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Michael Kohlhaas: The California Charter School Association’s Secret, Reprehensible Goals

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2019 //
11

Last June, blogger Michael Kohlhaas received a huge trove of documents from the Green Dot Charter Chain in response to his request filed under the state’s Public Record Act. He has been reviewing these documents and releasing them.

In this post, he summarizes a Powerpoint presentation (and provides a link to the actual document) in which the California Charter Schools Association lays out its goals.

He headlines the post:

A SECRET POWERPOINT FROM THE CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION REVEALS 2019 LOBBYING PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIES — IN PARTICULAR THEY CONSIDER POSITIONING THEMSELVES AS CHAMPIONS OF EQUITY AND EQUALITY BUT WORRY THAT THEIR SUPPORTERS MIGHT SEE THAT AS “MISSION CREEP” — THEY CONSIDER SUPPORTING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY SCHOOLS BUT WORRY THAT SUCH A POSITION MIGHT ALIENATE THE “CHOICE WING” OF THEIR BASE — THEY LIST AMONG THE GREATEST THREATS THE BARE POSSIBILITY THAT CHARTER SCHOOLS MIGHT BE REQUIRED TO EARTHQUAKE PROOF THEIR BUILDINGS TO THE SAME STANDARD AS PUBLIC SCHOOLS — IN SHORT THIS IS A SEETHING STEW OF PRIVILEGE — AND ARROGANCE — AND CLUELESS SELF-EXPOSURE — IN OTHER WORDS MORE OF THE DAMN SAME STUFF!…

If you want to understand this powerful lobbying group, which spends millions of dollars every year to protect the charter industry and to block accountability and transparency, you have to read the post.

He adds:

As you must know by now the California Charter School Association is the premiere wingnut loony tunes mouth-frothing privatization advocacy organization in the state. And we’ve been learning an unprecedentedly awful1 lot about them since June due to a huge set of records2 released by Green Dot Charter Schools in response to a request I made of them under the California Public Records Act.

These records are so rich, so complex, so voluminous, that it’s taking me freaking forever to go through them, sort them, write about them, and I’m therefore laying them on you in increments. And the increment at hand is this powerpoint presentation, created by the CCSA in August 2018 to explain the next year’s goals and fears to their members. I have also exported this as a PDF for ease of use.3There are also JPEGs of the slides at the end of the post if that’s better.

And my goodness, what a revealing heap of steaming and pernicious arrogance we have here. Under recent wins, for instance, we learn that the CCSA “Conditioned Legislature to defeat a half dozen harmful policy and budget proposals in preparation for less reliable Executive branch.” That’s the California Charter School Association right there telling how they “conditioned” the Legislature in preparation for Gavin “Less Reliable than Jerry Brown” Newsom’s ascension to the throne.

And further down the line we learn the assumptions behind CCSA’s policymaking agenda for 2019, probably actually for always, but I don’t (yet) have the evidence. And again, what’s revealed is appalling but not surprising. For instance they pledge that “CCSA will seek compromise on legislation that minimally constrains flexibility but only in exchange for new entitlements.” This item casts the CCSA’s support of SB126, which makes it exceedingly clear that charters are subject to both the CPRA and the Brown Act, in an interesting light.

Perhaps in 2018 they thought that this new law only “minimally constrain[ed] flexibility” and that they were going to get a bunch of goodies in return. But I’m willing to bet they’re rethinking that concession now given that the fruits of a single CPRA request have subjected them to months of pain-writhing exposure, some scathing articles in the Los Angeles Times, and may ultimately end the career of theirmanchild knight in shining hair product, Nick Melvoin.

And their listing of what they see as the greatest threats against them for 2019 is very instructive as well. I’m not up on the details enough to comment on all of these but the ones I do understand are as appalling as the rest of it.

If you thought that the CCSA was discussing how to improve education for all of the state’s children, you would be wrong. Their discussion is about power and protecting the self-interest of their industry.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Note to the National NAACP: Ignore Michael Bloomberg

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2019 //
25

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg spoke to the national convention of the NAACP about why they should believe in the saving power of privately managed charter schools. He tried to persuade them to rescind their brave 2016 resolution calling for a moratorium on new charters.

This thoughtful report explains why the NAACP called for a moratorium. 

The NAACP deserves our thanks for its resolution and should not back down from its principles, which represent the views of its members, based on hearings in seven cities and long, careful deliberations.

The major conclusions of its resolution:

We are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter schools at least until such time as:

(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools
(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system
(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and
(4) Charter schools cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.

Historically the NAACP has been in strong support of public education and has denounced movements toward privatization that divert public funds to support non-public school choices.

“We are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools,” Chairman Brock said. “Our decision today is driven by a long held principle and policy of the NAACP that high quality, free, public education should be afforded to all children.”

Unlike the NAACP, Bloomberg believes in charter schools, along with other billionaires, including the Waltons, the Koch brothers, and the DeVos family. He has funded rightwing candidates across the nation to promote charters; he has also funded candidates who favor vouchers, such as a hard-right school board in Douglas County, Colorado, and in Louisiana, where one of his protégés, State Superintendent John White, is a strong voucher supporter.

Speaking recently to the NAACP, Bloomberg boasted about dramatic gains for black and Hispanic students during his 12 years in office. While he was in office, he boasted that he had cut the achievement gap between black and whites students in half. At his recent speech to the NAACP, he said he reduced it by 20 percent. Neither claim is true. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gap between blacks and whites on eighth grade mathematics was 36 points in 2003 (when he began his education policies) and 38 points in 2013 (the end of his mayoralty). On the NAEP test of eighth grade reading, the gap was 25 points in 2003, 22 points in 2013, but jumped to 29 points in 2015. If he succeeded in reducing the gap, it should have been on a steady downward trajectory. It was not, and it was certainly not cut by 50 percent or 20 percent.

Bloomberg did not mention to the NAACP the many selective high schools he opened whose admission requirements narrowed opportunities for black and brown students (an article in Chalkbeat in 2016 referred to “staggering academic segregation” in the city’s high schools, noting that “over half the students who took and passed the eighth-grade state math exam in 2015 wound up clustered in less than 8 percent of city high schools. The same was true for those who passed the English exam.”

Nor did he did mention the ongoing decline in the number of black and Hispanic students who qualified for the city’s most selective high schools on his watch. The city’s most selective high school, Stuyvesant, has 3,300 students; only 29 are black. Of the 895 offered admission to Stuyvesant this fall, only 7 are black. The decline did not start with Bloomberg, but his policies accelerated the trend of declining enrollment of black and Hispanic students in the elite high schools. He even added more elite high schools. Worse, he raised the entry standards for the gifted programs in the elementary schools that prepare students to apply for the selective high schools, a move that was devastating to black and Hispanic students.

In 2007, Bloomberg’s Department of Education decided to raise the score needed to get into a gifted program, a decision that dramatically reduced the number of black and Hispanic students qualified to enter these programs. Chancellor Joel Klein announced that the city intended to standardize admissions to gifted and talented programs across the city. In the future, Klein said, only those who scored in the top 5% on a standardized test would be admitted. Up until that time, local districts made their own decisions about admissions to gifted programs. Local districts objected to Klein’s new policy, and educators and parents warned that the high cut score would disadvantage black and Hispanic children.

Klein and Bloomberg didn’t listen.

They were wrong.

By 2008, before the program launched, Klein eased the 95% cutoff, lowering it to 90%. Nonetheless, the proportion of minority students who enrolled in gifted and talented programs plummeted.

When New York City set a uniform threshold for admission to public school gifted programs last fall, it was a crucial step in a prolonged effort to equalize access to programs that critics complained were dominated by white middle-class children whose parents knew how to navigate the system.

The move was controversial, with experts warning that standardized tests given to young children were heavily influenced by their upbringing and preschool education, and therefore biased toward the affluent.

Now, an analysis by The New York Times shows that under the new policy, children from the city’s poorest districts were offered a smaller percentage than last year of the entry-grade gifted slots in elementary schools. Children in the city’s wealthiest districts captured a greater share of the slots.

The disparity is so stark that some gifted programs opened by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in an effort to increase opportunities in poor and predominantly minority districts will not fill new classes next year. In three districts, there were too few qualifiers to fill a single class.

The new policy relied on a blunt cutoff score on two standardized tests. According to the analysis, 39.2 percent of the students who made the cutoff live in the four wealthiest districts, covering the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Staten Island and northeast Queens. That is up from 24.9 percent last year, even though those districts make up 14.2 percent of citywide enrollment in the entry-level grades: kindergarten or first grade, depending on the district.

The total enrollment in gifted classes was not only whiter and more Asian, but the total enrollment was cut in half.

The number of children entering New York City public school gifted programs dropped by half this year from last under a new policy intended to equalize access, with 28 schools lacking enough students to open planned gifted classes, and 13 others proceeding with fewer than a dozen children.

The policy, which based admission on a citywide cutoff score on two standardized tests, also failed to diversify the historically coveted classes, according to a New York Times analysis of new Education Department data.

In a school system in which 17 percent of kindergartners and first graders are white, 48 percent of this year’s new gifted students are white, compared with 33 percent of elementary students admitted to the programs under previous entrance policies. The percentage of Asians is also higher, while those of blacks and Hispanics are lower.

Faced with the fact that the standardized test with a high cut score was excluding black and brown children and shuttering G&T programs in poor communities, the Bloomberg administration did not change the policy.

The policies that Bloomberg put in place continue to determine entrance to gifted and talented programs. For savvy white parents, a place in a G&T program is highly coveted because it promises small classes, smart peers, and special treatment. Getting into one of those programs is very difficult, even for savvy white and Asian parents. Many parents invest in tutoring and test prep to get their four-year-olds and five-year-olds ready for the crucial entry test.

At present, the citywide gifted programs are accepting only students who score at the 99th percentile or higher! The more demand, the fewer places and the higher the cutoff score.

Black and brown students are nearly 70 percent of the public school enrollment, but win only 27 percent of the seats in gifted programs. So much for Bloomberg’s plan to expand opportunities!

To understand the nightmare that Bloomberg and Klein foisted on the city’s children, read Josh Greenman’s recent account of his family’s experience. Josh is on the editorial board of The New York Daily News, which is very pro-charter and pro-testing.

He writes:

How does the process work? Four-year-olds take a nationally normed standardized test (actually, two tests, the NNAT and the OLSAT, which are supposed to measure reasoning ability and general intellectual aptitude). No bubble sheets: It’s administered in person by an adult. Those above 90th percentile qualify for district programs. Those above 97th percentile qualify for citywide programs.

Those are the technical qualification thresholds. In practice, you need a 99 to qualify for a citywide school and usually something like a 95 to qualify for a districtwide program, though it depends on the district.

Once you get in the door as a kindergartener, you stay in the school or program through fifth grade (in the case of district programs) or eighth or 12th (in the case of citywide schools).

If this strikes you as kind of nuts, well, that’s because it is: A test taken on one day as a 4-year-old, a test for which your parents can prepare you, can put you on one track, separate and apart from your peers, for your whole K-12 education.

The citywide schools are coveted. They have excellent reputations and are by most objective measures very good schools. Of course they’d be, as the kids only get in through an intense filter, essentially ensuring engaged parents and high test scores.

They also, surprise surprise, have few black and Latino students and fewer low-income kids than the citywide average…

Why the hell should kindergarteners, first graders, second graders and so on have separate programs in district schools, much less separate citywide schools? Isn’t this part of a big underlying problem, letting (mostly) whites opt out of the common public system?

It’s a very fair question…

Would we consider it a victory if eliminating those programs resulted in a public school system that’s now 70% black and Latino 80% or 90% black and Latino?

Of course, that outcome depends upon what individual parents do, including how they respond to having their kids, who they often consider advanced, taught in general education classrooms.

But my head hurts when I start to think through how unfair the process is, at least in New York City, for plucking young kids out of general-ed classrooms. I’m also cognizant of how doing that intensifies racial and ethnic and income segregation, and related resentments. And of the negative effect of draining a small number of “chosen” kids, who tend to have intensely engaged parents with extra time and money on their hands from those classrooms.

Josh’s daughter made it into a local G&T program. He recognizes the trade offs. He understands that the G&T programs keep white and Asian families in the city and the public schools.

But that was not the rationale in 2007. The rationale was that having a standardized test with a citywide cut score, the same in every district, would expand opportunities for black and Hispanic students. Bloomberg and Klein said that tightening the admissions requirements would increase diversity! Anyone familiar with education policy and practice could have told Bloomberg and Klein that a single high standard on standardized tests would have a dramatically negative effect on children of color. At the time, they tried to tell them. But they were arrogant and they never listened to anyone outside their corporate MBA (masters of business administration) circle.

Here is a parent who warned them in 2007 that basing admissions to the gifted programs would be a disaster and would increase segregation and decrease opportunity for the children who need it most.

Bloomberg was a great mayor on matters involving public health and the environment.

But on education, he surrounded himself with businessmen and corporate types, and he took their bad advice about the virtues of high-stakes testing, standardization, privatization, letter grades for schools, and “creative disruption.” Bloomberg should not be boasting to the NAACP now about his non-existent accomplishments. And the NAACP should not listen to Bloomberg, no matter how much money he offers them.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, New York City, Privatization

Jitu Brown: “We Call for a Moratorium on School Privatization Now!”

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2018 //
8

Watch this powerful 2-minute video, in which civil rights leader Jitu Brown tells the dramatic story of the Dyett hunger strike in Chicago, which lasted 34 days and compelled the city to keep Dyett open and invest $16 Million in the new Dyett.

Jitu Brown leads the Journey for Justice, which is leading a national campaign to stop school closings, privatization, and charter schools. They are fighting to create thousands of community schools.

This video was created by videographers Michael Elliot and Kemala Karmen. It was funded by the Network for Public Education.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Civil Rights, Closing schools, Courage, Education Industry, Equity, Justice, Privatization

Gary Rubinstein: Will Reformer Michael Johnston Please Stop Boasting About His “Miracle ” School?

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
22

Gary Rubinstein knows Michael Johnston from his days in Teach for America. He wishes Mike would stop telling tall tales about the school he briefly ran.

Mike said that the school he ran had a 100% graduation rate and college acceptance rate. Gary points out that 44 seniors graduated and got accepted to college, but there were 73 students in tenth grade two years earlier. That’s a 60% graduation rate, not 100%.

Now Mike Johnston is running for Governor of Colorado. He has built a reputation in the state as an education “reformer.” After graduating from Yale, he taught in Mississippi as a member of Teach for America, earned a degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, then a law degree, then was principal of a small school in Colorado where he claimed the school had a graduation rate of 100% and all were accepted into college. Based on this record, he ran for and was elected to the State Senate at the age of 35.

I met Mike Johnston in 2010, when I visited Denver to talk about my then-new book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” I was scheduled to debate Johnston at a luncheon before about 100 of Denver’s civic leaders. At the very moment I was in Denver, the Legislature was debating Johnston’s legislation to evaluate teachers and principals by the test scores of their students. Johnston called his law, SB 10-191, the “Great Teachers, Great Principals Act.” It required that test scores would count for 50% of every teacher and principal’s evaluation.

On the day we were to debate, Johnston was late. I spoke. Minutes later, Johnston arrived, not having heard anything I said about choice and testing. He spoke with great excitement about how his new legislation would weed out all the bad and ineffective teachers in the state and would lead to a new era of great teachers, great principals, and great schools.

Johnston, as Gary Rubinstein points out, is very much an Obama Democrat. Arne Duncan, whose Race to the Top squandered $5 Billion, has endorsed Johnston’s candidacy for governor.

Seven years later, even Colorado reformers acknowledge that Mike Johnston’s grandiose promises fell flat. In an article in Education Week, Colorado reformer Van Schoales admitted that the punitive SB 10-191 didn’t have much, if any effect.

He wrote:

“Implementation did not live up to the promises.

“Colorado Department of Education data released in February show that the distribution of teacher effectiveness in the state looks much as it did before passage of the bill. Eighty-eight percent of Colorado teachers were rated effective or highly effective, 4 percent were partially effective, 7.8 percent of teachers were not rated, and less than 1 percent were deemed ineffective. In other words, we leveraged everything we could and not only didn’t advance teacher effectiveness, we created a massive bureaucracy and alienated many in the field.

“What happened?

“It was wrong to force everyone in a state to have one ‘best’ evaluation system.”

“First, the data. We built a policy on growth data that only partially existed. The majority of teachers teach in states’ untested subject areas. This meant processes for measuring student growth outside of literacy or math were often thoughtlessly slapped together to meet the new evaluation law. For example, some elementary school art-teacher evaluations were linked to student performance on multiple-choice district art tests, while Spanish-teacher evaluations were tied to how the school did on the state’s math and literacy tests. Even for those who teach the grades and subjects with state tests, some debate remains on how much growth should be weighted for high-stakes decisions on teacher ratings. And we knew that few teachers accepted having their evaluations heavily weighted on student growth.

“Second, there has been little embrace of the state’s new teacher-evaluation system even from administrators frustrated with the former system. There were exceptions, namely the districts of Denver and Harrison, which had far fewer highly effective teachers than elsewhere in the state. Both districts invested time and resources in the development of a system that more accurately reflects a teacher’s impact on student learning. Yet most Colorado districts were forced to create new evaluation systems in alignment with the new law or adopt the state system, and most did the latter. This meant that these districts focused on compliance (and checking off evaluation boxes), rather than using the law to support teacher improvement.

“Third, we continue to have a leadership problem. Research shows that teacher evaluators are still not likely to give direct and honest feedback to teachers. A Brown University study on teacher evaluators in these new systems shows that the evaluators are three times more likely to rate teachers higher than they should be rated. This is a problem of school and district culture, not a fault with the evaluation rubric.

“Fourth, all of Colorado’s 238 charter schools waived out of the system.

“We wanted a new system to help professionalize teaching and address the real disparities in teacher quality. Instead, we got an 18-page state rubric and 345-page user guide for teacher evaluation.

“We didn’t understand how most school systems would respond to these teacher-evaluation laws. We failed to track implementation and didn’t check our assumptions along the way.”

Unfortunately, when the time came to change the law, Sen. Mike Johnston joined with five Republicans on the State Senate Education Committee to defeat a proposal to fix his failed law.

The rejected proposal, “originally introduced with bipartisan sponsorship, would have allowed school districts to drop the use of student academic growth data in teacher evaluations. It also would have eliminated the annual evaluation requirement for effective and highly effective teachers.”

But Johnston preferred to keep his law in place, despite its failure. It remains today as the most regressive teacher evaluation law in the nation. And it has had seven years to demonstrate its ineffectiveness.

Gary Rubinstein calls on Mike Johnston to stop making the false claim in his campaign literature that his high school’s graduation rate was 100%.

I call on him to renounce and denounce SB 10-191.

Make a clean break of it, Mike. Set things right. Show you are man enough to admit you were wrong.

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, High School Graduation, Teach for America, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM

California Legislators and Governor Brown: No Accountability for Charters

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2016 //
32

Jessica Calefati of the San Jose Mercury-News wrote a shocking series about the online charter schools of K12 Inc., which have the lowest graduation rate in the state, and which counts students “present” if they log on for only one minute.

Millions of public dollars fund the California Virtual Academies (CAVA), which operates for profit and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, founded by Michael and Lowell Milken, delivers a substandard education. It should be closely supervised or shut down.

Unfortunately, as Calefati discovered, the legislature is moving at a snail’s pace to authorize an audit of CAVA. Nothing seems to be happening. Much clucking of tongues, but no action.

CAVA is the lowest performing school in the state. Why hasn’t it been shut down long ago? If you recall, K12’s online charter in Tennessee was the lowest performing school in the state, and not even the State Commissioner Kevin Huffman was able to get it closed. Why?

Governor Brown likes charters. When he was mayor of Oakland, he opened two charters. The legislature has been unwilling to stand up to the rich and powerful California Charter Schools Association. CCSA should be demanding close scrutiny of CAVA, whose tactics embarrasses all charter schools. Their silence is deafening.

When the legislature dared to pass a bill banning for-profit charters, Governor Brown vetoed it. He also vetoed a bill to require charter schools to ban conflicts of interest.

So California has a greedy, rapacious charter industry, whose growth will continue unchecked until public schools enroll only students the charters don’t want. Fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter industry will grow without oversight. Conflicts of interest and nepotism will proliferate. Charters will continue to be run by entrepreneurs and speculators.

Does anyone think these developments are “reform”? From a distance, they look like graft and corruption.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Campbell Brown Takes Charge of Editorial Content at LA School Report

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2016 //
33

The LA School Report has long been a partisan supporter of charters, Deasy, Broad, and all other parts of the privatization agenda. Under a new editor, the LA School Report became a neutral source. Now that editor has announced he is leaving because the LA School Report has merged with Campbell Brown’s “The 74.” The publication was founded by Jamie Alter Lynton, sister of major ed reformer Jonathan Alter and wife of Sony executive Michael Lynton. With the Broad Foundation funding education coverage at the Los Angeles Times and “The 74” controlling the editorial views of the LA School Report, there will be a dearth of unbiased reporting in the city. This happens at the same time that Eli Broad proposes to take control of half the children in the city’s public schools. When we lose the free press, our democracy is in trouble.

 

 

 

From a long string of messages, beginning with an email written by Steve Zimmer, President of the LAUSD school board:

 

 
On 2/1/16 12:14 AM, Zimmer, Steven wrote:
Michael,

I am deeply saddened, angered and concerned.

As you know, we have often disagreed and sometimes vigorously. But through it all, you have maintained a commitment to the integrity of your profession and of the School Report. Under your leadership, the blog regained credibility and became an important element of the public’s understanding of public education in Los Angeles. It is no small thing that you gained my trust and confidence even though I knew Ms. Linton still wrote the checks that funded the publication. Our interpersonal trust, which you never once betrayed, is a testimony to your skills but more so to your person.

Much more important, you approach this work with the dignity and weight our kids, their families and their dreams demand. You always were careful to respect the teaching profession and the 80,000 public employees who put kids first every day in this district. This is not a game to you and the serious lens you applied to every story strengthened confidence in a publication that was, under Mr. Russo, little more than an amplifier for the orthodox corporate reform movement.

I thank you for your service and your efforts to bring a measure of objectivity to a press corps that now seems more intent on making news in public education than on reporting it. You do not deserve to be treated this way. Our students, their families, their teachers and their school communities deserve better.

Lastly, I ask you to consider not walking away. We cannot give up on objective coverage and analysis of public education in Los Angeles and across the country. It is no accident that Campbell Brown is coming to join Eli Broad in the effort to dismantle LAUSD and eviscerate democratically elected school boards and public sector unions across the nation. Now that the Los Angeles Times education coverage is funded by Broad, Wasserman, and Baxter and that the School Report will now be controlled by Brown and her funders, truth itself as it relates to public education in Los Angeles will be filtered through an orthodox reform lens at every turn. After the Times editorial leadership essentially told me that agenda was as important as accuracy in their coverage of the Board and of the district, I knew we were in a different place. Tonight, I understand that even more.

But being in a place and accepting that place are two different things. I hope you will engage with me and others who care about the future of public education and the future of journalism as we try to figure out what to do next. You and I both know this is way too important to do nothing.

Thank you again, my friend.

Steve

From: Michael Janofsky [mailto:michael218@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2016 11:01 PM
To: Zimmer, Steven; Haber, Shannon; Jones, Barbara A.; Holmquist, David (OGC); Ref Rodriguez; Aman, Aixle; Alex Caputo Pearl; Jason Mandell; Vladovic, Richard; Ratliff, Monica; Vizcarra, Claudia; Pollard-Terry, Gayle; Blanca Gallegos; Wells, Frank; Alberto Retana; Sara Mooney; baustin@parentsunion.org; Ama Nyamekye; Dan Chang; Vanessa Romo; Naush Boghossian; John Deasy; Mckenna, George; Garcia, Monica (Board Member); Schmerelson, Scott M.; Crain, Jefferson; Manny Rivera; Catherine Suitor; Maria Brenes; Glenn Gritzner; Jenny Hontz
Subject: A change at LA School Report

I apologize for the mass email, but it’s the best way to inform all of you a bit of news.

After 2 1/2 years as managing editor, I am no longer working for LA School Report. Its founder has merged it with reform-minded Campbell Brown’s The 74, a change that was related to me only a few days ago. As part of the new arrangement, I learned I was removed as editor, with LA School Report and The 74 installing a replacement.

In my time as editor, I’ve worked closely with many of you, and I want to say how much I’ve appreciated your professionalism, your collegiality and your willingness to help us understand contentious, controversial and complicated issues affecting LA Unified. As an editor and occasional writer who has worked only for news organizations that favor neither one side of an issue or the other, I always tried my best to steer LA School Report down the middle, keeping it as fair and neutral as possible. I know some of you might disagree, but I am proud of the work we did.

I’m especially indebted to those who were always eager to respond to our questions in a timely manner and to help us understand the issues more deeply. Thank you.

I’ve learned a great deal from all of you, and I thank you for that, as well.

I wish all of you the best.

Michael Janofsky

Categories Broad Foundation, Democracy, Los Angeles, Media

Media Flap Over Treatment of Campbell Brown

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
60

Paul Farhi, a veteran reporter at the Washington Post, wrote an article recently about Campbell Brown’s new “news site” called “The 74,” which is a vehicle for her ongoing campaign against teachers’ unions and tenure and for charters and vouchers. Brown, who has no experience as a teacher, scholar, or researcher, who attended a private high school (her own children attend a private religious school), has become the new face of the corporate reform movement since Michelle Rhee stepped out of the limelight. Last year, Farhi wrote about Brown’s transition from TV talking head to advocate for vouchers, charters, and the elimination of teacher tenure. (You will notice in the earlier article that Brown takes great umbrage to my having described her as telegenic and pretty; well, she IS telegenic and pretty, and I would be happy if anyone said that about me! I consider it a compliment.)

Farhi reports the funding behind “The 74”:

As it happens, Brown raised the funds for the Seventy Four from some of the biggest and wealthiest advocates of the restructuring that the Seventy Four appears to be espousing. The funders include the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, all of which have opposed teachers unions and supported various school-privatization initiatives. (Her co-founder, Romy Drucker, was an education adviser to billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.)

This would be just another garden-variety profile of a controversial figure, but blogger Alexander Russo blasted Farhi as biased against Brown. Although Farhi does not quote another corporate reformer, he quotes Brown herself extensively. Russo questioned Farhi’s objectivity as a journalist. He complained that there was no outside voice supporting Brown, and that Farhi ended the article with skeptical quotes from Washington insider Jack Jennings and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Russo says that Farhi should have allowed Brown to respond to the critics, and he should have found “another outside voice — a journalist, academic, or education leader of some kind — to express support” for Brown. He also wrote that “the overview was inaccurate or misleading” by stating that Brown’s views are supported by conservative politicians and business interests.

In an earlier post, Russo candidly disclosed that he had hoped to join Campbell Brown’s “team,” but didn’t make the cut:

Disclosures: This blog is funded in part by Education Post, which shares several funders with The Seventy-Four. Last summer and Fall, I spoke with Brown and others on the team about partnering with them but nothing came of it.

The curious aspect of this particular flap is that Russo’s blog is jointly funded by the American Federation of Teachers and Education Post (which is funded by the Broad Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation).

Randi Weingarten tweeted:

Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten)
7/26/15, 1:14 PM
Russo’s criticism of Farhi is off base. Farhi’s piece is smart, effective journalism: washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

Also:

Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten)
7/26/15, 3:27 PM
@alexanderrusso do u really believe Campbell Brown is no longer ideological or are u acting this way b/c of funding washingtonmonthly.com/the-grade/2015…

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Media, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Campbell Brown’s Néw Assault on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
57

Peter Greene has discovered that Campbell Brown, scourge of public schools, teachers, unions, and due process, has just created a new vehicle to advance her cause.

With funding from various billionaires who share her passion to destroy public education, she has started a new organization.

Greene writes:

“Today the Wall Street Journal is announcing that Campbell Brown is launching a new education site that “won’t shy away from advocacy.” Which is kind of like announcing that Wal-Mart is opening a new store and will not shy away from marketing or that Burger King is opening up at a new location that might sell hamburgers.

“Sadly, there are no surprises in this story. The site, called The Seventy Four in reference to the seventy-four million students in the US (and not say, the seventy-four gazillion dollars Campbell and her friends hope to make from privatizing education)….

“The new site will launch with thirteen employees and a $4 million dollar budget, courtesy of backers that include Bloomberg Philanthropies (as in former anti-public ed NY mayor Michael Bloomberg), Walton Family Foundation, Johnathan Sackler, and the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation– in other words, the usual group of charter school backers….

“As usual, I am struck by just how much money reformsters are willing to pump into the cause. I’m here with my staff of one (me) and a budget of– well, I guess you could claim that my budget today is about 75 cents because while I was sitting here working on this, I had a bagel and a cup of orange juice.

“At any rate, brace yourselves boys and girls– here comes the next wave of faux progressive teacher bashing and charter pushing by privatizers who will not rest until they’ve cracked that golden egg full of tax dollars. Because that’s the other reason they’re willing to sink $4 million into something like this– because while that may seem like a lot of money to you or me, to them it’s peanuts, an investment that they hope will pay off eventually in billions of tax dollars directed away from public education and to the private corporations that are drooling at the prospect of cashing in on education.”

Will the reformers ever learn that everything they promote has already failed? Hey, Campbell, the highest performing states on NAEP (Massachusetts, Néw Jersey, and Connecticut) have strong teachers’ unions. The highest performing districts have teacher tenure. The highest performing nations have strong PUBLIC schools, not vouchers or charters. Your children at the Heschel School will not be affected by the Common Core or high-stakes testing (I know, two of my grandchildren went there).

Campbell, please read “Reign of Error.” You are misreading the data. Test scores and graduation rates are at their highest point in history. Dropout rates are at their lowest point ever. Where scores are low, children live in poverty. Please make the war on poverty your focus and drop the war on teachers and public schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry

Oklahoma: Ousted Teacher Asks: “Which Side Are You On?”

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2022 //
24

Summer Boismier took a stand against censorship of books in her classroom. A teacher in the high school of Norman, she had been ordered to remove from her classroom any books that might violate state law HB 775. That law declares that if any educator makes part of their curriculum teachings that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex” or that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” they could be suspended or have their license removed. She said teachers were instructed to remove such books or cover them with butcher paper. She did cover them up and posted a warning not to read banned books but posted the QR code of the Brooklyn Public Library, where students can gain access to banned books. The state superintendent Ryan Walters moved to suspend her teaching license. He said, “There is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom.”

Boissier wrote the following opinion article in The Oklahoman to explain her opposition to censorship and book banning:

May 2, 2004, was a Monday. How do I know, you ask? Well, I was 15 at the time, and like most 15-year-olds, I was at school. I know, shocking! But what you might not know is that a mere 24 hours before, I had lost my father to suicide. I went to school the following day because that is where I wanted to be. That is where, in the worst moments of my life to date, I believed I’d be safe. School — specifically public school — had always been the place where I felt seen and heard and valued for who I was and, most importantly, for who I was becoming as a result. As both an educator and a public school proud Oklahoman, I want something similar for all — and I mean ALL — of my students, including the many amazing learners who often look, think, love, live and/or pray differently than I do. Every single child who walks through the doors of a public school in this state should have the opportunity to feel centered, to feel valued, to feel celebrated, to feel affirmed and sustained for who they are and for the lived experiences and diverse communities they bring to class.

Education is political, and the classroom — by extension — is a political space. Let me say it louder: Education is inherently political, but it is not automatically partisan. That would be, to use the word of the day, indoctrination. Politics encompasses the ideologies supporting a person’s daily choices, or lack thereof. Politics is power — who has it and who wants it. If knowledge is also power, then it would stand to reason that the classroom is indeed political. Who gets to learn what, from whom, and how is steeped in a political reality that Oklahomans would be foolish at best and reprehensible at worst to ignore. Laws such as House Bill 1775 fail to account for the fact that some pre-K-12 students are rarely afforded the luxury of experiencing “discomfort” only at school. When skin color and/or gender presentation is weaponized, discomfort isn’t just a poor word choice in some poorly worded legislation. It is a matter of survival.

Actions can sometimes speak louder than words; however, inaction can often speak just as loudly. Silence can even scream. There is power in what we say, but there is also power in what we don’t. What does it communicate when adults in leadership positions repeatedly and loudly target books by and about the 2SLGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, among others? Make no mistake, when students — some of whom are also members of these communities — walk into public schools, they’ll get the message loud and clear that the state sees such stories as smut and such lives as less than.

Mother of multicultural children’s literature, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, argued that stories are mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors. Stories are also telescopes and prisms and ladders. Stories are safety. Stories are possibility. Stories are connection and validation. Stories are power. And stories are political. Empathy is dangerous precisely because it takes a sledgehammer to fear. If we don’t “other” differences and hold them at arm’s length, then those driving division by justifying censorship in our schools lose the power they’ve amassed keeping Oklahomans apart.

This is not a zero-sum game. What a student gains when teachers prioritize inclusive stories in the classroom is not another’s loss. Privilege is not a euphemism for guilt; it is a means to better understand the power a person has and the ways they can use that power to uplift others. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to defend a student’s right to read, to be represented and — by extension — to simply exist. But alas, this world is as far from perfect as I am from retirement. This incessant debate over (insert whatever term best reflects your particular belief system) books is evidence enough of that.

The lives of historically marginalized people should not be up for debate, but as Michael Brown, Ariyanna Mitchell, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, David Kato and George Floyd prove, they frequently are. Their stories cannot and should not be separated from the context of their lived experiences. No story — including the ones we teach and thereby validate in our public schools — exists in a vacuum. In the same way charges of indoctrination are an insult to their critical thinking skills, Oklahoma’s students are certainly capable of speaking for themselves. For instance, one student stated, “Being an openly gay student myself, who is witnessing LGBTQ+ characters for the first time emerging in our own curriculum, gives other LGBTQ+ students and I a more elevated self-worth and pride towards our own respective identities.”

It is time to come together as Oklahomans and side with a politics of critical thinking and compassion. This November you have a choice to make for the future of our state and the state of our public schools: a politics of inclusion or exclusion. So what’s your story? What side are you on?

Categories Academic Freedom, Bias, Censorship, Courage, Democracy, Freedom

Missouri: Leaders in St. Louis County Say “No” to New Charter School

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2020 //
6

Elected officials in St. Louis County, which has no charter schools, are upset that the state legislature has voted to give them a new charter school, against their wishes. Their efforts to improve the struggling Normandy district will be undermined by the charter school. If you recall, Michael Brown (the teen who was shot and killed in Ferguson, leading to national protests), went to school in the Normandy district.

The possibility of the first public charter school opening in north St. Louis County, within the struggling Normandy school district’s borders, is being met with opposition from some local government leaders.

If approved by the Missouri State Board of Education, the Leadership School will launch in fall 2021 as the first charter school to open outside of either St. Louis or Kansas City in the two decades of the program’s existence.

Several mayors of the small towns that make up the Normandy Schools Collaborative held a press conference Thursday afternoon to voice their opposition to the new school, saying elected representation should be involved in improving the district.

“We say to anyone who wants to come into our community to help in that fight, we welcome you,” said Brian Jackson, the mayor of Beverly Hills. “But we have to say to you, not without us.”

The officials argued Normandy is turning its school system around despite inadequate resources. A charter school opening nearby will further starve the district of funding, they said.

Charter schools — which are publicly funded but run independently from elected local school boards — have opened only in St. Louis and Kansas City since their 1999 creation. They’re allowed by current state law to open outside those two cities if the school district is not fully accredited.

In another story on the same event:

 A charter school is coming to the Normandy school district next fall, despite the most organized opposition since the taxpayer-funded schools first opened 20 years ago in St. Louis.

“We reject the idea of experimenting with our educational system with our children,” said Joyce McRath, a former Normandy School Board member. “The push for charter schools rarely happens in rural communities or communities that don’t look like ours.”

Unfortunately, the Legislature is moving forward without listening to local elected officials. They will open a charter school without considering the damage it will do to the Normandy schools.

Categories Education Reform
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