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National Charter School Conference Honors Its Heroes

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2019 //
71

One of our readers and frequent commenters—Joe Nathan— was elected to the Charter School Hall of Fame and will be honored at the National Charter Schools Conference. Joe helped to write the first charter law in the nation in Minnesota. He and Ted Kolderie ensured that charters would be deregulated and would not confirm to Albert Shanker’s template on unionized schools approved only by local school districts. Joe continues to insist that charters are “progressive,” even though their most important funders are the Walton Family Foundation (which funds Joe) and their biggest cheerleaders are the rightwing ALEC and Betsy DeVos.

Charters are in the midst of an existential crisis right now after years of boasting about unlimited growth. That growth has stalled, as Democrats distance themselves from charters. A backlash against charters and privatization is in full swing.

Part of that backlash stems from the daily drumbeat of charter scandals, especially the recent indictment of 11 people connected to an $80 million scam in California.

Here is the program of the National Charter Schools Conference.

NCSC will honor not only Joe, but Ferdinand Zulueta, who runs one of the largest for-profit charter chains in Florida, called Academica. The Zulueta Family has amassed a real estate fortune of more than $100 million, thanks to their business acumen and public funds.
National Charter Schools Conference

We are bummed you couldn’t make it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little taste of Vegas during the 2019 National Charter Schools Conference (NCSC19)! We will be livestreaming all general sessions and happenings on the Charter Talks stage.

Tune in on our Facebook page for these sessions:

Monday, July 1

Opening General Session (9:30-10:30 a.m. PT): We’re thrilled to welcome back Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, back to the main stage at NCSC19! National Alliance President & CEO Nina Rees will kick-off and lead the first plenary session of NCSC19 with her annual State of the Movement address encouraging us all to share our stories.

And, finally, don’t miss a special guest introduce one of the 2019 Charter School Hall of Fame inductees, Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica!

Charter Talks (11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT): Back for a third year, presenters will share a 15-minute compelling presentation that shares a big idea, is a tech demo, delves into an issue, or shares a small idea with a big impact. These Charter Talks pack a punch, so come ready to learn a lot in a small amount of time from interactive, engaging presenters!

  • 11:15 a.m. The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation – Cara Stillings Candal, Pioneer Institute
  • 11:30 a.m. The Life and Times of an Independent Charter School Operator – India Ford, T-Squared Honors Academy
  • 11:45 a.m. College for All: A Personal Odyssey – Robert Lane, Southland College Prep HS

Recording of The 8 Black Hands Podcast (3-4:30 p.m. PT): For the first time ever, we will have a live recording of two podcasts on-site, starting with The 8 Black Hands Podcast. The podcast from four black men (Ray Ankrum, Charles Cole, Sharif El-Mekki, and Chris Stewart) engages in passionate discussions about educating Black minds in a country that has perpetually failed them. Don’t miss the live recording of this powerful podcast!

Tuesday, July 2

Recording of Academica Media’s Charter School Superstars Podcast (10 a.m.-12 p.m. PT): The second live podcast recording at NCSC19 will feature a Q&A session with big players in the charter school movement on the Academic Media podcast.

Unleashing Opportunity and Creativity with Computer Science (12:15-1 p.m. PT): Hadi Partovi, founder of Code.org and creator of the global Hour of Code campaign, talks about the importance of teaching computer science as part of the core academic curriculum in grades K-12, introducing creativity to the classroom, approaches to diversity in computer science, and implementation challenges in schools.

Second General Session and Charter School Rally (3:15-4:30 p.m. PT): The National Alliance is pleased to have Hadi Partovi as our keynote speaker during Tuesday’s general session. Romy Drucker, deputy director of K-12 Education at the Walton Family Foundation and co-founder of The 74, will also give remarks. The General Session will close with a Charter Schools Rally encouraging us all to speak up on behalf of the nation’s 3.2 million charter school students, led by Dr. Howard Fuller, Institute for the Transformation of Learning; Keri Rodrigues, Massachusetts Parents United; and Myrna Casterjón, California Charter Schools Association.

Wednesday, July 3

Closing Session (9-10 a.m. PT): During the closing session of NCSC19, we will be recognizing two more 2019 Charter School Hall of Fame inductees: Joe Nathan, Ph.D., director of the Center for School Change, and Dr. Margaret Fortune, president and CEO of Fortune School. Clifton Taulbert, president of the Freemount Corporation and author of Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, will be delivering our last keynote session of NCSC19 with his talk on the charter of community—a fitting end to the conference. Kendall Massett, executive director of Delaware Charter School Network and vice chair of the State Leaders Council, will lead the final session.

Don’t forget to follow the conversation throughout the conference on Twitter with #NCSC19!

 

While technology is great, everything is so much better in person—and you can still register onsite at Mandalay Bay. We’d love to have you!

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools   1425 K Street  Suite 900  Washington,  DC   20005   USA
Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Deregulation, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Walton Foundation

How Walton Money Influences Charter School Debate

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2019 //
11

 

This article was published in the Detroit Free Press on a day when not many people were paying attention, December 25, 2018, but it should have been national news.

The Waltons, heirs to the anti-union Walmart empire, have been investing in black organizations to spread their views about charter schools.

The fact that the NAACP and Black Lives Matter have stood up to the bully billionaire behemoth and demanded a moratorium on charters is astounding and a great credit to their integrity.

It begins:

Amid fierce debate over whether charter schools are good for black students, the heirs to the Walmart company fortune have been working to make inroads with advocates and influential leaders in the black community.

The Walton family, as one of the leading supporters of America’s charter school movement, is spreading its financial support to prominent and like-minded black leaders, from grassroots groups focused on education to mainstream national organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, according to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings and nonprofit grants data.

Here is the most astonishingly hypocritical statement in the article:

“Those closest to the challenge often have the best solution,” Marc Sternberg, who leads the Walton Family Foundation’s education efforts, said in a prepared statement.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Maurice Cunningham: When “Parent Groups” Are Funded by the Walton Billionaires

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2019 //
12

 

In my new book, Slaying Goliath, I focus on heroes of the Resistance. One of them is Professor Maurice Cunningham of the University of Massachusetts. He is a professor of politics and a blogger who believes in “follow the money.” His relentless pursuit of Dark Money in the Massachusetts charter referendum of 2016 (where voters overwhelmingly rejected charter expansion) led to the demise of the billionaire-funded front group called “Families for Excellent Schools.” It so happened that the “families” were billionaires who never set foot in a public school and never will.

In this post, Cunningham describes his fruitless effort to get a media outlet to acknowledge that the “parent group” it featured was Walton-funded.

Back on June 10 Masslive.com ran an editorial titled Meet the Newest Education Union: Parents which turned out not to be about education or unions at all but about the WalMart-heir front Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas.  Helpful as always I sent an op-ed to Masslive setting the record straight but they paid no attention. Oh well. You can read the op-ed below.

It surprises me how little most media care about writing the basic facts about corporate “education reform” groups like MPU of AK, which would be non-existent without the millions of dollars poured in by the Waltons. The editorial board can take any position on issues they wish but it doesn’t excuse them from not informing their readers about who is funding and thus controlling the privatization fronts. Are they just not curious? I can’t imagine the motto “We don’t ask too many questions” would look good on the masthead. Is “follow the money” an elective in journalism school that got axed due to budget cuts?  Is it not news that state education policy is being hijacked by family of billionaires? Is it still not news that the billionaires are from Arkansas?

If you’re from western Massachusetts, ask Masslive yourself, and feel free to pass along my Letter to Massachusetts Education Reporters which has six reasons why reporters should report on who is behind front groups with tantalizing names like Massachusetts Parents United, Educators for Excellence, and Democrats for Education Reform.

Cunningham says “Dark Money never sleeps.”

Any Group funded by the Waltons or other billionaires is by definition “inauthentic.”

Cunningham hates hypocrisy.

So do I.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Hypocrisy, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

What?! Washington State Charters Closing One After Another

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2019 //
20

Only Bill Gates knows how many millions he has poured into getting charters authorized and funded by the state in Washington State. There have been four referendums, the last one in 2012, which passed by about one percent, over the opposition of civil rights groups, unions, and PTAs. Gates and friends (Jeff Bezos’ parents, Waltons, and assorted billionaires) outspent the grassroots groups by several multiples, and at last Gates got charters past the voters. Then the Washington State Supreme Court said that charters are not public schools as defined in the state constitution, so Gates’s friends, led by Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children of Oregon, funded an effort to defeat the naughty justices at the next election. Happily, they were re-elected.

But Gates would not give up. He went to the Legislature and persuaded his friends to fund the charters with lottery money. The Governor Jay Inslee dared not stand up to the richest man in the state, and he neither signed nor vetoed the legislation, allowing it to become law.

When civilrights groups sued, because the charter schools were back to the public trough, the Supreme Court decided not to alienate the multibillionaire Gates again, and they decided to let the charters have lottery money.

Voila! Gates had charters and public money to pay for them.

But oh no, they are struggling, despite the fact that Gates handed out millions more to lure charter operators to open schools.

The Charter-friendly Seattle Times reports:

Two charter schools — one in Kent and another in Tacoma — will shut down at the end of this academic year, bringing the total number of closures to four since the publicly funded but privately run schools first opened in Washington state five years ago.

The board of directors for Green Dot Public Schools voted Thursday to shut down the two schools, which they oversee: Excel Public Charter School in Kent and Destiny Middle School in Tacoma. The Washington State Charter Association, in a news release, attributed the closures to dwindling enrollment.

The news comes five months after Soar Academy in Tacoma announced that it would close at the end of this school year. The school cited financial constraints.

“Both of these schools (in Kent and Tacoma) experienced significant struggles tied closely to low student enrollment and related operational challenges,” the charter-schools group said in its release.

The Kent and Tacoma schools received a charter, or contract, from the state to enroll up to 600 students. But enrollment data from Green Dot show the Kent campus reached a peak enrollment of  188 as of October 2018. In Tacoma, Destiny reached a peak enrollment of 281 during the 2017-18 school year but tumbled to 162 students as of October.

Across Washington, a dozen charter schools enroll about 3,300 students — a fraction of the 1.1 million students enrolled in public schools statewide.

Figure it out. What did Gates and spend? How many millions to ensure that 3,300 students could attend charters?

When CREDO evaluated the tiny number of charters, it concluded that on average they were no better or worse than public schools.

The findings of this study show that on average, charter students in Washington State experience annual growth in reading and math that is on par with the educational gains of their matched peers who enroll in the traditional public schools (TPS) the charter school students would otherwise have attended. 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Walton Foundation, Washington State

Little Rock: Please Don’t Destroy Our Public Schools and Our Children

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
4

Dr. Anika Whitfield, an education activist in LittleRock, Arkansas, wrote an open letter to State Commissioner Johnny Key and the members of the Arkansas State Board of Education. She appeals to their humanity, forgetting for the moment that the state of Arkansas is owned by the Walton Family Foundation:

 

Mr. Key and the Members of the AR State Board of Education,

Students, families, schools, and neighborhoods in the LRSD community are experiencing almost indescribable losses. 
 
We have witnessed significant losses of students to charter and other school districts during your watch, as we have seen many school closures and observed more funding and attention being given to growing charter schools, primarily in and around the LR community.  
 
We have also witnessed an untold account of the number of students who have been transitioned from the LRSD into a prison pipeline. And, to be clear, most of these students are disproportionately African American, Latinx, and students from low income homes and communities. 
 
We know that many of these actions have not occurred haphazardly, unintentionally, nor unnoticed by most, if not all of you.
 
We appeal to your humanity and the spirit in which your position holds, to represent all children and all public schools in our state with equity and without discrimination.  
 
We appeal to you even moreso as your more recent role has been to oversee directly the LRSD since taking over our public school district, January 28, 2019, to provide all of our students with access to meaningful resources and support in order to experience a world class public education.
 
We rightfully hold you accountable for the losses mentioned above.  And, we consider these to be failures as a result of your actions or inactions. 
 
We appeal to you, as you prepare to return the LRSD to the community of LR and to a democratically elected, local, representative board of directors, to provide and allocate the necessary resources to ensure that every Elementary school has a qualified, certified, school counselor that will well serve the students and schools in which they are hired, without demonstrating discrimination and without oppressing the students in which they are agreeing to serve.
 
Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.
 
Sincerely, 
Rev./Dr. Anika T. Whitfield
Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Inequity, Injustice, Little Rock, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Mercedes Schneider: The Walton Foundation Funds a New “Grassroots” Initiative

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
24

 

Mercedes Schneider discovers that a prominent reformer has a new career. Hanna Skandera was State Commissioner of Education in New Mexico, where she tried to impose the “Florida Model of Mediocrity.” She fought with the state’s teachers for seven years and accomplished nothing. New Mexico remained at the bottom of NAEP, as one of the poorest states in the nation. Her goal of raising test scores flopped.

Schneider performs her wizardry of financial investigation.

It is impressive to see how many Astro-turf Disrupters have signed on to give the impression of a crowded room.

But bear in mind, as yet another bunch of organizations pop up, that the whole Disruption machine is spinning in circles. It has accomplished nothing other than Disruption, and is like an automobile with a full gas tank—refueled over and over by the Waltons—driving round and round and round, going nowhere, but kept in motion solely by the money that fuels it.

 

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Hoax, Walton Foundation

Hillary Clinton Advisor: No Regrets About Our Support for Charter Schools!

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2019 //
84

Catherine Brown was a senior advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign. She has long been associated with the neoliberal Center for American Progress. She also worked for former Congressman George Miller, who was a favorite of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), the hedge fund managers’ charter-promoting organization.

In this article, published fittingly enough at Campbell Brown’s website The 74, Brown says she has no regrets about supporting charter schools. She defends Beto O’Rourke, whose wife is deeply enmeshed in charter schools in Texas, and who has expressed his admiration for privately managed charters in the past.

Curiously, she feels no embarrassment about embracing a “reform” that destabilizes public schools and that is endorsed by every Red State governor and legislature.

She doesn’t seem to care about the fiscal impact of charters on the public schools that enroll 85-90% of the nation’s students. Why does she prioritize charters over public schools?

It is interesting that she does not address the recent NPE report demonstrating that the federal Charter Schools Program wasted nearly $1 billion between the years 2006-2014 (during the Obama administration) on charter schools that never opened or closed soon after opening. About 1 of every 3 charters funded by the federal program failed.

Nor does she address the daily reports of charter fraud, waste, abuse, and embezzlement.

Nor does Brown mention that 90% of the charters across the nation are non-union.

Nor that their biggest single private funder is the anti-union Walton Foundation.

Oh, no, she favors “high-quality” charter schools, you know, the ones that cherry pick the highest scoring students and post high test scores due to their admissions and discipline policies.

This article is a strong statement of the neoliberal Democrat view of charters, which has helped to defund public schools and undermine teacher unions across the country.

The overlap between the views of Betsy DeVos and neoliberal Democrats is hard to miss.

Note to the Center for American Progress:

Progressive Democrats support real public schools. Progressive Democrats do not support privately managed charter schools. Progressive Democrats do not support a sector that was built to smash teachers’ unions and that is 90% non-union. Progressive Democrats support democratically controlled public schools. 

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Funding, Walton Foundation

Waltons Fund “National Parents Union” to Advocate for Privatization

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2019 //
20

 

Maurice Cunningham, a dogged investigator of Dark Money, has discovered a shell operation funded by the multibillionaire Walton family. 

It is called the “National Patents Union,” and its goal is to defund public schools and transfer public money to private hands.

Its leader Keri Rodriguez led the effort in Massachusetts to raise the cap on charter schools in 2016. The referendum would have allowed a dozen new charters every year forever, located wherever they chose. The vote went overwhelmingly against the charter proposition.

But wherever there is money, there are people ready to pick up the banner of privatization. And the Waltons, whose fortune exceeds $150 Billion, have plenty to spend in their quest to destroy public schools.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization, School Choice, Walton Foundation

Mercedes Schneider: An Innovative “Reformer” Idea: A Return to Segregated Black Schools

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2019 //
25

 

Mercedes Schneider writes here about a peculiar development that is percolating among “reformer” groups: Bring back racial segregation!

While civil rights groups are concerned about the alarming increase in racial segregation in recent years, about the retreat of federal courts from enforcing desegregation decrees, and about the role of “school choice” in promoting segregation, a few leading figures in the “Reform” movement have decided to embrace segregation.

At a recent convening of Global Silicon Valley (GSV) at Arizona State University (ASU), “Reformers” offered a panel discussion titled: “No Struggle, No Progress: An Argument for a Return to Black Schools.”

The panel was moderated by school choice advocate Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform; its leadoff speaker was Howard Fuller, who has received millions of dollars from rightwing foundations to promote school choice among African Americans.

Schneider writes: The panel description reads like, “Since racial separation and hate crimes abound, let’s just go with it.”

School choice has predictably led to every kind of segregation–by race, religion, ethnicity, and social class, not only in the U.S., but in other nations that have adopted school choice.

Fuller’s organization, the Black Alliance for Educational Options, was the recipient of grants from the pro-voucher, rightwing Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation. BAEO was a good gig while it lasted–its revenues ranged from $2 million to $8.5 million a year. Fuller and BAEO carried the gospel of school choice to black communities, especially in the South. BAEO closed its doors at the end of 2017; the rich white philanthropists must have decided to shift their resources elsewhere.

In 2011, Schneider points out, Fuller won an award established in John Walton’s name to honor “champions of school choice,” presented at the national convention of Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children.

Rucker Johnson of Berkeley has written about the substantial and lasting advantages conferred by attending integrated schools. His latest book, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, co-authored by journalist Alexander Nazaryan, explains why school integration was a great success, and why we must not abandon it.

I would pay to watch a debate between Howard Fuller, the well-funded advocate of a return to segregation, and Rucker Johnson, whose research demonstrates the value of school integration.

Fuller has become the black voice of separatism and segregation, a line that seems to resonate with wealthy white conservatives and philanthropists like Betsy DeVos, the Bradley Foundation, and the Waltons.

Powerful rightwing foundations like Bradley and Walton generously funded Fuller’s advocacy.

Did he use them or did they use him?

Categories Billionaires, Civil Rights, Education Reform, Philanthropy, Segregation, Walton Foundation

Arkansas: Why Do Republicans Hate Local Control?

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2019 //
14

 

Republicans were once the party that advocated for local control of schools. No longer. Now they support state takeovers. This is the Big Bad Wolf technique.  State Control makes it easier to privatize public schools. No need to listen to parents or communities. No raucous school board meetings. No democracy. State control of schools is autocracy in action.

In Arkansas, a state that is almost wholly owned by one wealthy family, the Little Rock School District wastaken over by the state because six of its 48 schools had low test scores. A Democrat proposedto End State Control after five years. That bill failed. A Republican state legislator has proposed to extend state control to nine years.

The Republican legislator puts the onus on the district for failing to improve while it is under state control. This is whacky. If the district hasn’t improved under state control, it’s the state that has failed, not the district. Why punish the district for the state’s failure? Why not hold the state accountable?

This report was published by the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, without a link.

 

“BY CATHY FRYE
“LITTLE ROCK –  Senator Kim Hammer, R-District 33, on Monday filed a bill that would allow the Arkansas Department of Education and State Board of Education to retain control of public school districts for up to nine years.
”SB668 accomplishes this by letting the State Board grant two 24-month extensions if a district that has been under state control for five years still isn’t meeting expectations.
“The bill appears to be a response to Senator Will Bond’s failed legislation that would have required ADE and the State Board to return school districts to local control within five years of a takeover.
“Bond, D-District 32, testified last week in the Senate Education Committee that the bill would apply to any and all school districts taken over by the state.
“Current law states: “If the public school district has not demonstrated to the State Board and the Department of Education that the public school district meets the criteria to exit Level 5-Intensive Support within five years of the assumption of authority shall annex, consolidate or reconstitute the public school district…”
“Bond’s bill, SB553, proposed another option – returning a district to local control as long as it met certain criteria.
“At that committee meeting, ADE Commissioner Johnny Key contended that approval of the legislation would create an uncertain situation where “we’re back to not knowing,” adding that in the case of the Little Rock School District, which is approaching the 5th anniversary of its takeover, “the exit criteria was recently communicated.”
“Per Bond’s bill, the State Board would be able to return a school district to local control if the following criteria were met:
  • “The public school district has adopted a plan to correct the issue or issues that caused the classification of the public school district as being in need of Level 5-Intensive support; and
  • “All public schools within the public school district that is classified as being in need of Level 5 – Intensive support are making demonstrable progress towards the removal of the Level 5-Intensive support classification; or
  • “The number of public schools that are classified as in need of Level 5 – Intensive support within a public school district has increased while under the authority of the state board.”
“The bill further states: “The state board may promulgate rules to establish regarding the criteria by which a public school district may exit Level 5-Intensive support as established under subdivision (c)(2) of this section.”
“In closing for his bill, Bond asked committee members to think about how their school districts would feel about remaining under state control for more than five years. This isn’t just about Little Rock, he said.
“In the end, the bill failed.
“Hammer’s bill has been referred to the Senate Education Committee and could run as soon as Wednesday. The committee meets at 10 a.m. in Room 207. An agenda has not yet been posted.
“Hammer’s bill still offers the State Board the options of annexation, consolidation or reconstitution of school districts. At the end of five years, the State Board could consider those choices or extend the state takeover by another 24 months. When the two-year extension ends, the bill states, the board would then be allowed to grant a second two-year extension.”
Senator Kim Hammer hates democracy and local control. 
From Wikipedia:

Kim David Hammer is a Missionary Baptist pastor and hospice chaplain in Benton, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 28 in Saline County near the capital city of Little Rock.

Bentonville is the home base of the Waltons, where most of them attended and graduated from the local PUBLIC schools. The Waltons, having benefitted from their good public education, are now using their multi billion dollar ($150 billion) to destroy public schools across the nation. Ingrates.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Little Rock, Privatization, Republicans, Walton Foundation
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