The Tampa Bay Times published a powerful editorial about the Legislature’s enactment of yet another voucher program for private and religious schools. Needless to say, the Legislature does nothing for public schools other than to divert funding to nonpublic schools, enact mandates, and harass teachers. The schools that get vouchers will not be subject to the school letter grades foisted on public
The Republican-dominated legislature passed a voucher bill that makes private school vouchers available only to students in Metro Nashville and Shelby County (Memphis), whose Democratic representatives opposed it. It was a victory for Betsy DeVos, who came to Tennessee to urge psssage of a voucher bill. Tennessee’s General Assembly passed a compromise education voucher bill on Wednesday targeting
The board of the Boston Public Schools selected Brenda Cassellius as its new superintendent. She is the former state superintendent in Minnesota, where she served from 2010 until last January. She is an educator, not a refugee from the corporate world, so that’s a good sign. The board hopes she will repair relationships that frayed during the brief tenure of Tommy Chang. It is also hoping she wil
Marla Kilfoyle, former National Executive Director of the BATS, is now in charge of the Network for Public Education’s Grassroots Education Network. She is an awesome organizer and has signed up more than 125 organizations from across the nation to work together on behalf of our public schools. This is her second newsletter. Read it and see what your friends are doing. Then join us! We are many,
Committees of the New York City Bar Association sent a statement to School Chancellor Richard Carranza opposing the use of competitive admissions to elementary and junior high schools. They said: Measures of young children’s ability and behavior through competitive admission screening and testing are unreliable and racially biased. Competitive admissions for very young children are pedagogically
Parents at the Catskill Avenue Elementary School in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles, are fighting to prevent a charter school from crowding into their fully utilized school. State law requires districts to provide free space for charters, even in schools and communities that don’t want them. “On a sunny afternoon in early April, in the working-class Los Angeles suburb of Carson, well over a hundr
BASIS is a corporate charter chain with about 20 charters, mostly in Arizona. The chain is known for high test scores, high attrition, and high returns to its owners and operators, Michael and Olga Block. It also owns private schools, and these have run into problems. BASIS has private schools in the US, Silicon Valley, NYC and Virginia, all of which are owned by the REIT, Entertainment Propertie
T Bone Burnett is a famous musician who was invited to give a keynote at the SXSW conference, and he delivered this brilliant meditation on the threat presented today by the ruthless, soulless tech corporations that invade every nook and cranny of our lives. It is long, so get a cup of coffee or tea and sit down. You should not only read it but reflect on it. This is the one sentence summary: To
In recent years, the New York State Education Department and many school districts have threatened and tried to intimidate parents and students who wanted to opt out of state testing. The historic U.S. Supreme Court decision Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) protects the right of parents to make decisions about their own children. This decision is apt in the current environment, where the state
Teacher Appreciation Week begins on May 6! I was in Los Angeles for the historic teachers’ strike of 2019. I marched with Stevie Van Zandt, who is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His stage name is Little Steven; he played in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band and has received many honors. As a musician and artist, he took the lead in creating Artists United Against Apartheid. He made t
Betsy DeVos was honored by the rightwing Manhattan Institute. In her by now well-rehearsed speech, she ridiculed the idea of spending more money on public schools, and extolled school choice. She singled out Mayor deBlasio’s Renewal program for criticism. Matt Barnum has a good summary in Chalkbeat of her boilerplate remarks and appropriately notes how she cherrypicked data and ignored recent stu
Sign up now for this event. Bill Phillis and I will talk about education in Ohio and the nation. Join public education advocates from around the state for the first MOVING PUBLIC EDUCATION FORWARD celebration! The event will take place Thursday, May 16, 2019 from 4:30 to 8:00pm at the Sheraton Columbus Capitol Square , 75 E. State St, Columbus, OH 43215. Experience a conversation between two GIAN
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote the following note: The Summit Preparatory Academy Charter School will be shutting down tomorrow. Like so many charter schools, financial mismanagement is the reason for the closure. The school raised funding with a “Go Fund Me” drive, but they are not waiting till the end of the year to shut their doors. California teach
Jan Resseger has another brilliant article about the charter school strategy of privatization paid for by federal funding. Betsy DeVos wants to cut most of the programs in the Department of Education but has asked for an increase of charter school funding, from $440 million to $500 million a year. This year she used that funding to give $82 million to KIPP and $116 million to the IDEA charter cha
Former Governor Jim Hunt will speak “In Praise of Public Education” in Raleigh on May 22 from 6-8 pm. His talk is sponsored by PublicSchoolsFirstNC. Tickets are limited so sign up soon! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/infopublicschoolsfirstnc-6199572339 Governor Hunt was a champion for public schools when he was in office. The Tea Party has done everything possible to destroy his great legacy. “Gove
Peter Greene knows there are many states where public schools are under attack: Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, and more. But one state stands out as the absolute worst: Florida. If you hate public schools, Florida is for you. If you hate teachers, go to Florida. To get the full flavor of why Florida is an abomination, open the link and read the post. It begins: There are plenty of states in th
This post about D.C. charter schools asks why these schools are free to choose which laws to obey and which to ignore. One that they chose to ignore is suicide prevention training for their staff. The leaders of the charter sector complained about the rules and regulations that the city wanted to impose on them. The author, Jonetta Rose Barras, writes: “When I read the email exchange between Mich
It is probably far too soon to know whether the Common Core succeeded or failed, but the studies are beginning to appear. The adoption of the Common Core standards was a central requirement of the Obama-Duncan Race to the Top program. States had to agree to adopt the Common Core if they wanted to be eligible to compete for $5 billion in federal funds. The Gates Foundation paid for the Common Core
Last fall, the voters of Arizona rejected vouchers by an overwhelming vote. But the Koch brothers and devious Doug Ducey are not giving up. They slipped through an innocuous bill to thwart the will of the people. Stop them! From: “Save Our Schools Arizona” info@sosarizona.org > Date: May 1, 2019 at 8:16:11 PM MST To: “Barbara Veltri” barbvbtv@aol.com > Subject: Red Alert: Stealth bill SB 1349 nee
Ben Chavis was leader of the American Indian Model Schools, a group of three small charter schools in Oakland that captured headlines and the hearts of conservatives. He stepped down after being charged with multiple federal felony charges involving federal money used to lease space from buildings Chavis owned and a state audit claiming that $3.8 million of the schools’ funding had been transferr
The Ohio Democratic Party, aware that some Democrats have supported the privatization agenda in the past, took a strong stand supporting public schools. The resolution specifically rejects the privatization lobbying of ALEC, the Thomas Fordham Institute, Democrats for Education Reform, and TFA. If every state Democratic Party passed similar resolutions, the candidates would be forced to be equall
Oklahoma has underfunded its public schools over the past decade. Many districts have switched to a four-day week to save money. Some rural districts, facing insolvency, are turning their schools over to Epic , a for-profit online charter chain, which can balance the books by putting kids online and cutting teachers’ jobs. Like all online charter schools, EPIC overstates its “gains” while its act
Mercedes Schneider reports on her examination of Joe Biden’s brother Frank and his role in the charter industry in Florida. Let me begin by saying straight out that I don’t judge people by what their relatives do. I have seven brothers and sisters (five living) and I am not responsible for their decisions and activities, as they are not responsible for mine. Having said that, I think the public n
The Florida House of Representatives passed another voucher program, this time directly funded by taxpayers. The Florida Senate already approved the program. They rejected all Democratic amendments, even one to stop people who had been previously convicted of fraud from opening a charter school ! The state constitution prohibits use of public funds for religious schools, and in the past lawmakers
The privatizers got badly beaten in 2016, when they tried to lift the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts. Funded by the Waltons and the usual coven of billionaires, they asked the public to endorse a proposal to launch 12 charter schools every year, wherever they wanted to open. The referendum was overwhelmingly defeated, much to the surprise of its sponsors. Governor Charlie Baker is a Repu
The NewSchools Venture Fund will hold its annual meeting in Oakland on May 8. This is appropriate because Oakland has been one of the cities targeted by the billionaires who support NSVF, with the goal of eradicating public schools. As you will read, a significant number of public schools have been turned into charters, draining $57 million from public schools , which must cut services and progra
Hi, Hoppy, A friend sent me the column you wrote about the stalemate in West Virginia over school choice. I would like to help you out. The first thing you should know is that charter schools are NOT public schools. They call themselves public schools to get public money, but that doesn’t make them public schools. Might as well call Princeton University a public college or Boeing a public utility
Sara Roos, the blogger known the Red Queen in L.A., is an intrepid investigator, following the money. She has learned inevitably that the charter school lobby is very rich and spends lavishly to buy politicians’ favor. In this post , she scratches the surface of the charter lobby’s complex political-financial machinations. Given the known gaps that are not included in this excellent report (e.g.,
I just finished reading a compelling book about the famed Atlanta Cheating Scandal. It is titled None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators . I found it hard to put down. It was written by Shani Robinson, one of the teachers convicted in 2015 of racketeering, for changing her students’ answers on a stat
Ken Robinson is famed for his inspirational books, lectures, and articles about the importance of creativity. In this article , he describes how standardization has broken education, and what we must do to change it. It is tempting to reprint the article in its entirety because it is so beautifully written, but I will give you a start so you are tempted to read it yourself. The problem with fixin
This statement was released today by the Alliance for Quality Education in New York City. Despite years of advocacy, court mandates and promises from politicians, the new NYS budget plan once again locks in educational inequality. And while politicians refuse to cough up $1.6 billion to begin fully funding our schools, the state spends over $1.5 billion a year on its high stakes standardized test
The Washington Post FactChecker Glenn Kessler and his team announced today that Trump had passed a total of 10,000 lies. That is a record, even for him! And he still has another 20 months to go in his term! It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database , an average of eight claims a day. But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president
Peter Greene found an insightful article at The 74 about the serial failures of the Democracy Prep Charter Chain. Betsy DeVos gave the chain $21.8 million to expand but it is having trouble growing beyond its New York City home base. It was invited to take over the massive disaster that was Andre Agassi’s charter school (which had principal churn, teacher churn, abysmal academics, etc.), and Demo
Almost everyone in California seems to acknowledge that the state charter law is broken and needs reform. Governor Gavin Newsom created a Task Force, under the leadership of Tony Thurmond, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, charged with coming up with ways to fix the law. Since the majority of the Governor’s Task Force has ties to the charter industry (including two members of the state’
Betsy DeVos recently gave $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, mostly to expand in Texas. Previously, she had already given millions to IDEA, altogether this lucky business has received $225 million in federal funds. In El Paso alone, IDEA will open 20 new charters. That’s bad news for the El Paso public schools, because IDEA is known for pushing out the kids it doesn’t want and sending them b
Shawgi Tell, a professor of education at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, says that charter schools areprivate schools and should not receive any public funding. Efforts to make them accountable and transparent are a waste of time, he argues. if the billions wasted on charter schools had been spent on public schools, they would be well funded, and society would be far better off. He write
Edward Johnson, a quality control consultant in Atlanta, wrote a message to the school board of Charleston, South Carolina: Do not copy Atlanta’s radically disruptive experiment as a “portfolio district.” It is a failure. Johnson is steeped in the highly successful methods of W. Edwards Deming. To learn more about Deming, read Andrea Gabor’s book The Man Who Invented Quality and her recent book,
This is a fascinating interview in which Larry Lee, an educator in Alabama, asks film-maker Mark Hall about how he became interested in school reform, charter schools, and the Gulen charter schools. Mark Hall made the documentary “Killing Ed” about the Gulen charter schools, which he has shown in dozens of communities. Lord knows he didn’t do it for the money. He become interested and had to trac
The billionaires understand the growing rage caused by inequality on an unprecedented scale. They worry that the rage might be directed at them. This far, it has been captured by rightwing populists like Trump, whose tax policies deepen the crisis of inequality by transferring more wealth to the one tenth of the one percent. Jacobin explains that multibillionaires like Bill Gates are trying to bu
Jan Resseger writes here about the charter schools in Ohio that received federal funding but never opened or closed soon after opening. In Ohio, nearly $36 million was wasted, and that was only between 2006 and 2014.
