Archives for category: Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Peter Greene: Betsy Drew the Wrong Lesson from the Failure of Obama and Duncan

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2017 //
17

Peter Greene read Betsy DeVos’s speech to CPAC and realized that she totally misunderstood why Obama and Duncan’s reforms failed. It wasn’t because they spent money. It was because they spent money on bad ideas. Now she proposes to spend money on vouchers, which have failed miserably, and on charters, which Obama and Duncan promoted. What is new about her approach? She is candid: she wants to destroy public education. Obama and Duncan either believed or pretended that public education would get better because of high-stakes testing, punishments, and charter schools. They were wrong. DeVos is wrong too. The difference is that we already know she is wrong, but she doesn’t.

Greene writes:

“School improvement grants were like food stamps that could only be spent on baby formula, ostrich eggs, and venison—and it didn’t matter if the families receiving the stamps lived on a farm with fresh milk and chicken eggs, or if they were vegetarians, or if they lived where no store sells ostrich eggs, or if there were no babies in the family. The Department of Education used the grants to dictate strategy and buy compliance with their micro-managing notions about how schools had to be fixed.

“As with many classic reform moves, plenty of folks on the ground level could have told the reformers what was wrong with their plan. But as DeVos’s comments show, the damage of School Improvement Grants is not only in wasted money, it’s also in convicting the wrong suspect and discrediting a whole reform approach.

“DeVos and other conservative reformers are taking the real lesson of the grant program’s failure: “spending money on the wrong thing for schools doesn’t help,” and shortening it to a far more damaging assessment: “spending money on schools doesn’t help.”

“The Obama-Duncan-King program didn’t just fail, they say, but it also helped discredit the whole idea of funding schools at all. Thanks Obama.”

Given the miserable failure of school choice in Michigan and Detroit, you would think DeVos was open to reflecting on the error of her ideas. But don’t make that mistake. Her ideas of school “reform” are based on ideology and theology. They won’t change. They can’t be proved or disproved. They are set in stone. Evidence doesn’t matter.

If allowed to do her wishes, public schools will be defunded (they are “godless”), unions will disappear, for-profit entrepreneurs will cash in, and a million weeds will bloom.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Funding, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Vouchers

Milwaukee: The Failed Promise of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2017 //
13

Milwaukee has had vouchers since 1990. The program was expanded to include religious schools in 1998. Voucher advocates, led by former superintendent Howard Fuller, insisted that school choice was the best way to raise the woeful academic performance of black students. Fuller, a social worker and one-time advocate for black nationalism, is now head of the pro-choice Black Alliance for Educational Options. Fuller, the one-time radical, has long been subsidized by rightwing foundations, including the Bradley Foundation and the Walton Foundation (and the Gates Foundation). None of the whites who run these foundations have any credibility in black communities, but Fuller is an effective salesman for their segregationist ideas.

In the early days of vouchers and charters, advocates promised that school choice would cause schools to get better by competing for students. School choice would bring about a rising tide that would lift all boats. Public schools would improve, they said, adopting new programs and higher standards to retain their students and beat the competition. John Chubb and Terry Moe published a seminal work in 1990 called “Politics, Markets, and Schools” in which they argued that all reforms of the existing system were doomed to fail because of its democratic governance and the power of the unions; they boldly claimed that school choice is a “panacea.”

That was the same year that Milwaukee first offered vouchers.

For several years, the Milwaukee voucher program was evaluated by opposing groups. Some said it helped students, others said it didn’t. Over time, critics and supporters reached a consensus view. The voucher program overall had no impact on student performance but parents were happier. Although students were not better prepared academically, they had a higher graduation rate, but they had such high attrition rates that the students least likely to graduate had already dropped out or returned to public schools.

Meanwhile, the public schools enrolled far higher proportions of students with disabilities because the voucher schools and charter schools said they could not meet their needs. The choice schools were also able to eliminate students who were disciplinary problems or academically unable and send them back to public schools.

This article portrays the situation in Milwaukee to mark the 25th anniversary of vouchers, in 2014. Nothing has changed since then. The evaluation industry has moved on. The consensus holds: students in voucher schools do not make greater test score gains than those in public schools. Public schools do not improve as a result of competition. Public schools lose funding to voucher schools and charter schools, which makes them less able to compete. Public schools get the students that the private voucher schools don’t want.

Pro-choice evaluators have reached the same conclusions in D.C. and Cleveland. No rising tide.

And this is the failed program that Betsy DeVos wants to spread across the nation. We now know that vouchers do not save poor kids from failing schools. Vouchers have no purpose other than to undermine public schools.

Categories Milwaukee, Vouchers

Kevin Carey: Researchers “Surprised” by “Dismal Results” from Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2017 //
22

Kevin Carey is the director of education research at the New America Foundation in D.C., a think tank funded by tech magnates.

He writes in the New York Times that researchers are reacting with surprise at the “dismal results” from vouchers.

I am not sure why this is news, because vouchers have been tried out since 1990 in Milwaukee and elsewhere and have been subject to numerous evaluations, almost all of which have reached the same conclusion: vouchers don’t have a significant effect on test scores.

This conclusion has been reported again and again over the past 25 years.

It doesn’t seem to have much effect on the pro-voucher crowd, who have been promising since 1955 (when economist Milton Friedman published his seminal essay about vouchers) that school choice would have dramatic positive effects. Back in 1990, John Chubb and Terry Moe predicted in their book “Politics, Markets, and Schools” that school choice was a “panacea,” and that the problem with schools is that they are democratically controlled. Take away the democratic governance, and all will go well, they said.

Anyone who looks at the many evaluations of the voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana has to search hard for any positive news.

Still, it is good to see this research consensus publicly acknowledged in the New York Times.

Carey is part of the neoliberal Democratic consensus in the D.C. think tank world that favors charters, but not vouchers. So he takes care to say that charters in Massachusetts produce higher test scores than public schools, although he does not note the vote last November in which the people of Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly not to expand the number of charter schools. (He did mention it in his article in the Times last November, when he assured readers that DeVos could not possibly privatize public schools.) Nor does he make any reference to the numerous financial scandals associated with charters schools, nor to their frequent practice of excluding children with special needs and English language learners, nor to the fiscal burden they impose on public schools by draining away resources from them.

Carey is still trying to salvage the charter idea–which DeVos embraces wholeheartedly–from Trump’s wrecking ball approach to public education. The difficulty is that phony reformers like DeVos can use charters to destroy public education as easily as they can use vouchers. Michigan, after all, is a paradise for school choice, as is Florida, and neither has the sort of voucher program that DeVos prefers. They are hotbeds of rapacious, for-profit charter operators.

Neoliberals are caught on the horns of a dilemma. They think they can advance their kind of school choice (charters) while resisting going “all the way” with vouchers. But once you say that school choice is good, it is very tough to draw a line in the sand against vouchers. It is like being just a little bit pregnant. School choice produces community dissension and segregation. Its true forebears are not Milton Friedman but the racist leaders of the South after the Brown decision.

Full disclosure: Carey wrote an unfriendly article about me in The New Republic (referenced in his Wikipedia listing) in 2011. He sought to belittle my scholarship and credentials, although I had just been awarded the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award by the American Academy of Political and Social Science for scholarship in the interest of the public good. That was Carey’s way of defending charters at that time, which was then and remains the favorite idea of the neoliberal consensus in DC. The neoliberals are still trying to save charters from their embrace by DeVos and Trump.

All that is past. I forgive him. I look forward to the day that Carey examines the charter scandals in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania, and considers what they are doing to the public schools that are defunded by charters. The majority of students still go to public schools, not charter schools, and they have fewer resources as a result of a dual system. If deregulation makes schools better, why not deregulate them all?

But all that aside, I am pleased to see him skewer vouchers, which have failed again and again and again. They don’t help poor kids; they are all about diverting taxpayer monies to nonpublic schools. The majority of the public has consistently said that they don’t want their taxes to fund religious schools. Regardless of the religious school, taxpayers say no. Whenever there is a referendum, they vote against vouchers. But that doesn’t stop DeVos or her allies.

Categories Charter Schools, Failure, School Choice, Vouchers

Tennessee: Legislators Propose Vouchers for Shelby County, One of Nation’s Most Fiscally Distressed Districts

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2017 //
10

A bill was filed in the Tennessee legislature to establish vouchers for students in Shelby County. It would divert $18 million from the district, which is already one of the most fiscally disadvantaged districts in the nation.

The voucher program would deepen the fiscal distress of the district. With the amount of the vouchers, students would not be accepted at first-rate private schools but at low-quality religious schools that teach creationism.

The bill, filed by Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, includes language that only students in districts with at least 30 schools in the bottom 5 percent in the state in academic performance would be eligible for a voucher. SCS is the only district in Tennessee with that many low-performing schools.

Students would also have to be zoned to or currently attending a school in the bottom 5 percent and would have to meet-age-and-income requirements.

The bill creates a phased-in Opportunity Scholarship Pilot Program that would eventually offer 20,000 students a scholarship to attend private school.

In the 2017-18 school year, the program would cost SCS an estimated $8.8 million in funding, followed by $13.6 million the year after and $18.6 million in 2019-2020. That assumes students claim just 25 percent of each year’s available vouchers.

The program would also cost the state a one-time expense of $330,094 in 2017-18 and a recurring expense of $230,394 in administrative costs per year. Vouchers would be worth just over $7,000 and would increase slightly each year.

Kelsey said Monday the funding loss for SCS would be proportional to the number of students the district would no longer have to educate. The bill also only diverts state money, and requires students using a voucher to be counted toward the enrollment of their local school district. That means the district still retains local funds for them.

“The beauty is they no longer have to educate the child, and yet they’re still getting paid some money,” Kelsey said.

What Kelsey fails to acknowledge is that the public schools that lose students would have to increase class sizes, would have to cut back on arts programs and other parts of the curriculum, but still must pay the cost of buildings and grounds, heating and cooling, and other locked-in expenses. If 10% of the students leave, the schools can’t pay 10% less for electricity.

Does Kelsey know that no voucher program in the U.S. has shown significant benefits to students? Does he care?

Categories Tennessee, Vouchers

Lindsay Wagner: North Carolina Is Already a DeVos World in Education

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2017 //
11

Veteran education journalist Lindsay Wagner writes that anyone who wants to know what Betsy DeVos will do to schools need look no further than North Carolina. It has already happened there.

North Carolina was taken over by the Tea Party in 2010 and has gone on a rampage to privatize education and defund public schools. The legislature wiped out its very successful investment in teacher preparation–the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program–and replaced it with Teach for America. The Teaching Fellows made a five-year commitment and most became career teachers. TFA come and go within 2-3 years. Same cost, different results. One produces well-prepared career teachers, the other produces education tourists.

Charters, vouchers, cybercharters. North Carolina has it all.

Devos’ philanthropic efforts and her work running the American Federation for Children (AFC) have helped pave the way for North Carolina’s own school voucher program, which allows low-income families to use taxpayer-funded $4,200 vouchers each year for tuition at private, mostly religious schools that are not held to robust transparency and accountability standards and can discriminate against those who don’t pass a religious litmus test or identify as LGBTQ by barring them from enrolling.

In 2012, Democratic and Republican North Carolina lawmakers who were on board with the idea of school vouchers received more than $90,000 in campaign donations from AFC. The next year lawmakers enacted the school voucher program, which started out with an annual state commitment of just $10 million.

Then after winning a court case challenging the constitutionality of the program, lawmakers voted to significantly expand the school voucher program even though they had no data before them to indicate one way or another whether students leaving public schools using vouchers were actually doing better at private schools. The school voucher program is now scheduled to grow to $145 million annually by 2027. Between now and then, North Carolina will have spent nearly $1 billion on an unaccountable taxpayer-funded program.

The state’s top recipient of school vouchers, Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville, has received nearly $1 million in taxpayer funds since 2014. Last week it was reported that the state Department of Revenue arrested Trinity Christian’s athletic director following an investigation that turned up enough evidence to charge him with embezzling hundreds of thousands of employee tax withholdings over a seven year period.

It’s an unsurprising turn of events given that the state hasn’t enacted strong oversight measures for the school voucher program. Virtually anyone running a private school can receive publicly-funded school vouchers—most schools don’t have to routinely provide a look at how they balance their books or provide any robust evidence that their students are learning.

Now that DeVos is no longer just a private fundraiser pushing school vouchers at the state level but is now the federal education secretary, can she “voucherize” the entire public education system in the United States? No, not alone — besides, most of public education is financed at the state and local level. President Trump’s proposal to pour $20 billion into vouchers is contingent on state and local actors matching dollars and then some. As Vox’s Libby Nelson explains, DeVos could find some other creative ways to get federal dollars into voucher-like programs, but really the onus is on state legislatures to move the voucher agenda.

But if North Carolina’s steady march toward a school voucher program that continues to expand with very few accountability and transparency measures in place is any indication, DeVos has levers outside of her role as federal education secretary to try to keep the momentum going for state-born school voucher programs. And that is worth watching.

Charter schools

DeVos favors charter schools as well, although we’ve heard less about those from her as of late. Nonetheless, charter schools have been part of her philanthropic efforts over time and charter school advocates in North Carolina are enthusiastic about her confirmation as education secretary.

From 1997 until 2011, North Carolina experimented with charter schools, keeping a cap on how many can operate here at 100 schools. Charters are public schools too, but they are given more latitude in hiring and management practices and can do innovative things with their academic offerings—all in the name of improving education writ large.

But in 2011 something changed. Lawmakers did away with the cap on how many charter schools can operate here and since then, the charter school sector has grown at a fairly rapid rate—now at 167 schools. One effect of this expansion has been an an ever-increasing squeeze on public school budgets, which has in turn touched off a years-long fight at the legislature on how public dollars should flow to charter schools.
Meanwhile, resources and increased oversight have not grown concurrently with the charter school sector’s expansion, however; still a tiny group of people in Raleigh is charged with overseeing what is now approaching double the number of charters. And, according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), recent legislation weakens charter school accountability and oversight and allows bad schools to stay open longer than they should be allowed.

A number of charter schools have suddenly closed in recent times, sometimes leaving students without an academic home in the middle of the school year. Poor governance and financial problems most commonly plague charters, and robust accountability and transparency measures still seem to be lacking as the industry experiences rapid growth. For-profit charter chain operators can run these schools and shield how they spend tax dollars behind a curtain—and lawmakers haven’t done much to force them to be more transparent.

The Tea Party leaders in North Carolina are thrilled with her selection as Secretary of Education. They have invited her to come and see how they have implemented all of her failed ideas. She has given generously to the political campaign’s of the state’s very rightwing senators.

As a result of DeVos efforts—along with those of other school privatization advocates—hundreds of millions of public dollars now flow to school vouchers, charter schools and virtual charter schools.

So when she does come to visit, it will be more like a welcome home party for DeVos. North Carolina has been her playground for years.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

ALERT! GOP Congress Launches First Effort to Undermine Public SCHOOLS!

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2017 //
53

Republicans in The House of Representatives have proposed legislation that would require states to adopt vouchers or lose their federal funding. This is an outrage! This is step one of the Trump-DeVos agenda to force vouchers and charters on states that do not want them. This is a blatant misuse of federal power to coerce states to go along with religious zealots like DeVos.

The legislation, HR 610, has been filed. Let your Representative in Congress know that you oppose this egregious federal overreach. Support The Network for Public Education as we rally supporters of public schools to repel this obnoxious legislation.

The language of the legislation and the steps you can take to oppose it are included here.

If you do not want your tax dollars to fund evangelical religious schools, madrassas, or yeshivas, get active.

If you believe in public schools with certified teachers who teach modern science and history, not religious fervor, get active.

Speak up. Speak out. Defend separation of church and state. Defend your community public schools. Stop the raid on the public school funds.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Religion, Separation of church and state, Trump, Vouchers

Betsy DeVos Had an Awfully Difficult First Week on the Job

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2017 //
47

Teachers who teach children with multiple disabilities and children who are homeless may think that they have a tough job, but consider what a very hard time Betsy DeVos had in her first week as Secretary of Education, very likely the first paying job she has ever held. She visited a public middle school in D.C., where protestors harassed her and tried to keep her out. When she eventually entered the school, she said nice things to the staff, but after she left she insulted them as being in a “receive” mode. She gave a few interviews and said she hoped to launch more charter schools, more vouchers, more cybercharters, and presumably shrink the number of public schools as she opens up opportunities for students to go anywhere other than public schools.

In one interview, she told syndicated conservative columnist Cal Thomas that she did not think the protests against her were spontaneous. The implication was that those evil teachers’ unions had plotted against her. The other implication was that parents and teachers would welcome her noble presence in their public school, even though she was unimpressed with what she saw. Someone, she said, was trying to make her life “a living hell.” No matter what the plotters do, she pledged she would not be deterred from her mission of “helping kids in this country,” by enabling them to leave public schools for privatized alternatives.

She suggested to Thomas that it might be a good idea to bring tens of thousands of children to the Capitol to demonstrate for charters and vouchers. She said it had worked in Florida. Of course, this is now a standard part of the privatization script, using children as political pawns to demand more public funding for private choices, thus disabling public schools by diminishing their resources.

She pledged to support alternatives to public schools, without citing a scintilla of evidence that these choices would help kids and without acknowledging that the proliferation of choices harms the great majority of children who don’t choose to leave public schools. Her mindset is purely ideological. She did not offer any suggestions about how to help the vast majority of children who attend public schools. She has one idea, and she is sticking to it: choice. The absence of evidence for that one idea from her home state never comes up. Michigan has tumbled in national rankings as choice has expanded.

When Cal Thomas asked what could be done for children who had an “absent father,” she responded that this problem has to be addressed at the classroom level. “It’s not an easy or a single answer, but again it goes back to having the power to influence those things at the classroom level.” It is not clear what she meant or if she herself knew what she meant. How is the teacher in the classroom prepared to make up for an absent father? Is this what passes for profundity?

Then there was this very interesting exchange, in which Cal Thomas and Betsy DeVos exposed their deepest beliefs:

“Q. Throughout most of the public school system, which began in the late 19th century and flourished in the 20th, education included values, McGuffey Readers and even prayer and Bible reading, until the Supreme Court outlawed both in the ‘60s. Do you see a correlation between the loss of American values, a sense of morality, a concept of the transcendent, right and wrong, objective truth that have been banished in our relativistic age and lack of achievement in some places in our schools?

“A. I think it’s a significant factor. Many of the schools I’ve seen, especially the charters, have a focus on character development and again the whole child development. That’s one of the reasons parents are choosing alternatives like this.”

To begin with, public education got its start in the mid-nineteenth century, not the late nineteenth century.

I am one of the few living Americans who has actually read the entirety of the McGuffey readers. Children today would find them dull, simplistic, and obsolete.

The assumption that public schools lack values because they do not have Bible readings and prayers is nonsense. When I went to public schools in Houston in the 1940s and 1950s, we had daily Bible readings and prayers, but the schools were racially segregated. Few teachers had more than a bachelor’s degree. I would say without question that our public schools today have better quailed teachers today and a stronger value system than they did when we read the Bible and prayed every day. As a Jew in a Christian public school system, I ignored the implicit proselytizing, but from the perspective of the decades, I can say that our schools then did not practice what they preached. We never discussed current social or political issues. Too controversial. We were not well prepared for the real problems of our society.

The values of the dominant religion were imposed on me but I never had any wish to impose mine on anyone else.

Now, as we live in a religiously and culturally diverse society, Thomas and DeVos sound like two antiquarians. They want to turn the clock back 100 years, maybe two hundred years.

There is nothing innovative about DeVos’ ideas. She has lived in a billionaire bubble all her life, surrounded by her like-minded kith and kin of rich white Republican evangelicals. She has nothing to teach our teachers or students. She knows nothing about how to improve public schools. Her beloved charters, vouchers, and cybercharters have not proven to be better than public schools, and in many states, are demonstrably worse than traditional public schools with certified teachers.

We live in a big, ever-changing world, and it is far too late to go back to 1920 or 1820, no matter how devoutly DeVos would like to restore the suprenpmacy of whites and evangelical Christians. They too must learn to live and let live.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Equity, Privatization, Research, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

North Carolina: Employee at Voucher School Charged with Stealing $400,000

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2017 //
8

An employee at North Carolina’s largest voucher-receiving school was charged with the theft of $400,000 in taxpayer money.

He discovered how to make money in education: Steal it.

Lindsay Wagner writes:

“The athletic director of a private religious school that has received the most publicly-funded school vouchers in the state of North Carolina was arrested this week on charges of embezzling from the school nearly $400,000 in public tax dollars, the Fayetteville Observer reports.

“Heath Curtis Vandevender is charged with embezzling $388,422 between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2015, from Truth Outreach Center Inc., located in Fayetteville. Trinity Christian School, which has received nearly $1 million in publicly-funded school vouchers since 2014, is under the Truth Outreach Center’s umbrella, according to the Fayetteville Observer.

“The funds that Vandevender is accused of embezzling over a seven year period are allegedly taken from employee withholding tax money that was to go to the N.C. Department of Revenue.

“Vandevender “aided and abetted the corporation to embezzle, misapply, and convert to its own use $388,422.68 in North Carolina Withholding Tax,” according to the Department of Revenue’s press release.

“It’s unknown whether or not federal tax funds that the organization is supposed to withhold from employee paychecks and submit to the federal government were also misappropriated.”

Wagner attempted to get a copy of the school’s financial audits but discovered that the law requires audits but does not require that audits be made public.

Sweet deal. But not for taxpayers.

Hope Betsy DeVos goes to visit Trinity Christian to show the nation how vouchers are working out.

Categories Accountability, Fraud, North Carolina, Privatization, Vouchers

Bob Braun: Do Public School Advocates Have the Will to Save Their Schools?

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2017 //
15

Bob Braun was a star investigative reporter in New Jersey. Now he is retire and blogs about the misdeeds and antics and corruption in his state. He is deeply knowledgeable about education.

In this post, he wonders whether the allies of public education have the guts and the will to save their public schools from predators.

Here he reports on a conference of public school advocates in New Jersey and warns against collaborating with those who want to destroy what you value. You cannot find common ground with vandals.

He writes:

“It’s not as if the problems aren’t known. Bruce Baker, the Rutgers professor who is probably the smartest and most cutting critic of state educational policy, warned both about the regressive nature of school funding under Christie–and the growing acceptance of the segregating effects of charter schools, privately-operated, public-funded schools that help frightened parents run away from public schools.

“We’ve lost momentum on the idea that pubic schools should be inclusive,” he said. “They”–the critics of public schools–“are making the opposite argument and they are winning.”

In short, the fundamental idea that public schools are and should be engines of equality and diversity is losing support.

And how will it be restored? Baker and others–including Theresa Luhm of the Education Law Center (ELC)–were not hopeful. No, it’s not that they were pessimistic–they were all hopeful the last eight years of Christie’s contempt for public education could be reversed. But they also warned that any effort to rewrite school funding laws were inherently dangerous because they invited political interference in the pursuit of true equity. Better to leave well enough alone and tinker with the edges.

Like Phil Murphy’s expected candidacy, this is simply not enough. Something akin to a political tsunami has occurred that is about to wash away public education as we know it and something more than the restoration of the Bourbons to public education is needed.

Participants in the conference danced around the danger of charters–but they are starving public schools. Yet even charter critics like Mark Weber–better known as the blogger Jersey Jazzman–offered palliatives when, in fact, bulldozers are needed. Charters suspend and expel 20 to 30 times more students than do public schools, a good way of enhancing their student test results, and such behavior raises serious moral as well as political issues.

Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education.

Mary Bennett, a former Newark high school principal, spoke about governance–specifically the return of local control to the Newark schools. But she neglected to mention that the path to local control was impeded, not by the will of the Newark people willing to fight for their schools, but by the unfortunate deal cut between Christie and Mayor Ras Baraka to end criticism of Christie’s policies in the city, including the vast expansion–doubling in ten years–of charter school enrollment.

Baraka, in short, impeded the pace of a return to local control and now takes credit for expediting it. The dangers public schools face now cannot allow such delusional political thinking–the enemies in Washington are too real and too powerful.

In the audience, Newark activist Roberto Cabanas pointed out the obvious: If the people of Newark just waited out Christie’s term, local control would be returned in 2018 when he leaves–even if Baraka had lost to pro-charter Shavar Jeffries in the 2014 mayoral contest. All the marches and rallies and speeches were pretty much useless.

“We could have done nothing and achieved the same result,” he said.

Don’t forget these were the activists, the advocates, the good guys, at the conference. But they argued against tinkering with the school aid formula, wrung their hands about seeking an end to charter schools completely, held out little hope about seriously integrating the public schools of the state, and believed that a mayor who hires school board members really means it when he talks about independent public education.

Even if Phil Murphy is elected, public education in New Jersey–and throughout the nation–is in serious trouble.

It is underfunded.

It is racially segregated.

It is in danger of being swept away by charters.

Its employees are demoralized.

It has been targeted for destruction by a national administration unlike any other in the history of the republic.

In short, without aggressive action to restore the promise of public education, it will continue to lose support among those who will turn to nuts like Trump and DeVos to find answers in alternatives like vouchers, private schooling, and home-schooling.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Home Schooling, Privatization, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Donald Trump on Education: An Official Transcript of His Listening Tour

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
22

Here is the official transcript issued by the White House of Trump’s “listening tour.” Note how he gushes over every parent or teacher not in a public school and how quickly he breezes past a Teacher of special education in a public school. He seems to promise near the end to reduce the rate of autism. He says he visited an amazing charter school in Las Vegas but clearly doesn’t know that most of the charter schools in Nevada are failing schools.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 14, 2017
Remarks by President Trump at Parent-Teacher Conference Listening Session

Roosevelt Room

10:50 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I am delighted to welcome everybody to the White House. And Betsy DeVos, who has gone through — our new Education Secretary — she went through an interesting moment. And you’re going to do a fantastic job, and I know you would have done it again if you had to do it again, right? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY DEVOS: Probably.

THE PRESIDENT: She had no doubt that final night, waiting for the vote. So I just want to congratulate you. You showed toughness and genius.

As I said many times in my campaign, we want every child in America to have the opportunity to climb the ladder to success. I want every child also to have a safe community, and we’re going to do that very much. We’re going to be helping you a lot — a great school and some day to get a really well-paying job or better, or better; own their own company. And a lot of people are looking at that.

But it all begins with education, and that’s why we’re here this morning. And I’m here also to celebrate a little bit with Betsy because we started this journey a long time ago, having to do with change and so many other good things with education. And I’m so happy that that all worked out.

Right now, too many of our children don’t have the opportunity to get that education that we all talk about. Millions of poor, disadvantaged students are trapped in failing schools and this crisis — and it really is a crisis — of education and communities working together but not working out. And we’re going to change it around, especially for the African American communities. It’s been very, very tough and unfair. And I know that’s a priority and it’s a certainly a priority of mine.

That’s why I want every single disadvantaged child in America, no matter what their background or where they live, to have a choice about where they go to school. And it’s worked out so well in some communities where it’s been properly run and properly done. And it’s a terrific thing.

Charter schools, in particular, have demonstrated amazing gains and results. And you look at the results — we have cases in New York City that have been amazing in providing education to disadvantaged children and the success of so many different schools that I can name throughout the country that I got to see during the campaign. I went to one in Las Vegas; it was the most unbelievable thing you’ve ever seen. And they’ve done a fantastic job.

So there are many such schools and we want to do that on a large-scale basis. We can never lose sight of the connection between education and jobs. I’m bringing a lot of jobs back. We’re bringing a lot of big plants back into the country — everyone said it was impossible. And before I even took office, we started the process and tremendous numbers of plants are coming back into this country — car plants and other plants. And I have meetings next week with four or five different companies, big ones that are going to bring massive numbers of jobs back.

So we’re doing it from the jobs standpoint, but education only makes it better. Our goal is a clear and very safe community, great schools, and we want those jobs that are high-paying jobs — we’ve lost a lot of our best jobs to other countries and we’re going to bring them back.

So I’m going to do my job, and Betsy, at the education level, will do her job. And just to do it very, very formally, I want to congratulate you on having gone through a very tough trial and a very unfair trial, and you won. And there’s something very nice about that. And I’ll tell you the real winner will be the children — I guess a couple of adults (inaudible) — but will be the children of this country. And I just want to congratulate you.

SECRETARY DEVOS: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we’ll go around the room. And everybody knows our fantastic Vice President, Mike Pence. But if we went around the room, it would be very nice. So why don’t we start? Betsy, you might want to say a few words to us.

SECRETARY DEVOS: Well, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, I am just very honored to have the opportunity to serve America’s students, and I’m really excited to be here today with parents and educators representing traditional public schools, charter public schools, homeschools, private schools, a range of choices. And we’re eager to listen and learn from you your ideas for how we can ensure that all of our kids have an equal opportunity for a high-quality, great education and therefore an opportunity for the future.

So again, I just wanted to have the opportunity to serve, and looking forward to fulfilling the mission that you set forward.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s our honor — believe me, Betsy.

Kenneth.

MR. SMITH: Ken Smith, educator helping at-risk kids get through school. Vice President, it actually has the largest application of jobs for America’s graduates in the country. And in a minute we’ll talk about that as a solution.

THE PRESIDENT: Great. Good.

Laura.

MS. PARRISH: Laura Parrish, I’m from Falls Church, Virginia. I homeschool my 10- and my 13-year-old.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Very good.

Mary.

MS. RINER: My name is Mary. I’m a charter school parent here in D.C., and considered the best school in America.

THE PRESIDENT: You think, huh? (Laughter.)

MS. RINER: I know.

THE PRESIDENT: I like that.

MS. RINER: According to U.S. News & World Report.

THE PRESIDENT: Really? Is that right? Wow.

Jennifer.

MS. COLEMAN: I am Jennifer Coleman. I am from Prince William County, Virginia. I am the mother of six, and I homeschool my oldest four; they are grades kindergarten through seven. And before that I was a private school teacher.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good.

MR. CIRENZA: Bartholomew Cirenza. I’m a parent of seven, and my kids have gone through both private and public school, and I see differences, and —

THE PRESIDENT: Big difference.

MR. CIRENZA: Big difference.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

MS. BAUMANN: Good morning, I’m Julie. I teach special education at a public school in New Jersey.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.

MS. QUENNVILLE: Hi, I’m Jane Quennville, and I’m a principal of a special-ed center in Virginia serving children ages five through twenty-two with autism and physical and medically fragile conditions.

THE PRESIDENT: How is that going?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Well —

THE PRESIDENT: Have you seen an increase in the autism with the children?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, yes. In fact, our school has shifted its population — saw more children with autism, definitely.

THE PRESIDENT: So what’s going on with autism? When you look at the tremendous increases, really, it’s such an incredible — it’s like really a horrible thing to watch, the tremendous amount of increase. Do you have any idea? And you’re seeing it in the school?

MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, I think — I mean, I think the statistics, I believe, are 1 in 66, 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with autism.

THE PRESIDENT: And now it’s going to be even lower —

MS. QUENNVILLE: Probably.

THE PRESIDENT: — which is just amazing. Well, maybe we can do something.

MS. BONILLA: I am Carol Bonilla. I teach Spanish in a private elementary school in Arlington. I teach the students in fourth through eighth grade.

THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.

MS. VIANA: Good morning, Mr. Vice President, Mr. President. My name is Aimee Viana. I’m the parent of two children — fifth grade and second grade — and I live right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina in Cary, and I’m also a former educator in public and private schools.

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you. So thank you all very much. Let’s get going.

END
10:58 P.M. EST

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Home Schooling, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »