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Texas: GOOD NEWS! Texas House Rejects Bill to Ban Lobbying for Public Schools, But Allow It for Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
10

Charles Foster Johnson, leader of Pastors for Texas Children, describes an effort to censor and silence those who advocate on behalf of public schools:

Texas Senate Bill 29 was roundly defeated late yesterday afternoon in
the Texas House on an 85-58 vote. The bill would have prohibited local
school districts and other local government authorities such as
counties from taxpayer-supported advocacy in the Legislature. It is a
policy designed for one purpose: to silence those defending and
protecting public education and the public good and to enable those who advocate for privatization
and for personal financial profit.

Dirty little secret? The bill exempted charter schools. The bill would
have empowered them to lobby for even more public funding– without
being hassled by traditional public school advocates.

It failed miserably. The House of Representatives is generally
pro-public education here in Texas. They have held the line against
sweeping privatization efforts. We have repudiated vouchers multiple
times over the past couple of decades, and will never have them,
precisely because these conservative public officials hold to the
principle of local control and accountability that public schools so
beautifully incarnate.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was behind the entire push, is livid.
His project to dismantle public education and the public good in Texas
is now exposed, and is losing. He lost his cool about it at the Senate
chair last night. He is coming unraveled and his chamber is
desperately broken. Unfortunately, our Governor Greg Abbott supported
the bill also. His only concern is not allowing Patrick to
“out-rightwing” him, so his political obsession is to stake out
whatever non-existent sliver of territory there is to the right of
Patrick.

Of course, this ill-fated bill serves the opposite purpose. Pro-public
education advocates will dramatically increase next legislative
session. Our pastors are in the Capitol every day. Next session we
will have a platoon of them daily instead of two or three. We are
grateful to NPE for joining us in our fight through the perfectly
timed action alert yesterday! Legislative offices were FLOODED with
calls opposing this ridiculous bill. Our strong solidarity together got the job
done!

Pastors for Texas Children and many other groups supporting public schools joined to defeat this proposal. NPE Action contacted its allies across the state of Texas, who joined with many thousands of parents, educators and citizens to defeat this effort to censor advocates for public schools.

Categories Accountability, Bias, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Texas

Betsy DeVos Gave This Charter Chain $225 Million. It Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2019 //
10

 

Betsy DeVos recently gave $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, mostly to expand in Texas. Previously, she had already given millions to IDEA, altogether this lucky business has received $225 million in federal funds.

In El Paso alone, IDEA will open 20 new charters. That’s bad news for the El Paso public schools, because IDEA is known for pushing out the kids it doesn’t want and sending them back to the public schools, which will have to slash their budgets to adjust to lost enrollment.

Veteran Texas educator Tim Holt says that this IDEA invasion doesn’t pass the smell test. Parents and taxpayers are being fooled. He wrote this before DeVos gave IDEA its latest plum, $116 million.

“In the next few years, IDEA plans to increase from one school today in El Paso to over 20, making them larger than either the Anthony, Canutillo, San Eli, Fabens, or Clint ISD’s in terms of number of campuses. (“IDEA’s big goal is to serve 100,000 students by 2022” in Tejas according to the IDEA website.

“That would make them larger than Ft. Worth or Austin ISDs, which each have about 88,000 students each.) Of course, local districts are concerned because they get funding based on the number of students attending. Less students means less money. Even if it is for a year or so, as parents find out IDEA is not such a good fit for their kids. Less funding means more crowded classes, elimination of popular programs (say adios to that Mariachi band your young Vicente Fernandez wanna-be is in)…

“Public charter schools like IDEA use a combination of taxpayer funds, grants, and large-scale private donations to operate. Like public schools, they are accountable to meeting standards, but unlike public schools, they are businesses, beholden to those with a financial vested interest in their success or failure.

“Did you get that? They use your taxes to fund their business. You are paying for them whether they last a year or a decade. They can, as a business, pick up and leave at any time, shuttering their doors with no notice as many charter schools have done across the nation. Nothing prevents this.

“And like any business that needs to grow to get money, they have to advertise. Check out the slick work of this ad agency on behalf of IDEA.

“Smelly.

“Public schools in Texas have locally elected officials, that are responsible for watching the checkbooks of the districts. Don’t like the way money is being spent? You can vote them out and replace them. Not so with Public Charter Schools like IDEA. The Board of Directors of IDEA schools are mostly made up of well-to-do east Texas business people.

Think your kid is represented at the table? Check out the IDEA Board. Look like people from El Chuco? Yeah, maybe a meeting of the El Chuco Millionaires Club, but other than that, no, they are not your type. Unless you think that Dallas and Houston millionaires are your type.

Stinky.

“IDEA schools have a model of teaching that looks something like this: Curriculum is canned, pre-scripted and designed in such a way that even non-teachers can conduct classes. It is designed solely to focus on the standardized tests, that all students must pass. It is homework-heavy even though study after study has found that a heavy homework load is probably overall detrimental to students learning. Failure on tests mean dismissal from the school.

“Sorry kid, we don’t take no dummies.

“Since it is a scripted curriculum, IDEA can hire non-teacher teachers, ones that do not have any kind of education experience or degree. Think about that: Anyone that can read a script can teach at IDEA. That is perfect for young, inexperienced Teach-for-America rookies, from where IDEA likes to recruit their teaching ranks. Less experience equals less expensive to pay.

“Less pay means the chances that the teacher can deal with “non traditional” or troubled students is low. Want something for your kid that is innovative? Don’t bother enrolling at IDEA. Success is measured by how many pages the teacher can plow through in a week on the way to the test.

“Smells bad…

”Now consider this: On top of the millions in Federal funds that the State has awarded to IDEA, if they achieve their goal of having 100,000 students, that means, that every year, $915,000,000 will NOT be going to Texas’ traditional public schools, your neighborhood school, but into the hands of for-profit businesses that have little to no local accountability.”

Well, it’s a terrific article. Read it all.

And don’t believe those pundits who say that Betsy DeVos is so hemmed in that she can’t do any harm. Her $225 million gift to IDEA will eventually cause Texas public schools to lose nearly $1 billion a year, every year.  Really good for the IDEA bank account.  Terrible for the millions of children in Texas public schools.

That really stinks.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Funding, Graduation rates, Privatization, Texas

DeVos Funnels $116 Million to Open 20 Charter Schools in El Paso, Which Will Devastate Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2019 //
84

 

 

Should Amy O’Rourke, Beto’s wife, send a thank-you note to Betsy DeVos?

Betsy DeVos has awarded a huge grant of $116,755,848 to the IDEA charter chain to open 20 new schools in El Paso. IDEA opened its first El Paso charter last fall.

In 2017,  DeVos gave $67 million to IDEA.

IDEA has received a grand total of $225 million from the federal Charter Schools Program.

The size of this grant is unprecedented, so far as I know.

Congress should ask DeVos why she gave such a staggering amount of money to the IDEA charter chain.

This rapid charter expansion is likely to swamp the underfunded El Paso public schools, if not eliminate them.

The grant will be funneled through CREED, where Amy O’Rourke plays a leading role. Amy is Beto O’Rourke’s wife.

CREED’s charter program, which is part of a larger gentrification project, has previously been supported by the Dell Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Hunt foundation, and the Gates Foundation.

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/education/2018/09/10/idea-opens-its-first-two-el-paso-charter-schools-plans-more-2023/1157132002/

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/education/2017/10/09/creeed-has-raised-20-m-least-half-go-charters/710557001/

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/opinion/2018/09/22/charter-schools-offer-choice-but-public-must-know-impact-column/1385283002/

The superintendent of a neighboring district, Jose Espinosa, warned parents to be wary of charter schools like IDEA that boast of a 100% college acceptance rate; what they don’t tell parents is that you can’t graduate until you have been accepted by a four-year college, some of which are open admissions colleges that accept all applicants.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Texas

Alan Singer: Does TFA Stand for Totally Fraudulent Assessment?

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2019 //
6

 

In this post, Alan Singer reviews a study conducted by SMU (Southern Methodist University) about the effectiveness of TFA teachers. He cites an earlier review of the same study by Gary Rubinstein and concludes with Gary that this study is not good news for TFA, even though TFA thinks it is.

Singer reviews the study and concludes:

“The other finding (?) is that “TFA alumni are generally more effective than non-TFA-affiliated peer teachers across all regions (as indicated by mostly blue indicators for that group).” There is a big problem with this finding. More than half of TFA corps members leave their initial placements in low-income schools after two years and only 60% even stay in the program for a third year to complete their contract. Five years after entering the program, 85% of former TFA corps members, the highly rated TFA alumni cohort, have either left teaching or after securing teacher certification have transferred to higher performing schools. Basically the TFA survivors, on the average, rate as more effective, because non-career corps members have already quit teaching and most of those who remain are working with students who already score higher on standardized tests.

“Although the Southern Methodist report did not call for disbanding Teach for America, it should have, based on the evidence. Maybe instead of corps members, TFA should just become a corpse.”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Teach for America, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Lynn Davenport: Look Out, Texas, Here Comes Kitamba Consultants to Privatize Your Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2019 //
12

Lynn Davenport is a parent activist in Texas. She wrote the following post to alert her fellow Texans about the invasion of Kitamba Consultants, who bring with them the so-called “portfolio model” of privatization.

 

She writes:

The LA teacher strike thwarted a concealed plot to use Kitamba consultants to reinvent LAUSD with a portfolio model of privatization. Kitamba has a contract with TEA right now for these districts, including RISD:

tea1

I just got a 228 page public information request from the Texas Education Agency and Region 13 service center in Austin for their MOU with Kitamba.

Texas is spending big bucks on the same Kitamba consultants exposed in the LAUSD strikes against philanthropist/private equity reformer and Supt Austin Beutner:

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/09/los-angeles-consultants-recommendations-reimagine-kitamba-consultants/
“Created by the consulting firm Kitamba, the documents lay out an aggressive timeline for assigning schools to 32 support networks, giving principals more power, and cutting the central office by fall 2019.

The January strike appears to have derailed the plans. A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified declined to comment.

During the January strike, United Teachers of Los Angeles criticized what it described as the district’s portfolio plan and its partnership with Kitamba. (A spokesperson at the time said Los Angeles Unified is not pursuing a portfolio approach.) Kitamba won a $765,000 contract for its work, paid by a slate of outside donors, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Details of Kitamba’s contract and scope of work were reported in February by the Los Angeles Times after school board member Scott Schmerelson criticized Beutner for not disclosing contracts with consultants, including Kitamba, or the work they had done for the district.”

Rajeev Bajaj is a Broadie:

tea2

I researched all of this during my System of Great Schools LinkedIn article in December, I just didn’t see the magnitude of the Kitamba contract at the time:

tea3

Please read my SGS Takeover article again:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/privatization-system-great-schools-takeover-lynn-davenport

tea4

Blogger Bekah McNeel found that, “In 2017 the Laura and John Arnold Foundation gave a two-year $85,000 grant to the TEA through Education Service Center Region XIII “to support the Texas Education Agency’s System of Great Schools Network, a program for districts interested in the portfolio model of school governance.”
http://bekahmcneel.com/in-becoming-a-system-of-great-schools-saisd-is-fighting-for-its-life/

Interesting that Dallas mayoral candidate Lynn McBee’s org was mentioned:

tea5

 

We need to stop this with the help of Texas AFT, parents, and trustees who see the harm of the portfolio model. We also need to loop in the California union to get their advice. I would like to hire Brett Shipp Media to help expose this. If we don’t stop it, our neighborhood schools, teachers, and elected boards will be eliminated in favor of a charter-like model of “autonomy”.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Portfolio District, Privatization, Propaganda, Texas

Houston: Charter School Superintendent and IT Specialist Charged with Embezzlement

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2019 //
3

 

The superintendent of a Houston charter school and a school employee have been charged with embezzling more than $250,000 from the school’s bank account. 

The head of a Houston-area charter school and another school employee have been indicted on federal embezzlement charges, accused of siphoning more than $250,000 from the school for themselves and using some of the money to buy a car and condominium.
A grand jury in the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of Texas handed up charges this week against Houston Gateway Academy Superintendent Richard Garza, including one count of conspiracy, two counts of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, three counts of wire fraud and two counts of engaging in monetary transactions involving criminally acquired property. Ahmad Bokaiyan, a technology support specialist at the school, was charged with conspiracy and three counts of wire fraud. They are now considered fugitives, according to a federal court records…
According to the indictment, Garza awarded a $280,841.85 no-bid contract in 2014 to a group called Hot Rod Systems to build an IT infrastructure at the new school, even though construction on the school had not yet begun. Hot Rod Systems was owned by Bokaiyan. Prosecutors say the two Houston Gateway Academy employees agreed that Bokaiyan would wire some of that contract money into one of Garza’s personal bank accounts. Within days of receiving the contract money from Garza, Bokaiyan wired the superintendent $164,381.
The indictment alleges Garza used more than $50,000 of those funds to buy a new Nissan Armada sport utility vehicle, more than $86,500 to help purchase a condominium, and nearly $26,000 to help make payments on a house loan in Cypress.
Garza’s school enrolls 2,400 students. He had plans to expand to nearly 10,000. He took over the school when it had low scores.
He began an aggressive plan to improve academics on state-mandated standardized tests, placing countdown clocks to test days in all classrooms and requiring even the youngest students to complete three-ring binders filled with practice tests and worksheets. As a result, their Coral middle school campus shot up the nonprofit Children at Risk’s annual school report card rankings, rising to the ranking’s number three spot. All of its 110 fifth and sixth grade students passed the math portion of the STAAR, an exceedingly rare feat for any school, let alone one that serves predominately low-income students. 
One wonders whether he worked the same magic with the test scores that he did with the finances.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Houston, Privatization, Texas

Texas: New Study Finds That Readability Levels on State Tests are Misaligned

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2019 //
21

A new study of the STAAR tests in Texas finds that the readability levels are far above the grade levels tested.

Professor Susan Szabo and Professor Becky Barton Sinclair of the Texas A&M at Commerce reviewed STAAR tests and report that readability levels were 1-3 years above the grade level tested.

Why is the state giving children tests that are above their grade levels?

Is it trying to fail children so that more public schools will be given low ratings and there will be more opportunities for privatization?

Or is it that the folks in charge of testing are not paying attention or don’t care?

 

Categories Testing, Texas

Texas: Can the State Afford to Buy One Snickers Bar Per Student?

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2019 //
8

This is a clever and short video explaining the magnitude of Texas’s school finance problem.

Texas has more than 5 million students. Its schools are perennially underfunded. They took a big hit in 2011 when the legislature cut their budget by more than $5 BILLION dollars, which the schools have never recovered from.

For the past several years, the State Senate and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick have tried to promote vouchers as an alternative to adequate funding but in the wake of the 2018 elections, the voucher plans are dead (thanks in large part to the good work of Pastors for Texas Children and to the spillover effect of the Beto get-out-the-vote operation).

Right now, the charter industry is making a big move on Texas, seeing the state as the next frontier for charter expansion.

But choice is a distraction. The real dilemma facing the Lone Star State is whether the boys in Austin are willing to pay to have a decent education system for all those millions of children, or whether they will stick with their low-tax, corporate-tax-cutting philosophy.

At bottom, my own fear as a native Texan is that the white men who run the state don’t care about those children. Not their children. But those children are the future of the state.

 

Categories Funding, Texas

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

Tom Ultican: Elites in Dallas Impose Massive Disruption on Public Schools, with Charters Schools and TFA

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
2

Tom Ultican tells a sad story about the takeover of the Dallas school board by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce and other wealthy elites, who don’t send their children to the public schools.

After their failed experiment with Mike Miles, a Broadie who surrounded himself with young but very well-compensated aides from TFA, the elites decided to buy control of the school board. It became too expensive for an ordinary citizen to compete with the money that the elites were pouring in. One candidate, Lori Kilpatrick, almost upset an incumbent, even though her resources were meager. The corporate elites decided not to take any chances in the run off. Her opponent won by outspending her 34-1.

The business elites have an agenda. Hire as many TFA as possible and drive out experienced teachers. Close public schools and replace them with charter schools. So far, none of their plans has benefitted the children of Dallas.

It is a sad story and I hope you will take the time to read it.

Tom Ultican often refers to the “Destroy Public Education” movement.

Dallas elites are in the forefront of that movement. Shame on them. They belong on the Wall of Shame.

Categories Charter Schools, Dallas, Disruption, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America, Texas
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