Mercedes Schneider: As New Superintendent Takes Over, TFA Executives Head for the Exits

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2020 //
6

Thanks to the reporting of Mercedes Schneider, we have followed the travails of that state over several years of “reform” leadership: Republican Governor Jindal pushed charters and vouchers. Out-of-State money elected a pro-Jindal Board. That board selected John White as state superintendent. White was TFA and Broadies. He had worked for Joel Klein, then briefly ran the New Orleans Recovery School District. As Jindal’s chief school officer, he enthusiastically promoted charters and vouchers and made outlandish promises about what he would achieve. When Democrat John Bel Edwards was elected, he wanted to dump White, but didn’t have the votes on the board. White resigned earlier this year. The state board appointed Cade Brumley, a veteran Louisiana educator (surprise!).

As Schneider describes here, White’s team of inexperienced but well paid assistants, mostly TFA alums, headed for the exits.

She writes:

Brumley’s leadership hires tend to have both classroom and administrative experience related to a traditional ed career path; they tend to have roots in Louisiana, and they include women and people of color.

Furthermore, even though some of his admin hires represent ed reform, Brumley favors individuals with grounding in traditional teacher/admin training. And, keep in mind that all who accept a position in Brumley’s LDOE must be willing to work under a state superintendent to whom John White’s TFA-heavy, ed-reform leadership is submitting their resignations.

I find all of this very encouraging, indeed.

Categories Accountability, Louisiana, Teach for America

In the Public Interest: Charter Schools in Oakland Are Tapping into Coronavirus Relief Funds

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2020 //
12

The nonprofit, nonpartisan “In the Public Interest” joined forces with Parents United for Public Schools in Oakland to investigate whether charter schools in that city were double-dipping, taking public school money and also taking federal funds intended for small businesses. Their conclusion: Oakland charters have collected close to $19 million that was intended for small businesses.

Their joint report begins:

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense job loss, social isolation, and economic hardship. Despite falling short of what’s truly needed, both the federal government and state governments have provided relief through a number of programs, such as the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which is directed at small businesses in an effort to maintain employment.
Other programs have provided relief to public entities, including public schools. However, some charter schools—which are publicly funded but privately managed—have applied for and received PPP loans despite having no loss in public funding.1 This data brief examines PPP funding within the boundaries of just one public school district in California, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), and finds that Oakland’s charter schools have received a total of at least $18,909,300 in loans from the PPP.

The crisis has made clear that public schools are a critical resource for communities, providing information, technology, and food for children and families, even when school buildings are closed. The need for social distancing and sheltering in place has resulted in crisis education strategies that have left families desperate to return to regular schooling. In order to ensure some continuity of education, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an order maintaining full funding for all public schools, including charter schools, through the end of the school year.2 The order makes clear that the intended use of the continued funding includes paying school employees. This has enabled California public schools to continue to employ all staff with no reduction in state funding, while using additional funds to implement distance learning. In addition, Federal CARES Act funding has been granted to the state of California and will be distributed to all Local Education Agencies (LEAs) that apply and qualify.3 Also, the California State Legislature allocated $100,000,000 to all LEAs (including charter schools) for emergency measures needed to deal with the immediate crisis.4

Separate from state and federal aid for public education, the federal CARES Act established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in order to allow small businesses (as opposed to public agencies and schools) to maintain employment. As described
by the U.S. Small Business Administration: “The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll. SBA will forgive loans if all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities.”5 A subsequent bill extended the covered period to 24 weeks from the date of the loan’s origination, or December 31, 2020, whichever comes earlier.6

The intent of the program is clear: “With the COVID-19 emergency, many small businesses nationwide are experiencing economic hardship as a direct result of the Federal, State, and local public health measures that are being taken to minimize
the public’s exposure to the virus. These measures, some of which are government- mandated, are being implemented nationwide and include the closures of restaurants, bars, and gyms. In addition, based on the advice of public health officials, other measures, such as keeping a safe distance from others or even stay-at-home orders, are being implemented, resulting in a dramatic decrease in economic activity as the public avoids malls, retail stores, and other businesses.”7

Thus far, the PPP has been criticized for a lack of guidance and being difficult to
access for many small businesses.8 For example, Octavio Diaz, owner of the Oakland restaurant Agave Uptown, was forced in April to lay off over 60 percent of staff because the business didn’t have the financial resources to keep a full payroll.9 He’d previously reported applying for a PPP loan but was waiting for a response.10 Beninni, a men’s formalwear store in Hayward, California, was forced to close and lay off employees shortly after the area’s lockdown began.11 After waiting weeks to get an update on its PPP application, the small business finally received a loan through the program only after a reporter reached out to the lending bank for information. A May U.S. Census Bureau survey of 90,000 small businesses found that almost 40 percent had not received PPP assistance.12

While small businesses wither and die, 70% of the charter schools in Oakland have taken money from the PPP intended to help those businesses.

Please open the brief and see how charter schools are double-dipping: first, taking the money intended for public schools, then, taking the federal PPP funding intended for small businesses, even though charter schools have not lost any revenue unlike the tens of thousands of small businesses forced to close because of the pandemic.

What the charter schools have done is not illegal, but it is certainly raises ethical questions. They are taking money from the businesses that are failing and that employ the parents of their students.

As “In the Public Interest” said in a press release,

CONTACT: Jamie Horwitz 202-549-4921, jhdcpr@starpower.net & Jeremy Mohler 301-752-8413, jmohler@inthepublicinterest.org

New Report Reveals that Many of the Nation’s Charter Schools are “Double Dipping,” Taking Millions of Paycheck Protection Dollars Intended for Small Businesses and the Unemployed

Joint study by In the Public Interest and Parents United for Public Schools shows that in Oakland, Calif. alone 30 charter schools received nearly $19 million in federal PPP dollars meant for those in need, despite unchanged state public education funding.

OAKLAND – A new report released yesterday shows that millions of dollars in federal relief funds intended for those in need have been siphoned off by charter schools that have suffered no loss in state education funding while thousands of small businesses remain shuttered and their employees go without work due to the pandemic.

The report focuses on 43 charter schools located in Oakland where 70 percent of the publicly-funded but privately-managed charter schools within the boundaries of the Oakland Unified School District applied for and received federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) awards established by the federal CARES Act. Traditional public schools in Oakland and elsewhere are not eligible for PPP funding. The report, entitled Are Oakland Charter Schools Double Dipping?, was conducted by the Oakland-based Parents United for Public Schools and the nonprofit research and policy center In the Public Interest.

The findings are significant because California’s open meetings laws require board meetings and the minutes of charter schools to be made public.. In most of the country, charter school finances are less transparent, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury has refused to release the names of recipients of PPP awards. The United States has 7,000 charter schools.

“This report shows the need for more oversight and transparency in the charter school sector,” said Clare Crawford, senior policy advisor with In the Public Interest. “It’s not right for charters to act like a business on Monday and a public school on Tuesday. Having it both ways leads to double dipping and unethical raids on the public till. We deserve to have the full picture on how precious public dollars are being spent, especially now, during this time of need,” she said. “Every local public official and reporter should be asking if their charters took PPP money and how much.”

The New York Times cites the Oakland study in a story yesterday, “Charter Schools, Some With Billionaire Benefactors, Tap Coronavirus Relief,” that finds further examples of double dipping by charter schools all across the nation and documents how the charter school industry has sought federal dollars intended for private business’ struggling due to the pandemic.

Some key elements of the Parents United for Public Schools/ In the Public Interest report include:

Oakland charter schools have received a total of at least $18,909,300 in forgivable loans from the PPP.
Thirty charter schools have received PPP loans despite having no loss in public education funding.
Charter schools that received both PPP loans and CARES Act education relief funding received an average of $2,000 more per student than either Oakland Unifed School District public schools or charter schools that did not.
“It’s really concerning that so many charter schools are choosing to take these funds from local small businesses that employ Oakland families. If charter schools receive funds as a ‘public school,’ they should not then be eligible for small business loans intended to help keep families from being laid off,” said Kim Davis, a parent and co-founder of Parents United for Public Schools.

Charter schools are considered public schools under California law, as they are in many other states, yet they are also incorporated as nonprofit organizations. This has allowed them to access both public school funding and aid intended to support maintaining employment at small businesses and nonprofits.

Parents United for Public Schools is an independent, parent-led organization focused on building a strong parent voice on behalf of Oakland’s public schools. In the Public Interest is a nonprofit research and policy center that studies public goods and advocates for building popular support for public institutions that work for all of us.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization

Dana Milbank: How a Very Stable Genius Will End the Pandemic

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
60

Dana Milbank has become my favorite columnist.

I hope you can open this column from the Washington Post, because he has added links to everything, too many for me to copy by hand. Since the Washington Post, like the New York Times, is making coverage of the pandemic open access, you might be able to open it.

The title: “This Cure for the Pandemic Is the Work of a Very Stable Genius.”

Forget vaccines and treatments. The very stable genius has a foolproof cure for the pandemic.

“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” President Trump said at the White House Monday.

Precisely! And if I stop weighing myself right now, I will gain very few pounds, if any. What we don’t know cannot possibly hurt us. This is very much a part of Trump’s governing philosophy.

If he stops John Bolton’s book from being published, there will be very few damaging revelations, if any.

If his Office of Management and Budget stops releasing economic forecasts in its midyear review, the economy will have very few problems, if any.

If Trump’s Labor Department asks states to stop the release of their unemployment claims until later, there will be very few jobless people, if any.

If the administration stops the public disclosure of recipients of the Paycheck Protection Program, there will be very few cases, if any, of waste, fraud and abuse.

President George W. Bush famously advocated for testing so we could know if our children is learning. Trump takes the opposite view: If sunlight is the best disinfectant, Trump’s administration is festering. The administration literally shut down the transparency website “open.gov” and another one called “open.whitehouse.gov.” As The Post’s Juliet Eilperin reported, it removed some 40,000 data sets from data.gov in its first few months.

The head-in-sand strategy has become endemic during the pandemic. Florida fired the manager of its virus-data website after she objected to the removal of records showing people had symptoms or positive tests before the cases were announced. Georgia reorganized its data in ways that made things look better than they were. Arizona attempted to stop the running of models showing the virus spreading. And the Trump administration for several weeks blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from issuing its guidelines for reopening.

Trump has evidently decided that if enough Americans are willing to suspend disbelief, there are few problems, if any, that can’t be solved by averting the public gaze. The thinking seems to go:

If we stop government reports and websites from mentioning climate change, Earth’s temperature will increase by few degrees, if any.

If we stop releasing certain information about illegal immigrants held by police, few will be denied due process, if any.

If we stop releasing records of visitors to the White House, we will have few unsavory visitors, if any.

If we stop disclosing violations of the Animal Welfare Act, few animals will be harmed, if any.

If we stop publicizing fines for workplace-safety violations, few workers will be harmed, if any.

If we stop collecting data on pay discrimination by race and gender, few employers will discriminate, if any.

If we stop the disclosure of administration officials’ ethics waivers, we will have few conflicts of interest, if any.

The administration has likewise stopped collecting various data on energy efficiency, police weaponry, labor-law violations, lending discrimination and discrimination in school discipline.

When Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico came under scrutiny, the administration attempted to remove data showing the number of people without electricity and drinking water. Now that the administration is trying to implement a peace agreement in Afghanistan, it has stopped releasing data about insurgent attacks.

During impeachment, the White House withheld documents and witnesses from Congress, then claimed Trump couldn’t be convicted on the basis of secondhand information. The administration is still fighting, at the Supreme Court, to stop Congress from getting the grand jury material from Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The potential seems boundless. If the Trump administration stops measuring the federal debt, might it shrink? If Trump ignores the North Korean nuclear threat, might it go away? If he can stop enough people from believing the media, might the truth itself disappear?

He has, so far, gotten away with refusing to release his tax returns and refusing to provide a full accounting of his health. If he can stop Congress from seeing documents or talking to his advisers, stop inspectors general from investigating his administration and stop whistleblowers from blowing their whistles, there will be very few things Trump can’t get away with, if any.

And then comes the biggest test: If his voter-suppression efforts stop enough people from voting, there will be very few elections, if any, that he could lose.

Categories Fake, Hoax, Lies, Trump

DeVos Allows Charters to Tap into Federal $$ for Start Ups

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
13

In 1994, the Clinton administration allocated $6 million to help start charter schools, a brand-new idea that had no track record and looked promising. That money was intended for teacher-led innovative schools or mom-and-pop start ups. The federal Charter Schools Program has since grown into an annual pot of $440 million, which mostly goes to corporate charter chains like IDEA and KIPP, which are rolling in dough.

The CSP is riddled with waste, as about 1/3 of the schools that were funded with federal dollars either close soon after opening or never open at all, as studies of federal data by NPE demonstrate.

Now existing charters are getting permission From the Department of Education to tap into the funds for start ups and use it to pay off coronavirus expenses. This is a direct refutation of the purpose of the law. No such fund exists to help public schools.

By now we know that DeVos uses federal funds as she wishes. She treats the CSP as her private slush fund. She creates conditions on the coronavirus relief funds that Congress never authorized. She is out of control.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization

National Education Policy Center Interview of the Month: Yours Truly

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
2

This is a really fun interview with Chris Saldana of NEPC, in which we talk about the important education issues of our time.

I think you will enjoy it.

Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Publication Announcement

NEPC’s June Education Interview of the Month: Teacher Strikes, Philanthropy, and Public Education

KEY TAKEAWAY:

NEPC Education Interview of the Month is a great teaching resource; engaging drive-time listening; and 30 minutes of high-quality policy information for educators, community members, policymakers, and anyone interested in education.

NEPC Publication
NEPC Resources on Privatization

CONTACT:
William J. Mathis:
(802) 383-0058
wmathis@sover.net

Christopher Saldaña:
(303) 492-2566
christopher.saldana@colorado.edu
TwitterEmail Address

BOULDER, CO (June 16, 2020) – In this month’s NEPC Education Interview of the Month, NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldaña interviews Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University and the co-founder of the Network for Public Education, about her new book, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools.

In Slaying Goliath, Ravitch argues that the effect of the most recent teacher strikes was to change the narrative about K-12 public education in the United States. She explains that where educational policy had become fixed on the idea of high-stakes accountability and school choice, teacher strikes shifted the policy conversation toward reforms such as smaller classes that center on the needs of children.

Ravitch believes the teacher strikes, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have highlighted the importance of K-12 public schools and the need for adequate school funding. The importance of schools, Ravitch argues, is evidenced in the role schools and teachers have played both historically and during the pandemic, from supporting parents during distance learning to ensuring that children have adequate food and shelter during the crisis. Ravitch does caution, however, that the pandemic will open policy opportunities for advocates of privatizing public schools, particularly those interested in expanding the role of technology in classrooms.

Nevertheless, Ravitch remains hopeful that K-12 public schools will come out stronger in the aftermath of the pandemic. She encourages philanthropists to shift their priorities away from funding their agendas to funding the agenda of communities – for instance, returning the arts to schools, reducing class size, eradicating the school-to-prison pipeline, and expanding mental health resources. She also encourages federal policymakers to return educational policymaking to the principles of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, whose purpose was to provide additional resources for America’s most vulnerable children.

Categories Education Reform

Billionaire Reed Hastings Plans Luxury Resort to Train Teachers to Think Like Him

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
30

VOX reports on billionaire Reed Hastings’ grandiose plans to build a fabulous resort in Colorado for teachers, where they will learn to love charter schools, high-stakes testing, test-based accountability for teachers, and other failed reform strategies.

Hastings has $5 billion and he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, even though California has many people who are homeless and many hotbeds of racism and injustice. So, he decided to keep spending on privatization, no doubt gladdening the heart of Betsy DeVos, and high-stakes testing.

Every one of Hastings’s favorite ideas has failed but he plans to convert teachers to follow his path by immersing them in luxurious surroundings.

If only he would read SLAYING GOLIATH, he would realize that he is wasting his money and undermining an essential democratic institution, the American public school, which nearly 90% of American families choose.

Theodore Schleifer writes in VOX:

Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, is quietly building a mysterious 2,100-acre luxury retreat ranch nestled in the elk-filled foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Recode has learned.

Hastings has been one of the country’s biggest donors to the education reform movement that’s trying to reshape America’s struggling school system. And now public records reveal that Hastings is personally financing a new foundation that will operate this training ground for American public school teachers, a passion project shrouded in secrecy that will expand the billionaire’s political influence.

Hastings is one of many Silicon Valley billionaires who have deployed their fortunes in the education reform movement, which calls for a greater focus on testing, tougher accountability for teachers, and the expansion of alternative schools like charters to close America’s achievement gaps and better train its future workforce. Those tech leaders, though, have had uncertain results, with the very biggest of them — Microsoft founder Bill Gates — having admitted earlier this year that he was “not yet seeing the kind of bottom-line impact we expected.” Opponents, including teachers’ unions, charge that these reformers are blaming educators for factors beyond their control, such as poverty.

The new training center, called the Retreat Land at Lone Rock, seems to be a priority for the Netflix CEO, at least based on Hastings’s level of personal involvement: He and his wife have been visiting the area since at least 2017, when they went so far as to request a face-to-face meeting with a local fire chief at his Colorado firehouse to try and smooth over any looming permitting concerns.

Hastings, whose involvement hasn’t previously been reported, declined to comment on his plans through a spokesperson.

But public records filed with the government of Park County, Colorado, and reviewed by Recode offer a glimpse at the ambitious plans for the center, which local officials expect to open as early as March 2021.

“The proposed Conference and Retreat Facility will be run as a nonprofit institute serving the public education community’s development of teachers and leadership,” a Hastings aide says in one prospectus.

One group that is expected to use the “state-of-the-art” facility is the Pahara Institute, which operates a well-known networking group and training program for activists and teachers aligned with the education-reform movement. Hastings heavily funds and serves on the board of the Pahara Institute, which currently hosts its retreats at different locations around the country rather than at a single place.

It was Pahara that initially contacted local landowners to buy the acreage before Hastings personally stepped in and decided to do it himself, said Dave Crane, a real estate broker who did the deal and gave a tour of the property to Hastings before the firehouse meeting in 2017. Pahara’s founder serves on the board of Hastings’s new foundation as well.

Retreat Land at Lone Rock will effectively function as the grounds for leadership retreats like these for teachers, principals, and nonprofit heads, according to a person close to Hastings. It will be open to both educators at traditional district public schools and those at charter schools, a favorite cause of the Netflix founder, the person said.

The center will nevertheless extend Hastings’s influence in the American education system. Although it remains unknown whether the leaders that are brought to Lone Rock will be the key people to fix America’s schools, Hastings, a private citizen, will now have the ability to choose a few leaders who agree with him and support them with his bank account and his center, giving him an outsized voice in one of America’s most fraught public policy debates.

Overlapping groups of about 30 educators at a time from across the United States are expected to enjoy the 270-room retreat center at once, staying for four days each and playing team sports, using its classrooms, and enjoying its pristine hiking trails — “maybe with pack llamas,” says another document.

Yes, poverty is the essential problem that afflicts the lives of large numbers of children. Ignore it at your peril, Mr. Hastings. Keep pursuing your vanity projects while teachers and students cry out for smaller classes, bemoan the lack of resources, weep for the loss of the arts and play, and plead for social workers, psychologists, librarians and nurses.

Mr. Hastings, you have made a lot of money–billions–but you are a foolish man.

Just think what you might do instead: fund medical centers in schools across California; fund the arts in schools; fund libraries and librarians. There are so many ways you could bring joy to children and their families. Why don’t you do something to spread goodness instead of disruption?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization, Testing

Texas: IDEA Charter Chain Promises to Curb Its Big Spending

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2020 //
8

The IDEA charter chain has ambitious plans to expand, with the help of more than $200 million from Betsy DeVos’s charter slush fund (also known as the federal Charter Schools Program, which was created to help start-ups, not to expand corporate empires).

The IDEA profile is a business model, not a public school model. It pushes into new markets aggressively and spends lavishly on executive perks, like leasing a private jet, first class travel, self-dealing, and season tickets for sports events. And paying huge salaries to leaders. Betsy DeVos loves the model, but it didn’t play well to the public.

When the news broke about its free-spending ways, public reaction was swift and negative.

The chain, which currently operates 92 charters and is set to expand in Houston and elsewhere, funded by taxpayers with a mission of “disrupting” and replacing public schools, was co-founded by Tom Torkelsen and JoAnn Gama.

The board rewarded them handsomely. In 2018-19: Torkelsen was paid $817,395, CFO Wyatt Truscheit received $507,887, Gama collected $482,930 for Gama, and six others earned at least $250,000. When Torkelsen recently stepped down as CEO, he was promised severance pay of $900,000. Not exactly the kinds of salaries paid in the public sector. IDEA gets high test scores the usual charter way: by recruiting the students it wants and setting standards high enough to push out those it doesn’t want.

The Houston Chronicle wrote:
When the leaders of IDEA Public Schools gathered last December to vote on an eight-year lease for a private jet, the charter network’s then-board chair, David Guerra, thought of the nearly $15-million deal in business terms.

As president and CEO of International Bank of Commerce, Guerra and his team had used six corporate jets to grow the multibillion-dollar company’s business beyond its Laredo-area headquarters. The same premise would hold true for IDEA, he reasoned, as the charter school network based in the Rio Grande Valley rapidly expanded across Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

“We cannot fulfill our commitment to such a large geographic area without having this type of transportation,” the retired banking chief told IDEA’s governing board in December.

IDEA board members unanimously approved the lease, but reversed the decision two weeks later after charter school opponents and some of the network’s supporters denounced the aircraft as an irresponsible extravagance.

The episode triggered a wave of headlines, oversight changes and soul-searching at the state’s largest charter school, which now is grappling with how to maintain its corporate-like culture while abiding by some more-traditional expectations about how public school districts should be run, IDEA leaders said last week…

Beyond the charter jet lease, IDEA has drawn scrutiny in the past several months for multiple financial practices: spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on tickets and luxury boxes at San Antonio’s AT&T Center; making business deals with members of IDEA’s leadership and their relatives; and reaching a separation agreement with co-founder and CEO Tom Torkelson that will net him $900,000 following his resignation in May.

IDEA officials do not appear to have violated any laws, and the charter’s leaders have defended each practice at various points.

Still, IDEA’s governing board announced several reforms last month. They include banning private air travel, curbing executive benefits, ending business deals with leaders and family members, and requiring additional spending approvals from the governing board and chief financial officer.

“We don’t want to have execution that’s just like a traditional school district, because we want to have innovation and take some risks and be more aggressive,” IDEA Board Chair Al Lopez said. “But after 20 years of policies and practices helped us get to the point we’re at, we felt like we were at an inflection point.”

The stakes are high not just for IDEA, but the entire charter school movement.

Advocates for traditional public schools have seized on IDEA’s spending as an example of lax oversight of charters, which largely are funded by taxpayers. Texas American Federation of Teachers leaders blasted IDEA officials for the jet lease, accusing them of “flying adults around the state” instead of directly funding classroom programs. State Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, deemed IDEA’s practices “nonsense” that “absolutely underscores the problem…”

“IDEA has operated outside the public eye with little transparency while still receiving taxpayer dollars — and it shows,” said Patti Everitt, an education policy and research consultant who monitors Texas charter school operations. “IDEA can’t have it both ways…”

The charter’s leaders credit IDEA’s success, in part, to a culture that borrows from the business, nonprofit and higher education worlds. The organization employs a regimented, highly centralized model that emphasizes student and employee performance data.

Critics, however, argue the network indirectly screens out children with greater academic and behavioral needs by emphasizing advanced-level courses, inflating the organization’s results. As an example, they note IDEA’s enrollment of students with disabilities totaled 5.4 percent in 2018-19, compared to 9.6 percent in other Texas public schools.

Still, IDEA schools remain in high demand, helping fuel the network’s ambitious approach to expansion. IDEA added more more students in the past five years than any other Texas charter operators, and it plans to hit 100,000 students across the southern United States by 2022-23.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Texas

Politico: Pence Changes His Tune about the Pandemic

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2020 //
19

Politico wrote today about Mike Pence’s new stance on the coronavirus pandemic. Pence pretended to be thoughtful while he was head of the coronavirus task force. Now that the task force seems to have disappeared, he is free to echo Trump without any pretense of balance or thoughtfulness.

VEEP IN THOUGHT — Since February there has been a rift inside the White House between the scientists and the politicians over how to contain the spread of coronavirus. Anthony Fauci has been the consistent advocate of a forceful response and an opponent of any sugar-coating of the perils Americans face. President Donald Trump has been the reluctant warrior against the disease who took some major steps early on but soon grew impatient of the stay-at-home restrictions, the masks, and — most of all — the economic calamity that might jeopardize his re-election.

Vice President Mike Pence, the chair of the president’s coronavirus task force, often played the role of bridge between the factions. At the awkward task force briefings that dominated afternoon television in March and April, the three roles of the three men played out as theater: Fauci the doomsayer, Trump the misinformed optimist, and Pence the child of a troubled marriage trying to smooth things over during mom and dad’s public fights.

Pence abruptly reinvented himself as a coronavirus skeptic this week, with comments and an op-ed article that stray into pandemic denialism. In a conference call with governors, Pence incorrectly argued Monday that the spike in cases that almost half of the states are experiencing is simply a function of more testing. In a Wall Street Journal piece published today and headlined “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave,’” Pence wrote, “The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different.”

The op-ed cherry-picked a handful of positive statistics — there are of course bright spots — and emphasized the administration’s record in increasing testing and pumping up the manufacture of personal protective equipment. He boldly predicted a vaccine would be available “by the fall.”

Perhaps most telling, Pence made it clear that the effort to eliminate the disease before a vaccine is ready is not really the goal anymore. Instead, Pence argued that the White House now measures success by a lower level of daily deaths.

“In the past five days,” he wrote, “deaths are down to fewer than 750 a day, a dramatic decline from 2,500 a day a few weeks ago and a far cry from the 5,000 a day that some were predicting.” This purportedly tolerable rate of 750 dead Americans a day would equal 270,000 deaths in a year.

By this afternoon, the news pages of the Journal contradicted much of what Pence had to say. In an interview with the paper, Fauci reiterated that the jump in cases “cannot be explained by increased testing.” He warned that relaxed approaches to social distancing, such as congregating close to lots of people in large venues, and an aversion to mask-wearing would cause the disease to spread.

Pence is scheduled to be with Trump at a rally in Tulsa, Okla. on Saturday, while Fauci told NPR that he hasn’t talked to Trump in two weeks.

But Fauci did agree with Pence on one thing. “People keep talking about a second wave,” he told the newspaper. “We’re still in a first wave.”

Categories Health, Pence, Trump

Robert Shepherd Transcribed Trump’s Remarks on School Choice, with Commentary

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2020 //
37

Donald Trump spoke today, presumably in response to massive demonstrations across the country against racism and police brutality. Someone decided this would be a good time to make a pitch for school choice. Robert Shepherd, author and editor, transcribed Trump’s remarks and added his own commentary.

Here, in his typical toddler English, our part-time president in the orange clown makeup, IQ45, struggles, today, to remember an Ed Deform slogan:

“We’re fighting for school choice, which is really the civil rights [long pause, weird face; he can’t recall the word and finally just leaves it out] of all time in this country. Frankly, school choice is the civil rights [pause; he still can’t find the word] statement [sic] of the year, [he realizes he made a ridiculous gaffe in saying that this was the most important issue of all time; there was, for example, the matter of slavery] of the decade, and probably beyond because all children have to have access to a quality education. A child’s ZIP code in America [as opposed to her ZIP Code in Sri Lanka?] should never determine their [sic] future, and that’s what was happening, so we’re very, very strong on school choice, and I hope everybody remembers that, and it’s happening. [What’s happening? Who kn​ows.] It’s already happening. We have tremendous opposition from people that [sic] know they shouldn’t be opposing it. [These people who oppose it are just perverse. LOL.] School. [pause] Choice. [He says it as though he’s just recently learned the term and expects that other people have never heard it before either. LOL.] All children deserve equal opportunity because we are all made equal by God. So true. [said as if a comment on something a speech he was advised to make, which it probably was.] A great jobs market and thriving economy is [sic] probably the best thing [sic] we can do to help the black, Hispanic, Asian communities.”

Categories Education Reform, Racism, School Choice, Trump

No, School Choice is NOT “the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time”

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2020 //
15

In his speech about reforming policing, Trump veered off into a bizarre claim that school choice is the “civil rights issue of our time.” See the video here. At a time when hundreds of thousands of people are demonstrating for social and economic justice and against police brutality and racism, it is odd to hear Trump veer off into school choice as the solution for the evils that stain our society.

We have heard this statement before, many times. President Obama said it; Arne Duncan said it; Mitt Romney said it; Betsy DeVos says it often; and Trump said it before in his first State of the Union address to Congress after the 2016 election.

Let me be clear: School choice is NOT the civil rights issue of our time.

Civil rights is the civil rights issue of our time.

By civil rights, I mean the right to vote without intimidation or voter suppression.

I mean the right to equal treatment by the police and the courts and equality before the law without regard to one’s race or economic status.

I mean the right to attend a well-resourced public school that offers an excellent education.

I mean the right to acquire as much education as one desires, without regard to one’s income.

I mean the right to good medical care, so that one’s income doesn’t determine access to health care.

I mean the right to a decent standard of living.

School choice is most certainly not a “civil right,” because it exacerbates all kinds of segregation–by income, by race, by religion, and by social status. School choice undercuts equality of educational opportunity.

Civil rights is the civil rights issue of our time.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, School Choice, Trump
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