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Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Big Education Ape: My New Book Was Just Announced! | Diane Ravitch's blog -https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-new-book-was-just-announced-diane.html

New Orleans: One of City’s Oldest Charter Organizations Closes Down Amid Multiple Scandals

by dianeravitch / 8min

The University of New Orleans was one of the first to jump into chartering after Hurricane Katrina, and it just announced that it is closing down its charter organization, New Beginnings, as a result of a slew of academic problems and malfeasance. After allegations of grade-fixing and a major fiasco involving class credits that left dozens of students unable to graduate, the public charter board

Leaks Reveal How Billionaires Shaped Hillary’s Education Agenda

63by dianeravitch / 1h

Alternet published an expose of documents from Hillary’s 2016 campaign that reveal the names of the billionaires who shaped her education agenda. The documents were leaked by Wikileaks. The education portion of the document runs 66 pages, mostly concentrated on K-12 policy, and captures specific input from billionaire donors looking to overhaul and privatize public education. You will recognize t

YESTERDAY

The New Yorker: Race Baiting Works for Trump

by dianeravitch / 19h

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser says racism will be the theme of Trump’s re-election campaign . He plays it like a fiddle. On Tuesday, President Trump convened his Cabinet in the White House. First to speak after a long, rambling, and inaccuracy-filled monologue by Trump himself was Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In a Cabinet where flowery praise of the President has b

Rhode Island: State Commissioner Plans to Take Control of Providence Schools

by dianeravitch / 21h

Angelica Infante-Green, the new State Commissioner in Rhode Island, plans to take control of the Providence schools. Providence has a mayor-appointed board. The mayor complained that the union contract made it too hard for him to fire teachers. Infante-Green has never run a school district. She has never been a school principal. She entered education through Teach for America, then ran bilingual

Did Betsy DeVos’s School Choice Zealotry Enable the Corruption Scandal in Puerto Rico?

25by dianeravitch / 22h

Writer Christopher Rim asks a reasonable question in this article in Forbe s: Did Betsy DeVos’ passion for school choice enable the corruption in administration of federal education funds in Puerto Rico? I was particularly pleased to read this article because Rim is a brilliant young man who does not usually write about education. He begins: Yesterday, the former education secretary of Puerto Ric

Tim Slekar Interviews Carol Burris about Charter Scandals

by dianeravitch / 23h

Carol Burris is one of the best-informed observers of the charter industry. Tim Slekar interviewed her on his podcast #BustED Pencils. New #BustEDPencils Episode 85: Charter School Scandal with @Network4pubEd and @carolburris https://bustedpencils.com/episode/episode-85-charter-school-scandal/ Feature Interview: The Network for Public Education’s Executive Director Carol Burris talks about the la

Michael Kohlhaas: Charter School Pays Consultant $850 for Every Student He Signs Up

91by dianeravitch / 1d

Blogger Michael Kohlhaas continues to pore through the treasure trove of leaked emails that he received concerning the charter industry in Los Angeles. There apparently are thousands of them, and he reports them as he finds interesting ones. One thing shines through his reports: The charter industry is greedy, self-interesting, and not at all interested in education, only in growing their market

FBI Warns of Cyberattacks on Technology-Based Schools: The Downside of Digital Learning

75by dianeravitch / 1d

As more and more schools adopt computer-based digital learning, the risk of cyberattacks on schools grows. Recently a school in Avon, Connecticut, was targeted by hackers. AVON, Conn. — Over six weeks, the vandals kept coming, knocking the school system’s network offline several times a day. There was no breach of sensitive data files, but the attacks in which somebody deliberately overwhelmed th

JUL 18

Teresa Hanafin: Trump Makes America Hate Again

by dianeravitch / 1d

Teresa Hanafin writes the Boston Globe’s Daily “Fast Forward” to start each day. Today she wrote: Trump is making America hate again. At his North Carolina campaign rally last night, Trump lashed out at Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — a US citizen who was a refugee from Somalia as a child. His supporters, predominantly white, started chanting and shouting, “SEND HER BACK!” Kaitlan Collins o

Capital & Main: Who Gutted California’s Charter Reform Bill?

33by dianeravitch / 1d

Bill Raden of Capital & Main identifies the culprit who stripped charter reform bills of anything that offended the powerful charter lobby: Ann O’Leary, Governor Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff. O’Leary previously served as senior education Advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and made sure that the candidate stuck to the charter industry script (for-profit bad, nonprofit good). She has a lon

Tom Ultican: Is Reform of the Charter Law in California Still Possible?

by dianeravitch / 1d

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of advanced math and physics in San Diego, is a dogged investigator. In this post , he traces the ongoing efforts to reform the weak charter law in California. California has more charter schools than any other state, with more than 1,300. The original law capped the number at 100. Since then, the money of the California Charter Schools Association has blown away the

FBI Raids Home of Charter School Leader and Seizes Records of Failed School

54by dianeravitch / 1d

The FBI and other federal agencies raided the home of the former director of a Los Angeles charter school that was recently closed by the district due to fiscal mismanagement. The Los Angeles school board voted to close Community Preparatory Academy last April due to ongoing mismanagement. Federal law enforcement agents have seized records from the home of the former director of Community Prepara

Los Angeles: Board Member Shares Secret Information with Charter Lobbyists First

62by dianeravitch / 1d

Jack Covey, a regular reader and contributor, posted the following comment about the latest revelation from blogger Michael Kohlhaas in Los Angeles. Kohlhaas (which may be a pseudonym) somehow gained access to a treasure trove of emails between the Green Dot charter chain and the California Charter Schools Association, as well as between these entities and public figures like school board members

New Bedford, Mass: A Bad Deal that Puts a Charter School First

by dianeravitch / 2d

Chris Hendricks, State Representative for the 11th Bristol District in Massachusetts, explains why he opposed a deal to open a second campus for a charter school in New Bedford. He writes: THE PROPOSED charter school expansion plan crafted by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, Alma del Mar charter school, and state education Commissioner Jeff Riley earlier this year was simply too risky for New Bedf

Oklahoma: Investigators Accuse Virtual Charter of Stealing Millions

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says that the EPIC virtual charter school has stolen millions of dollars. Investigators say the co-founders of the school embezzled $10 million, based on “ghost students” who never enrolled. Just days ago, a state legislator asked where the money was going but was rebuffed by the state Department of Education. Oklahoma’s largest charter school is a “blen

JUL 17

Puerto Rico: Leaked Emails Show Contempt for Teachers, Their Union

42by dianeravitch / 2d

Andrew Ujifusa writes in Education Week about a massive number of leaked emails from government officials in Puerto Rico that have caused an uproar on the Island. The emails touch on many issues, and education is one of them. In the wake of the data dump, many people are calling no the governor of Puerto Rico to resign. Puerto Rico’s political leadership is unraveling at high speed, pushed along

Politico: Trump’s Schedule for Today

by dianeravitch / 2d

Politico posts Trump’s daily schedule. He usually leaves the morning free for watching TV and tweeting (executive time). He usually has a lunch appointment with Pence, Pompeo, or another of his trusted aides. He occasionally attends a ceremony where he gives an award. Today he has no plans other than to fly to a rally in the late afternoon. TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY — The president will leave the White H

California: The Reasons Gavin Newsom Will Not Regulate the Charter Industry

48by dianeravitch / 2d

When Gavin Newsom ran for Governor in 2018, the big charter donors backed former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who ran third in the Democratic primary. Newsom was backed in the race by the California Teachers Association. Newsom’s victory in the gubernatorial race gave public school parents and teachers hope that the scandal-ridden, money-drenched, unregulated charter industry would fin

Oakland Parent Jane Nylund Writes a Letter to Governor Gavin Newsom

57by dianeravitch / 2d

Dear Governor Newsom : It is with profound disappointment that I heard that your office was responsible for essentially gutting the main features of these charter reform bills. While I can only speculate on the reasoning for essentially caving to the charter industry (besides Ann O’Leary and the task force espousing all kinds of charter-friendly platitudes), I can say that as a California native,

Rachel M. Cohen: Democratic Candidates Wary of Charter School Issue

30by dianeravitch / 3d

Rachel M.Cohen wrote in the American Prospect that the Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from the charter school issue, which only a few years ago was deeply embedded in the Obama administration education policy. This is progress. In 2016, it was nearly impossible to get any candidate to discuss K-12 education. At last they notice that it is not cool for a Democrat to support charte

Jake Jacobs: Democratic Candidates Speak Double-talk about Charters

33by dianeravitch / 3d

Jake Jacobs, a teacher in New York and BAT activist, writes in the Progressive about the pathetic evasion s of Democratic Candidates when asked directly about their stance on charter schools. Public school educators and advocates have been working for years for this to become a major campaign issue, but so far, most candidate statements have been conflicted, incomplete, clumsy, and/or vague, whil

JUL 16

Democrats Plan to Condemn Trump by Quoting Ronald Reagan’s Last Speech to the Nation

by dianeravitch / 3d

James Hohmann of the Washington Post reports on the House Democrats’ plan to quote Ronald Reagan to rebuke Trump’s racism and xenophobia: THE BIG IDEA: The four-page resolution of disapproval that the House will take up this week to condemn President Trump’s racist tweetstorm quotes at length from Ronald Reagan’s final speech in the White House. “This, I believe, is one of the most important sour

Leonie Haimson: The Other Side of New York State Commissioner Elia’s Resignation

24by dianeravitch / 3d

Leonie Haimson expresses her view of the tenure of New York Commissioner MaryEllen Elia. Her conclusion: The state needs a fresh start with a commissioner who is willing to listen to parents and who is not in love with testing and Big Tech. I attended the meeting with Elia that she describes, held a few weeks after she arrived in New York. When members of NYSAPE expressed their opposition to the

NYSAPE Calls for a Commissioner Who Puts the Needs of Students First

30by dianeravitch / 3d

NYSAPE-New York State Allies for Public Education-is the leading voice for parents and educators who want a forward-looking education agenda, not one that slavishly promotes No Child Left Behind-style policies of test-and-punish. It has led the state’s successful opt-out movement. NYSAPE consists of 70 groups of parents and educators from every part of the state. NYSAPE was delighted to learn tha

Nikole Hannah-Jones: Busing Did Not Fail, We Did

28by dianeravitch / 3d

In this article , Nikole Hannah-Jones reviews the history of racial desegregation and the term “busing.” This article is a good reason to subscribe to the New York Times. Nikole Hannah-Jones is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. “Court-ordered desegregation worked. But white racism made it hard to accept.” When Senator Kamala Harris confronted former Vice President Joe Biden at the s

Mercedes Schneider: The Very Profitable Career of an ex-TFA-er

61by dianeravitch / 3d

Mercedes Schneider writes here about the itinerant but very profitable career of Alison Serapin. A Texan, She went from a short stint in TFA to working as a TFA executive to somehow getting herself on the Nevada State Board of Education, where she was vice-president. She had to resign because of a potential conflict of interest when she decided to apply for a $10 million grant. Fancy that! Schnei

Bob Shepherd Invites Yew to Enroll in His Brand New Skule

47by dianeravitch / 4d

Bob Shepherd invites Yew! Come on down to our “Race to the Top of Mount Zion Enrollment Jubilee” in the old K-Mart parking lot this Saturday and sign yore kids up for Bob Shepherd’s Real Good Florida School. You can use yore Florida State Scholarships to pay for it, and so it’s absolutely FREE!!!! No longer due you havta send yore children to them gobbermint schools run by Socialists whar they wi

New York: Time for the Regents to Chart a New Course

32by dianeravitch / 4d

Note to the Regents: Parents and teachers have had it. They are sick of the same old, same old, test-and-punish, top-down mandates. Isn’t it time to pick a leader who is not in love with high-stakes testing and lockstep policies? John Ogozalek, teacher and thinker, speaks for many others when he wrote this morning: Maybe at this point someone in charge should apologize to the children, parents, t

Nancy Bailey: How Does Common Core Affect Reading Instruction?

59by dianeravitch / 4d

Recently there has been a flurry of articles criticizing teachers and teacher educators for the way that reading is taught. But, writes Nancy Bailey, none of them has looked at the effects of Common Core on reading instruction. She wonders why the omission, why the indifference to the elephant in the room.

JUL 15

George T. Conway III: Trump is a Racist

by dianeravitch / 4d

George T. Conway III, a lawyer in New York, happens to be the husband of Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor to Trump. The conversations at the Conway dinner table must be very interesting, to say the least. He wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in which he reached the unavoidable conclusion that the president is a racist. He tried, he wrote, to give him the benefit of the doubt. No, I t

Breaking News! NY Commissioner Elia Resigning

200+by dianeravitch / 4d

The news just broke on Twitter and on Orthodox Jewish websites. New York Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is resigning at the end of August. No reason given. She was a champion of testing, Common Core, and sanctions for parents to dared to opt out of state testing.

Our Divider-in-Chief: Master of the Swamp

100+by dianeravitch / 4d

Trump is a master at appealing to the lowest fears and hatreds of the Swamp that is his base. Like other demagogues in history, he knows how to unleash rage and envy. He says he is a “stable genius.” He says he is the “least racist person” you will ever meet. He teaches us what? Lie. Boast. Bully. Insult. Demean all those whom you see as a threat. Demean those who not like you. Demean the Other.

Norm Scott: Experience Counts

41by dianeravitch / 4d

Retired New York City Teacher Norm Scott explains here why experience counts. He writes: I’ve been watching D-Day movies and finally saw Saving Private Ryan. In pretty much all war movies we see the big differences between grizzled war veterans and the rookies who are often scared to death. It is so clear how important experience is in warfare. I mean what commander wouldn’t want troops who knew

Bill Phillis: Who Is Protecting Imam Gulen?

40by dianeravitch / 4d

Charter schools associated with the Gulen movement are found in many states. They have many different names, like Magnolia, Harmony, Sonoran and more. There are more than 150 of them. If asked, they always deny that they are Gulen schools. The best source for identifying Gulen schools is the list of names compiled by Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins. Gulen schools can usually be identified

Jeff Bryant: Why Won’t the Charter Industry Admit Its Failures and Clean House?

33by dianeravitch / 5d

Jeff Bryant notes the escalating scandals surrounding the charter industry, creating a stench that can’t be covered up and hidden. Yet the charter industry refuses to acknowledge its problems and act to correct them and to oust the bad actors from its big tent. Case in point: when the Network for Public Education released a study of the federal Charter Schools Program which showed that about one-

D.C.: Famed Philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein Endorses Charter School Dominance In D.C.

500+by dianeravitch / 5d

To understand the charter industry, you must appreciate that it is driven by extremely wealthy people and has no grassroots. It has mastered the arts of marketing and branding, but does not have a plan to improve education other than to draw students and resources away from public education, which belongs to all of us. People often ask me, “Why do the super-rich cluster to the cause of privatizat

JUL 14

Law Journal: “Are Charter Schools the Second Coming of Enron?”

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

This law journal article about the self-dealing and corruption in the charter sector was written by Professors Preston C. Green III, Bruce D. Baker, and Joseph Oluwole. Since it was written, there have been so many examples of scandals, conflicts of interest, and outright theft of public dollars that this prediction seems remarkably prescient. Here is the table of contents: INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW

Charter Schools and Enrollment Decline in San Antonio

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

Texas Public Radio reported on the devastating effect that charter expansion is having on the public schools of San Antonio. The city leaders, in their ignorance, decided not to improve the public schools, but to create a parallel private system to compete with them. Both sectors are funded by the public, but the charters choose their students and some do not offer transportation. The city’s popu

David Safier: Charter Schools and Enrollment Decline In Tucson

32by dianeravitch / 6d

David Safier is a journalist in Tucson who often writes about education. He wrote the following two articles about charters, enrollment decline, and white flight in Tucson. A Multi-Factored Look At TUSD’s Enrollment Decline POSTED BY DAVID SAFIER ON THU, JUN 20, 2019 AT 1:32 PM Tucson Unified School District has been losing students steadily since 2000. Lots of students. At its turn-of-the-millen

Beware! Powerful Koch Network Starts New Group to Fight Public Schools

200+by dianeravitch / 6d

Charles Koch and his network of wealthy donors have created a new Astroturf organization called “Yes Every Kid” to promote school choice and take public money away from public schools. Yes, they are targeting “every kid” as a prime prospect for a charter school or a voucher. Yes, they want to shrink public schools so that they are no longer the “choice” of 90% of American families. Koch in June a

JUL 13

Texas: Three Small Districts Oppose Federally-Funded Charter Growth in El Paso

43by dianeravitch / 6d

Three small districts near El Paso passed resolutions opposing the dramatic expansion of the charter sector, which is driven by federal funds awarded by Betsy DeVos to the IDEA charter chain. As charter schools expand in El Paso, fueled by a sizable federal grant, three of the county’s smaller districts are hoping recent resolutions will prevent students from leaving and encourage lawmakers to do

Peter Greene: Reformers Try to Rehabilitate Tarnished Reputation of Virtual Charters

46by dianeravitch / 6d

Now here is a nasty job, but someone has to do it (if the price is right.) Even “reformers” agree that virtual charters are a disaster, a sector with horrible results that is populated by entrepreneurs and grifters. Peter Greene reviews an effort by “reformers” to salvage the rightly blemished record of this industry of scammers. Can it be done? Not really. First, he examines the connections of t

Indiana: State Tries to Recover $40 Million from Virtual Charter Frauds

500+by dianeravitch / 6d

Indiana is one of the state’s that has been all in for choice. One of the choices pushed by former governors Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence is Virtual Charter Schools. These are online schools that allegedly enroll home-schoolers or students who prefer not to attend a Brick-and-mortar school. Study after study has found that these online schools have high attrition, low test scores, and low graduat

Conservatives Thrilled by NEA Decision to Ignore Candidates’ Views on Charter Industry

500+by dianeravitch / 7d

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) expressed its delight over a decision at the recent NEA meeting in Houston not to take into account a presidential candidate’s views on privatized charter schools when making its endorsement. AEI is a conservative, free-enterprise think tank in D.C. that is partially funded by Betsy DeVos and her family foundation, who appreciate AEI’s libertarian stances.

Gary Rubinstein: TFA Is Shocked, Shocked to Hear That It Is Tied to the Charter Industry

63by dianeravitch / 7d

Recently ProPublica published a deeply researched investigation of Teach for America’s close ties to the charter industry. As Gary Rubinstein reports in this post, TFA functionaries responded with shock to this clear statement of fact. What is amazing is their defensive reaction to easily documented facts.

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all