $100), athletic passes for the 2019-20 school year, 2018-19 yearbooks or VIP parking passes to the 2019-20 graduation ceremony.

“Regardless, all students who complete all of the testings will win one item of Paly “swag,” according to the letter.

“Last year, only 40 percent of Paly juniors completed the test, compared to the 95 percent required participation rate, Austin stated in an email to parents on Feb. 28.

“In the email, Austin stated that although parents are highly encouraged to permit students to take the exam, parents or guardians are able to submit a written request to the principal of their student’s school to excuse their child from any or all parts of the CAASPP summative assessments.

“Compared to Henry M. Gunn High School, which had a parent-guardian exemption percentage that fell from 64 percent in 2016  to 28 percent in 2017, Paly has a previous history of having an abnormally low attendance record compared to other schools, according to an article by Palo Alto Online. 

“In the email, assistant principal Keating also stated that one of the major benefits of taking the exam is state recognition and awards upon graduation. Students are able to earn three additional awards or seals with the completion of the exam.”

The local paper claims that the tests are “mandatory.” But they are not.

Opting out is legal! 

Categories California, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

The Real Crime in Higher Education: Not Gaming Admissions but Underinvestment in Public Universities

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2019 //
85

 

Alan Aja, Joseph Entin, and Jeanne Theoharis identify the true crime in higher education: the abandonment of public higher education by the states and the federal government. The three authors are professors at Brooklyn College, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY).

They write:

The biggest scandal in American higher education today is the staggering disinvestment in public universities like CUNY, even as politicians and the public pay lip service to abhorring the inequalities in higher education. What would it mean to view as scandalous the well-documented decline in federal and state funding of public universities across the country over the last 25 years, at the same time students have been expected to shoulder the cost of those “missing expenditures” through tuition hikes (amid other persistent cuts to federal and state financial aid and vital support services)? What would it mean to view self-declared “education governor” Andrew Cuomo of New York as a part of the problem for the ways he has underfunded public universities in the state and to see members of the public who allow this as his accomplices? What would it mean to see the scandal that the broken ceiling exposes as part of a larger systemic problem directly tied to the current state budget’s continued underfunding of CUNY (which once again this time around, fell dramatically short)?

Nearly a quarter of a million undergraduates attend the City University of New York, and they are caught in a vicious bind. Tuition for CUNY — which was free until 1975 — has risen by 31% since 2011. It now stands at $6,730 for full-time students at CUNY’s senior colleges on top of the high costs of housing, food, transportation, books and other personal expenditures in New York City, where the majority of students attending CUNY come from families with incomes of $30,000 or less.

At the same time, CUNY’s per-pupil funding declined by 18% between 2008 and 2018.

Think of it. Students used to be able to enroll in a public university at minimal cost, or none at all. Now, they are saddled with debt for years after they finish college–if they finish. As Sara Goldrick-Rab wrote in her prize-winning book “Paying the Price,” the main reason that low-income students drop out of college is not because of their lack of motivation or ability, but because they can’t afford to pay the costs.

 

Categories Funding, Higher Education, Students

New York: 46% of Students on Long Island Opt Out of ELA Tests

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2019 //
26

 

Opt Out lives!

https://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/schools-ela-opt-outs-test-boycott-1.29381145

Meanwhile computer glitches across scattered districts caused student answers to disappear and other problems.

Computer-based assessment is a dumb idea.

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

New York: NYSAPE Protests Commissioner Elia’s Efforts to Harass and Intimidate Parents to Prevent Opt Outs

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
17

The New York State Allies for Public Education issued this statement in opposition to State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s efforts to “bribe, coerce, manipulate, and threaten students and parents into complying with a broken assessment system.” NYSAPE has led the opt out movement for several years. About 20 percent of eligible students in grades 3-8 do not take the state tests. About half the students on Long Island boycotted the tests. In some schools on Long Island and upstate New York, more than 75% of students refused to take the tests. Commissioner Elia doesn’t listen to parents. She doubles down and tries to force them to take the tests, which provide no information about individual performance to teachers. The tests are meaningless other than as punishments for students, schools and teachers, and they require far more time than taking an SAT for college admission.

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2019

More information contact
Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com

Kemala Karmen (917) 807-9969; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education – NYSAPE

 

Link to Press Release

 

NYS Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia Creates a Culture of Fear, Intimidation, and Misinformation in our Schools

 

The Every Student Succeeds Act (the federal law known as ESSA) gives states authority to design their own unique accountability plan regarding the state tests. Unfortunately, Commissioner Elia has used that authority to misinterpret ESSA, and has used ESSA as an opportunity to impose a culture of fear on our administrators and teachers, and our children.  Under Commissioner Elia’s direction, the State Education Department (SED) at best turns a blind eye to, and at worst encourages, school districts to bribe, coerce, manipulate, and threaten students and parents into complying with a broken assessment system.

As we head into the first round of 2019 grades 3-8 state testing, NYSAPE is receiving an unprecedented number of reports from parents statewide about morally objectionable, educationally unsound, and in some cases, illegal policies and tactics that local schools and districts are using in attempts to suppress test refusal. Parents are reporting bribery with prizes, parties, and exemptions from district course finals. Students are threatened with removal from or ineligibility for honors programs, retention, and summer school; schools are threatened with closure.

Misinformation and scare tactics are coming from school districts, administrators, and even SED itself (see NYSUT’s rebuttal to the Commissioner), and range from claims that refusal students will be scored a ‘1’ and that the tests were created by teachers to statements that the assessments are “vital” and more. The New York City Department of Education even sent out letters–which they later had to retract–informing parents they could transfer out of their schools. Whether the city acted on its own or at the behest of SED is unknown, but SED’s endorsement of “public school choice” for the NY ESSA plan, along with its reductive test-based criteria for identifying these schools as in need of “Comprehensive Support and Improvement” (CSI) certainly paved the way for this debacle. The panic and humiliation caused by identifying schools as CSI was not limited to the city, but was felt in districts all over the state.

Most concerning is the resurgence of purely punitive policies like “sit and stare” (a cruel practice where test refusers as young as 8 must sit in the room with the testers with not so much as a book or a pencil to divert themselves with) and forcing elementary refusers to do old state assessments throughout the testing administration hours. Outraged parents have questioned these abusive actions, and the response many have received from their districts is that these tactics were suggested and encouraged, incredibly, by Commissioner Elia of the New York State Education Department.

A letter from the principal of the Oswego Middle School to her students perfectly illustrates that the NYS grades 3-8 testing system has gone completely off the rails. The sole purpose of the letter was to convince children “why you should say yes to the test.” Given out during the school day, for students to sign while still in school, the letter indicated they should “feel free to share with your parents.” It invoked a warped child psychology, attempting to manipulate students with phrases such as, “you love OMS, and we LOVE YOU! So, you WANT TO HELP!”  “If you take the NYS ELA Assessment…you can be exempt from the English Final Exam in June!,” and “Daily Drawings for FABULOUS prizes for all ‘YES’ slips.”  And, finally, as a way to single out any child whose parents had decided they wouldn’t be participating, “…a school-wide event if we can hit 100%! Something like a Spring Pep Rally….your favorite teachers will do something FUNNY ‘like’ KISS A PIG.”

Any policy that singles out, discriminates against, rewards, or punishes school children for the decisions of their parents is cause for deep concern. It’s appalling and disconcerting that Commissioner Elia/SED is encouraging these unacceptable policies. SED must immediately admonish these policies, and address the many flaws, complaints, educational issues, and legal questions raised by this deeply flawed testing program—for years the most highly boycotted state testing system in the nation.

NYSAPE calls on the NYS Legislature to pass legislation, before session ends, that reinforces a parent’s right to opt out, protects students from punishment, requires districts to notify parents at the beginning of the school year about those rights, and forbids SED and school administrators to bribe, punish, lie, and manipulate as a way to increase test participation. Neither students, administrators, schools, nor districts should suffer retaliation or negative consequences as the result of parents exercising their right to refuse the state tests.

NYSAPE and parents statewide will continue to monitor the policies and tactics encouraged by SED and implemented by school districts who have chosen to comply with misguided directives rather than advocate for the students in their care. We believe the time has come for the Board of Regents to bring in a Commissioner who values a whole-child education, respects parental rights, and places our children’s best interests at the forefront.

###

Categories Accountability, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents, Students, Testing

New York: State Teachers’ Union Fact Checks State Commissionerof Education

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2019 //
25

 

NYSUT, The New York State United Teachers, issued a blistering fact check of State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s claims about the state tests. 

You have to open it to get the full flavor because NYSUT, not normally outspoken, shreds Elia’s claims.

Elia writes in Orwellian Newspeak about value of the tests.

NYSUT response: Because of the lack of movement by SED on NYSUT’s suggested changes to the testing system, the current tests do not provide any useful information to parents or teachers or any real information on how a district is performing. The results do not accurately predict future student success. In fact, the tests mislabel more than half of the test takers as failing, while more than 80 percent of students go on to graduate from high school. The results of the current tests are not only useless, but also damaging to students.

There are several such exchanges.

Bear in mind that no one but the testing company is allowed to know student responses to questions. So teachers learn NOTHING about the strengths or weaknesses of their students. Teachers, students, and parents get a score but nothing of any diagnostic value.

All students in grades 3-8 should OPT OUT of these pointless tests.

Categories Accountability, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing, Unions

Kentucky: Parents and Teachers Confront a Hostile GOP Legislature and State Commissioner

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2019 //
30

 

Gay Adelmann, Parent Activist in Jefferson County and Leader of Save Our Schools Kentucky, writes about the hostile actions of the Kentucky Legislature: 

 

Privatization or Potential Punishment: Are Louisville Teachers Being Forced To Choose The Lesser of Two Evils?

“The beatings will continue until morale improves,” seems to be the mantra of the Kentucky GOP when it comes to public education.

In the latest attack on its teachers, Kentucky’s new pro-charter education commissioner vowed to not punish teachers “as long as there are no more work stoppages.” It’s unclear whether the final day of Kentucky’s legislative session this Thursday will be met with another teacher-led “sick out.” It would be the 7th sickout in Jefferson County in a month. Kentucky Legislature has been on recess the last 14-days, resuming on March 28 for “sine die” and to pass any final legislation.

In addition to other terrible bills that pose a potential risk, nine resolutions stand ready to be passed by the Kentucky Senate, which would confirm the governor’s newest seven appointments to the Kentucky Board of education. The two additional resolutions appear to extend the length of current appointees’ service by swapping their seats (expiring in 2020) with two who would have been appointed to the new slots, possibly a maneuver to protect key players in the event Kentucky’s unpopular governor does mitt win reelection.

The entire 14-member board is now completely made up of privatization-friendly appointees from Kentucky’s charter-pushing, ALEC-backed governor, following an earlier round of appointments two years prior. Last year, the new board ousted the Commonwealth’s highly qualified commissioner, Stephen Pruitt, the day after they were appointed, and replaced him with an 5-year teacher and charter school ideologue who immediately called for a state takeover of the state’s largest district.

Serving nearly 100,000 students, and a $1.7 billion annual budget, Jefferson County Public Schools is by far the largest school district in the state of Kentucky, and the 30th largest in the nation.

Let’s ignore the fact that few, if any, of these board members have experience as educators or parents in the public school sector. In fact, several of the members have direct ties to charter schools and have been working behind the scenes to undermine public schools and/or position themselves to potentially profit from charters, scholarship tax credits and state takeovers of schools and districts.

KBE appointments subject to confirmation include Hal Heiner, Gary Houchens, and Ben Cundiff. Their names, along with that of their chosen commissioner, Wayne Lewis, can be found on formation documents and on boards of existing charter schools dating back to 2011, long before they worked their way into positions of conflict of interest or self-dealing.

Charters, vouchers, “scholarships” and myraid other hedge-fund darling investments have been the law of the land on 43 other states, so these well-funded privatizers know how to penetrate a market. And once they’re in, they can have their way with everything else they want. We know. We’ve heard this from allies in Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, California, West Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, Washington State, the list goes on and on.

These folks keep telling us, “whatever you do, don’t let them in. It’s much harder to get them out once you have them.” JCPS teachers see it, and they have been literally keeping these most dangerous bills at bay this session and last. “To again fail to (approve charter funding) is pretty shocking and something we’ve never seen in any other state,” according to Todd Ziebarth, a national charter school advocate who helped craft the 2017 law.

But this fight is far from over. So what legislation is still in play that could happen on Thursday?

House Bill 358 would give public universities the option to exit the Kentucky Employees’ Retirement System (KERS). The bill passed the House where the Senate “took a problematic bill and transformed it into an outright dangerous one,” according to Louisville House Rep Lisa Willner. “The Senate version would still permit public universities to opt out of the public retirement system (KERS), and would all but require that “quasi-governmental” agencies – community mental health centers, domestic violence shelters, child advocacy organizations, rape crisis centers, and all 61 health departments statewide – exit the public retirement system altogether. The Senate version of HB 358 threatens the very existence of these lifeline organizations, and could effectively dismantle the statewide system of public protection and crisis support.” The number of Kentucky workers whose inviolable contracts would be broken would expand to nearly 9,000.

Although many legislators have assured us HB205 (Scholarship Tax Credits) and HB525 (Pension Trustee Appointments) are dead this session, it doesn’t mean they won’t continue to bring them back next year and the year after that until they pass, much like they did with charter school legislation, which finally passed in 2017. Our only saving grace has been the fact that there was so much pushback, the general assembly’s been unable to muster enough intestinal fortitude to fund them again this session. The trick is figuring out if we can really trust this latest promise, because those in the minority are usually the last to know what’s going on, and those in the supermajority have broken our trust before.

The same body that passed an unconstititional “sewer bill” on the last day of 2018 session is the same body that called a special session to try to pass it again constitutionally last winter. And now we’re simply supposed to trust them when they say these harmful education bills are dead?

But those bills aren’t the only threat in the near future. As I mentioned, charter school legislation passed in 2017, but has yet to be funded. A looming state takeover of JCPS could open the door to conversion charter schools, without waiting for any funding mechanism to pass.

Could the confirmation of the KBE appointments be checkmate for Jefferson County Public Schools? Or said another way, could a disruption in the confirmation of these appointments derail the privatizers’ agenda to implement charter schools in our most vulnerable communities? If for no other reason, concerned citizens of Jefferson County need to email, call and then head to Frankfort on Thursday to put pressure on the Kentucky Senate to not confirm Bevin’s appointments to the KBE.

Jefferson County teachers are fighting against a “solution” that has been not only proven not to work, but leads to school closures, district bankruptcies, displaced vulnerable students and increased taxes.

If I were a teacher, I would be outraged at Commissioner Lewis’ latest attempts to bully and intimidate teachers. I’d love to see teachers call his bluff and reveal their collective power over him..

But I’m not a teacher. I’m a parent, community organizer, concerned citizen and taxpayer (link:https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/03/26/jcps-parents-students-should-join-teacher-sickout-gay-adelmann/3269349002/) who recognized years ago that her son’s “failing” public school in a high-minority, high-poverty area of town was being groomed for a charter school takeover. And yet, here we are, six years and one helluva fight later, risking watching everything we’ve been warning folks about come to fruition.

The Friday following the last sickout, many parents also kept their children home to show solidarity with teachers who have been fighting for our students, and to exercise the only power they knew how. There is talk of another parent-led action during the week of abusive state testing. It’s time teachers and parents in these red states recognize the power they do hold, and to use it to stop the hostilities coming out of Frankfort.

Whether it’s parents or teachers doing the talking, it’s time to turn the conversation around and say to Lewis, the KBE and our state legislators, “There will be no more closures to our public schools, as soon as you stop the shady attempts to privatize them against the wishes of taxpayers and against the best interest of our most vulnerable students.”

Dear JCPS invites other concerned citizens to Frankfort on March 28 for a Rally in the Rotunda from 10 am – 12 pm. We will also have the table in the annex basement where concerned citizens like myself are happy to answer any other questions you may have about what’s really behind this movement and what are next steps.

Gay Adelmann is a parent of a recent JCPS graduate and co-founder of Dear JCPS and Save Our Schools Kentucky. She can be reached at moderator@dearjcps.com.

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Kentucky, Louisville, Parents, Privatization, Students

John Rogers: School and Society in the Age of Trump

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2019 //
67

 

John Rogers and his research team at UCLA have completed a valuable study of the effect of Trump and his ideology on schools, students, and society. 

If you go to the link, you can open the report.

Here is a summary:

“This study examines how a broad set of social issues at the forefront of the Trump presidency are felt and affect students and educators within America’s high schools.  We look closely at:

  1. Political division and hostility;
  2. Disputes over truth, facts, and the reliability of sources;
  3. Opioid misuse and addiction;
  4. The threat of immigration enforcement;
  5. The threats of gun violence on school campuses.

“In addition to assessing the impact of these challenges on students’ learning and wellbeing, we also report on how high school principals throughout the U.S. are addressing these issues.  Further, we measure how the impact and responses differ across schools depending on student demographics, geographic location, or partisan orientation of the surrounding community.

“The study findings are based on an online survey conducted in the summer of 2018 by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy Education and Access (IDEA) of 505 high school principals whose schools provide a representative sample of all U.S. public high schools. UCLA IDEA also conducted 40 follow-up interviews with principals who participated in the survey selected to be representative of the larger pool of schools.

“Our findings make clear that in the age of Trump, America’s high schools are greatly impacted by rising political incivility and division.

  • Eighty-nine percent of principals report that incivility and contentiousness in the broader political environment has considerably affected their school community.
  • Eighty-three percent of schools see these tensions intensified and accelerated by the flow of untrustworthy or disputed information and the increasing use of social media that is fueling and furthering division among students and between schools and the communities.
  • Sixty-two percent of schools have been harmed by opioid abuse.
  • Sixty-eight percent of the principals surveyed say federal immigration enforcement policies and the political rhetoric around the issue have negatively impacted students and their families.
  • Ninety-two percent of principals say their school has faced problems related to the threat of gun violence

“In the face of these societal challenges, it is students themselves who bear the brunt of the impact.  Many students feel greater anxiety, stress, and vulnerability, and parental opioid misuse and aggressive immigration enforcement have both resulted in greater material deprivation for young people—unstable housing, insecure food supplies, and a lack of other necessary supports.

“School principals are also impacted. The average principal in the study reports spending six and a half hours a week addressing the five societal challenges. One in four principals spend the equivalent of one workday a week responding to the challenges.  That time represents lost opportunity costs, taking time away from efforts to meet students’ academic needs and enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

“The report closes with a call for relationship-centered schools that attend to the holistic needs of young people and their families, while building social trust and understanding.  We recommend:

  1. Establish and communicate school climate standards emphasizing care, connectedness, and civility and then create practices that enable educational systems to document and report on conditions associated with these standards.
  2. Build professional capacity within educational systems to address the holistic needs of students and communities and extend this capacity by supporting connections between school-based educators and other governmental agencies and community-based organizations serving young people and their families
  3. Develop integrated systems of health, mental health, and social welfare support for students and their families.
  4. Create and support networks of educators committed to fostering care, connectedness, and strong civility in their public education systems.”

 

 

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Disruption, Education Reform, Injustice, Principals, Racism, Students

Arizona: The State’s Lack of Oversight Removes Protections from Students, Part 2

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2019 //
7

Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic is part of the Polk Award-winning team that investigated charter school frauds, scams, and abuses.

This is the second part of an article in which he describes the mistreatment of students and the state’s failure to investigate complaints.

He writes:

“Charter and district schools are both publicly funded schools, but they are vastly different in how they’re governed.

“School districts have boards elected by local voters. Those boards hire superintendents who are responsible for personnel and policies. Board meetings are typically held at least monthly and are open to the public.

“Charter schools boards, meanwhile, are appointed by the charter owner, who in some cases is also on the board. Some Arizona charter schools have only two board meetings a year, each lasting 10 minutes. In some cases, a charter owner determines who is allowed to address the board.

“A Brown University study from 2014 found charter schools, in general, because of their autonomy face less scrutiny of their finances, and the lack of oversight has led to numerous cases of fraud across the country.

“Anabel Aportela, a research director for the Arizona School Boards Association who had a similar role with the Arizona Charter Schools Association, said members of district school boards are “accountable to their communities and voters in their districts,” but charter school board members are not.

“A bill advancing in the Legislature would change the governance and financial oversight of charter schools, but critics say it does not go far enough toward true, independent oversight.

“The proposed changes would not necessarily help a situation like the Georges’ because the bill does not guarantee parents access to a charter school’s board of directors. It also does not prevent a charter owner from stacking a board with friends and relatives.

“The bill has passed the Senate Education Committee and is working its way through that chamber.

“In Arizona, with minimal access to a local charter board to air complaints, typically the public’s only recourse is to appeal to the state Charter Board, an 11-member body mostly appointed by the governor.

“The Charter Board, with just 11 employees, is tasked with monitoring more than 500 Arizona charter schools. That means only a small fraction of complaints are investigated, The Republic has found.

“An analysis of 89 public complaints to the Charter Board from the past four years released to The Republicunder the state’s Public Records Law, showed only 12 percent were investigated. The rest were closed after the charter operator responded in writing, often denying the allegations.

“Among the cases that went without investigation were complaints of bullying, refusal to provide student transcripts, a 5-year-old boy leaving campus unsupervised, violations of the Open Meetings Law, failure to provide special education services, classroom temperatures being too cold, and a teacher cutting a girl’s hair without parents’ permission.

“In some instances, schools changed course following a complaint to the Charter Board. The student who was unable to get his transcripts from Arizona Call-a-Teen Center for Excellence obtained them after he filed a complaint.

“The state’s Charter Board not only investigates few cases, it also lets parents see little information about the complaints themselves. The Charter Board does not make public on its website the number of complaints against a charter school, nor does it post them online even though complaints are public record.

Viewing complaints requires submitting a formal public records request with the Charter Board. The wait for those requests to be fulfilled can be indefinite.

“Gov. Doug Ducey — following a yearlong investigation by The Republic that found widespread financial abuses, profiteering, and insider deals at charter schools — has proposed adding 10 additional regulators to the Charter Board. The additional staff could result in more complaints being investigated.

“Ducey’s office estimates the new Charter Board staff will more than quadruple the number of visits to schools to investigate fraud. Currently, just 15 percent of Arizona’s charter schools receive a site inspection each year to make sure a school is accurately reporting its finances and enrollment to the state.

The kinds of cases the Charter Board doesn’t investigate

“After a 5-year-old boy wandered away from Mesa Arts Academy on Aug. 15, 2016, while on “time out” his parents complained to the Charter Board.

“In its response to the August 2016 complaint, Mesa Arts Academy confirmed the child had left campus, and that police had been called before a staff member found the child. The school added it had since installed security cameras.

“The Charter Board elected not to investigate further.

“The Charter Board also took a pass when a 15-year-old girl at Heritage Academy Gateway said a male classmate put his hand under her shirt and groped her.

“The girl told her parents about the alleged incident in early September, and the parents notified the school. School officials, in turn, reported the incident to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

“The Republic typically does not disclose the identity of alleged victims of sexual abuse.

“The day after the incident was reported, the boy transferred from Heritage Academy to another charter school.

“The girl’s family said that allowed the boy, whose mother is a Heritage administrator and member of its board, to avoid discipline.

“According to the girl’s parents, the boy continues to visit the Heritage Academy Gateway campus every afternoon.

“Calls to Heritage for comment were not returned.

“The girl said the incident has caused her to see a therapist for anxiety.

“I don’t like seeing him on campus,” she told The Republic.  “It’s kind of scary to see him in that situation.”

“Her father said the family asked Jared Taylor, Heritage Academy’s charter holder, CEO and board chairman, to keep the boy off campus.

“It’s pretty little what we have asked for,” the father said in an interview.

“Records the school provided to the Charter Board in response to the complaint indicate Heritage Academy denied their request.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Students

Texas: Calling All Parents Whose Children Have Been Subjected to Rigged Tests

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
16

Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA) [aka Moms Against Drunk Testing] needs your help to fight abusive testing. We learned recently that the state tests (STAAR) is set two grade levels above where children are. Third-graders are tested on fifth-grade material and vocabulary, fifth-graders on seventh-grade material and vocabulary, etc. The tests are rigged to fail the kids. This is madness with no purpose other than to make kids and schools look bad so that the state has a rationale for closing public schools and opening charter schools.

 

URGENT: TAMSA needs your voice!

The Texas Monthly article got the attention of the House Public Education Committee. The committee is meeting Tuesday, March 5, 2019 on issues related to STAAR. Several assessment bills are on the agenda.

If you have a child that has been adversely affected by the STAAR test and are willing to testify in Austin, please email boardmember@tamsatx.org.

Categories Parents, Students, Testing, Texas
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »