Oklahoma: Gov. Stitt Gave Federal $$ to Parents to Buy School Supplies, But Some Bought TVs, Xmas Trees, Game Consoles

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2022 //
18

Governor Stitt had a libertarian theory. If you give out government money to families for education, they know what’s best. Turns out, some do and some don’t.

Jennifer Palmer of Oklahoma Watch and The Frontier wrote:

Just get the money to families. That was the driving force behind Gov. Kevin Stitt’s plan for $18 million in U.S. Department of Education relief dollars intended to help students during the coronavirus pandemic.

Other states used federal money to train new teachers or support programs for deaf and blind students. But in Oklahoma, a history teacher with political ambitions helped a Florida tech company win a no-bid state contract to rapidly distribute $8 million to families with little government oversight. Another $10 million went to private school vouchers.

With few guardrails, some families used Oklahoma’s share of federal Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Funds to buy Christmas trees, gaming consoles, electric fireplaces and outdoor grills, an investigation by Oklahoma Watch and The Frontier has found.

Months later the teacher, Ryan Walters, was on a national stage as Stitt’s new Secretary of Education, calling the effort a success.

Oklahoma’s contract with the Florida-based software company ClassWallet allowed families to quickly purchase educational supplies online through grants funded with federal relief money through the Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet program. At a virtual conference for a national school reform group in 2020, Walters touted the Bridge the Gap program as a model for how to start a school voucher program with “minimum staffing requirements and maximum quality control.”

“We didn’t have the government agency personnel with the background experience to do this and, quite frankly, we felt like there could be a more efficient way to do this outside our government agencies,” Walters said.

From the start, the strategy led to a lack of oversight on purchases, possibly violating the terms of the federal grant and state purchasing requirements, according to federal regulators.

While most parents spent the money on educational supplies, Oklahoma Watchand The Frontier found nearly half a million dollars in questionable purchases. The news organizations found at least 548 TVs purchased through ClassWallet worth $191,000.

Families also bought pressure washers, car stereo equipment, coffee makers, exercise gear and smart watches.

Isn’t a power washer a school supply?

Categories Accountability, Funding, Oklahoma

Dana Milbank: Disney Should Leave Florida and DeSantis Should Create His Own Theme Park of White Supremacy

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2022 //
22

Ever since Governor Ron DeSantis punished the Disney Corporation for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, I’ve been wishing that the Magic Kingdom would pull up stakes and move to another state. It’s one of Florida’s biggest employers and attracts millions of tourists every year. Surely it would be welcome in any other state, especially one that does not insult and humiliate any of its employees.

Turns out that Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank had the same idea.

He wrote:

Mickey Mouse needs a sanctuary city.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Hades) got his state legislature this week to abolish the favorable tax arrangement that brought Disney World to Orlando and kept it there for 55 years. It’s the latest salvo against corporate America from the Trump right, which has already threatened Twitter, Facebook, Citigroup and Delta Air Lines. But now they’re canceling Mickey and Minnie? That’s just Goofy…

Suddenly, sad times are upon the Happiest Place on Earth. Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, has promised to “grant Mickey and Minnie full asylum in Colorado” and offered Disney a “Mountain Disneyland” retreat from “Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector.” Many Disney fans online are urging Disney World to leave Florida.

Of course, you can’t just put a resort with six theme parks and two dozen or so hotels on a magic carpet ride to, say, New Jersey. (As it is, central Floridians could be stuck with more than $1 billion in debt and a massive property-tax increase because of DeSantis’s anti-Disney vendetta.) But Disney is the place where dreams come true, and mine is that the whole of Disney World, which employs roughly 80,000 Floridians and attracts tens of millions of tourists every year, will take the second star to the right and straight on till morning — and abandon Florida entirely.
DeSantis would be left with a 25,000-acre house of horrors in Orlando: an abandoned resort in a state nobody wants to visit, thanks to Ron’s Runaway Railway.

His “don’t say gay” legislation makes Florida unwelcoming to LGBTQ people. His voter-suppression laws and race-baiting attacks on teaching history and race make Florida hostile to Black, Latino and Asian Americans. Rising antisemitism (Florida’s most famous resident just had a film screening at Mar-a-Lago characterized by antisemitic swipes at Mark Zuckerberg) gives Jews pause about the state. DeSantis’s MAGA-signaling anti-immigrant and antiabortion laws repel more large swaths of the population. His banning of math textbooks should send educated Floridians packing. His opposition to Medicaid expansion and Florida’s excessive covid-19 death rate over the past year have sent many Floridians to the morgue.


Soon, there won’t be much of a constituency left. As J.D. Vance, a Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, put it in a just-released private message from 2016, “We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING.” So offer them a theme park! Rename Disney World’s ruins DeSanty World.

DeSanty World would make the Carousel of Progress turn in reverse, reimagining the Disney classics to suit its growing audience of Snow White nationalists. Pinocchio would dream of becoming not a “real boy” but a Proud Boy. Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepmother, would become the heroine of Cinderella, championing parental rights. Bambi would be seen from the hunters’ point of view. Aladdin’s new soundtrack would warn of “A Whole New World Order,” and Mulan would be reviled for spreading the coronavirus. Brave Frollo would fight valiantly to free France of minority groups and the disabled. And all would cheer for QAnon’s own Captain Hook as he battles to prevent villainous Peter Pan from grooming the Lost Boys.

Some attractions would require only minor changes. The Barnstormer roller coaster (“a staggering series of stupendous stunts”) would be dedicated to DeSantis instead of Goofy. The Mad Tea Party and Festival of Fantasy Parade could pretty much stay as they are, and the Hall of Presidents would just be dispossessed of its 46th inductee. DeSanty World would build a wall around the Alien Swirling Saucers. And, because of the park’s new open-carry gun policy, the whole thing would become a Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade.

DeSanty World would surely sack the China Pavilion at Epcot and its planned film “Wondrous China.” This would be replaced by a Covid Theater (no masks allowed!). A new 101 Dalmatians Dog Whistle attraction would feature DeSantis, who said, when he had a Black opponent in 2018, “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up.” The existing Under the Sea Journey of the Little Mermaid would be repurposed to promote offshore oil. The Frozen Ever After boat ride would refute the climate change hoax. Splash Mountain, already getting re-themed around “The Princess and the Frog,” would now swap the evil voodoo practitioner Dr. Facilier with the more evil Dr. Fauci.

A thoroughly remodeled Tower of Terror would have the MAGA faithful screaming as Ursula lures them into gender reassignment surgery, Maleficent tries to enchant them with universal health care, and the demons Pain and Panic attempt to vaccinate them.

Then, after all but the QAnon faithful had self-deported from DeSanty World, the few remaining stragglers would sing as one: It’s a small world after all.

Categories Bias, Censorship, Florida, Freedom, Ignorance, Injustice

New Business Offers Advice (for a Price) from Jeb Bush Acolytes

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2022 //
6

Mercedes Schneider describes a new consulting team that is selling its services to states and districts. Most of its partners are protégés of Jeb Bush and learned his strategies of high-stakes testing, school choice, test-based accountability, and harsh treatment of teachers.

She writes:

Need help with your public or private business venture? Well, NY- and DC-based Ridge-Lane Limited Partners (LP) offers “venture development at the apex of public and private sector…”

Schneider reviews the bios of the firm’s principal actors, which are not reassuring.

She writes:

So, if you want to dip into some of this Ridge-Lane LP K12 “significant experience” (not in the classroom, mind you, but in Jeb Bush reforms, such as school grading, and Common Core, and PARCC, and pension funneling), then get your (or the taxpayer’s) proverbial checkbook ready so that these once state-ed superintendents can spin an income advising you out of those edu-dollars.

The Boss of bosses

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Closing schools, Competition, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Advice from a Teacher: How to Avoid Burnout

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2022 //
27

Mamie Krupczak Allegretti is a regular reader and commenter to the blog. She wrote the following comment, which is good advice from a veteran to new and experienced teachers.

Anytime a person is burned out, demoralized and ready to quit his/her job, something is wrong. It’s not just that something is wrong with the way the institution is run (which there are many), but there can also be something wrong with the way the person is approaching the job.

Many teachers have what I call “Mamma bird syndrome.” They spend they time driving themselves into the ground giving and giving until they are exhausted. People commend them for outstanding work but inside they are tired and resentful.

If you want to be a teacher, it doesn’t seem that the craziness of the institution is going to change anytime soon. So if you really want to teach, you have to find ways to protect yourself, conserve and pace your energy, and lead a balanced life.

There are 3 rules to live by:

1. let go,

2. learn to say “no,” and

3. prioritize what you value.

What I am really getting at here is learning to create boundaries for yourself. Let go of things and situations over which you have no control and are not in your job description. Sure, there are days when you may be able to do more, but monitor yourself and your energy. Learn the boundaries of your energy and then decide what you are willing to give.

Learn to say no to extra duties and requests. Prioritize what you value. If you value excellent lesson plans, put your energy into that. But know that if you try to do it all, something will give and it will most likely be your health – mental and/or physical.

Your school day ends at a certain time. Keep to that time. If you have to work at home, set a boundary of say 45 minutes. You need to remember that this is a job and you need to have a life outside of school.

It sounds hard-nosed to say that, but it is the truth. If they had their way, the school district would want you to work 24/7. So it’s up to you, the teacher, to set boundaries. Teacher duties have increased over time because teachers have accepted them.

But think about it. Would you ask your doctor or lawyer to do things that were outside his or her job? We now want teachers to be parents, friends, therapists, mentors, counselors, mental health experts, financial helpers, etc. to students.

So, I’m not saying that teachers should never go above and beyond at times but when fatigue, resentment and a desire to flee show up, something in yourself needs to change. I think these are the biggest lessons young teachers (and even old) have to learn.

Categories Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Texas: Gov. Abbott Wants to Revoke State’s Obligation to Educate All Children, Taking Aim at Children of Immigrants

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2022 //
121

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott is in a competition with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to see who is meanest. He wants to relitigate a 1982 Supreme Court decision that requires the state to provide a free public education to all children, especially the children of undocumented persons.

In the wake of the leaked Roe decision, he assumes the Court might agree with him that children whose parents are not here legally have no right to be educated at public expense.

In a conversation with a conservative talk-show host, Abbott expressed his desire to stop funding the education of these children.

Here’s the exchange in full:

Talk show host:

“We’re talking about public tax dollars, public property tax dollars going to fund these schools to teach children who are 5, 6, 7, 10 years old, who don’t even have remedial English skills,” Pagliarulo said. “This is a real burden on communities. What can you do about that?”

Governor Abbott:

“The challenges put on our public systems is extraordinary,” Abbott said in reply. “Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program, in a case called Plyler versus Doe. And the Supreme Court ruled against us on the issue about denying, or let’s say Texas having to bear that burden. I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler versus Doe was issued many decades ago.”

Governor Abbott would like to have many thousands of children in the state who are illiterate. No doubt he would also like to deny them access to any healthcare or other public services.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Funding, Texas

Love the Unborn, Neglect the Born

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2022 //
117

Caitlin Huey-Burns writes for CBS News that the states most likely to ban abortion are the states LEAST likely to provide resources for children. Their politicians love the unborn. The born and living, not so much.

The expectation that Supreme Court is about to scrap decades of federal protections of abortion rights is highlighting another issue: the lack of resources and support available for women to have and raise children.

More women living in states without abortion access, should Roe v. Wade be overturned, will likely carry to term. Yet, not one of the two dozen states with laws on the books restricting abortion access offers paid family leave.

Eight of them have opted out of expanding Medicaid coverage under the health care law, which covers pregnancy through postpartum for low-income Americans.

And Mississippi, whose abortion restriction law is at the heart of an impending Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ranks as the state with the highest rate of young child poverty and low birth weight and among the highest when it comes to infant mortality rates.

It is also ironic that the states with the most horrible history of racism are likely to see an increase in their black population, since impoverished black women are not likely to have the money to travel to a state where abortion is protected by law. Over many years, the black population in Mississippi may grow large enough to demand a change in the political order.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Evil, Mississippi, Poverty, Shame

Economic Policy Institute: The Case for Raising Teachers’ Pay and Ending Staff Shortages

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2022 //
19

Teachers are receiving apples, donuts, and lovely notes to thank them for their service. But that’s not enough. Many states are reporting severe shortages of teachers and support staff. This means larger class sizes and curtailed curricula. This means denial of a good education to millions of children.

The Economic Policy Institute lays out the problems and the solution in this post: Raise wages.

It begins:

A 2022 report reviews EPI research on teacher pay and presents the evidence showing that K–12 schools are facing a staffing crisis. The pandemic made clear that our economy cannot function if schools don’t have the staff they need to operate safely and effectively.

Policymakers need to invest in K–12 education now, the report’s authors emphasize. They can start by tapping into hundreds of billions of dollars of available federal COVID relief funds. Read the report.

Key takeaways

  • Since the beginning of the pandemic, state and local public education employment fell by nearly 5% overall, with much larger declines in some states, according to establishment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Household survey data indicate that the number of employed public K–12 teachers fell by 6.8%, school bus drivers by 14.7%, school custodians by 6.0%, and teaching assistants by 2.6%.
  • COVID concerns are likely a factor in nonteacher staff shortages. Education support staff tend to be older—and thus more at risk of severe COVID—than the average U.S. worker. Less than a third (31.6%) of U.S. workers overall are age 50 or older, compared with 66.2% of bus drivers, 55.4% of custodians, and 50.4% of food service workers in the K–12 public education workforce.
  • Low pay is a long-standing issue for support staff. From 2014 to 2019, the median weekly wage (in 2020$) for food service workers in K–12 education was $331, while school bus drivers received $493 and teaching assistants $507. In contrast, the median U.S. worker earned $790 per week.
  • Inadequate pay is a long-standing issue for teachers. Past EPI research shows that public K–12 school teachers are paid 19.2% less than similar workers in other occupations.
  • Policymakers should tap into the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal COVID relief funds available now to raise pay for education staff, enact strong COVID protections, invest in teacher development programs, and experiment with ways to support part-time and part-year staff when school is not in session. They also need to plan for sustainable long-term investments in the K–12 public education workforce.
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers

Virginia: New Secretary of Education Says Top Goal Is Job Readiness

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2022 //
10

Virginia’s new education leader avoids the press and the public, but she is accessible to rightwing think tanks. She recently spoke at the American Engerprise Institute, where she outlined her goal for the state’s students: job readiness. Aimee Guidera comes from the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign. She did not speak about preparing students for citizenship in a democracy. She did not speak about imbuing students with a love of learning. She focused only on meeting the needs of employers.

Virginia NPR reported on her appearance:

Virginia’s top education official says the state is “resting on our laurels” when it comes to educating public school students.

In a forum hosted by a conservative think tank last month, Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said her top goal is preparing students for the job market.

“We are reorienting everything to how is education geared towards preparing people for the jobs of today and of tomorrow,” she said.

Guidera has kept a low profile since Gov. Glenn Youngkin named her to be Virginia’s education secretary in December. But in a forum hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, Guidera laid out her plans in more detail.

The former CEO of the Data Quality Campaign, an education reform group, pushed back on claims the administration was attempting to censor history. She said her team would push past “culture wars,” which Youngkin’s critics say were fermented by the governor.

Instead, she said she plans on focusing on meeting three “benchmarks”: creating students that are ready for “family-supporting jobs” and who are civically engaged, recruiting and retaining employers attracted by the commonwealth’s talent pool and growing the state economy.

Categories Accountability, Curriculum, Data, Economy, Education Industry, Real Education, Virginia

North Carolina: State Auditor Faults Charter School for Inflating Enrollment, Misusing State $$$

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2022 //
1

The NC Pulse reports that another charter school in North Carolina bit the dust under a cloud of financial improprieties.

Office of the State Auditor found that Bridges Academy in Wilkes County falsified student enrollment records, misused charter school money to support a preschool and failed to submit required tax forms in 2019.

State Auditor Beth Wood released the audit of the K-8 school on Wednesday. The school relinquished its charter last summer amid allegations of financial irregularities and what its own board of directors described as “insurmountable financial challenges.”

The state auditor will turn her office’s findings over to the District Attorney’s Office in Prosecutorial District 34. The district includes all of Alleghany, Ashe, Wilkes and Yadkin counties. The findings will also be shared with the Internal Revenue Service and the North Carolina Department of Revenue.

The audit shows that for the 2020-21 school year, Bridges Academy’s director and finance officer falsified student enrollment records by reporting 72 students who were not enrolled in the schools.

The two admitted that they began inflating enrollment eight years earlier, mainly in early grades to avoid detection. Students in grades K-2 aren’t required to take state tests and don’t show up on testing rosters…

Bridges Academy was also found to have used $78,576 in state money intended for the charter school to support the operations of a preschool, despite charging tuition for children to attend the preschool.

“The charter school funding provided by DPI was intended for the education of kindergarten through eighth grade students,” the audit said. “However, at least $78,576 of the funding was used for the operation of the preschool to close the gap between the revenues and expenses.”

In 2019 and 2020, Bridges also failed to report nearly $500,000 in payments to the director, instructional and support staff, the audit found.

That means the IRS likely collected fewer taxes from the organization than was owed…

Here are key recommendations made by the Office of the State Auditor:

  • DPI should seek repayment of $404,971 from Bridges Academy, or the Receiver, for the state funds received as a result of the falsified student enrollment records.
  • DPI should consider reviewing the enrollment history of Bridges Academy and determine if the school received funding for falsified students in previous years.
  • DPI should seek repayment of $78,576 from Bridges Academy, or the Receiver, for state charter school funds that were utilized to support the preschool.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, North Carolina, Scandal

David R. Taylor: “Anti-Abortion” Is Not “Pro-Life”

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2022 //
2

Retired Texas educator David R. Taylor reminds his readers that to be anti-abortion is not the same thing as being pro-life.

Those who are actually pro-life treasure each child after they are born by making sure they have good nutrition, good healthcare, good public schools, and a secure home.

In Texas, the anti-abortion forces lose interest in children as soon as they are born.

The Governor, Greg Abbott, the Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the two senators demonstrated after the Uvalde massacre of School children that they were sorry as could be, offered lots of thoughts and prayers to bereaved families, but would do nothing whatever to restrict the sale or possession of military-grade weapons to civilians. The 18-year-old killer in Uvalde bought two AR15s on his 18th birthday. The AR15 is not for hunting. It’s for killing. Anyone who enables killers to have easy access to military-style weapons is not pro-life. They are pro-death.

Categories Childhood, Early Childhood Education, Equity, Health, Justice, Love
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