KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

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

Portrait of a Charter Entrepreneur: Ron Packard

by dianeravitch / 26min

When we consider the charter industry, it’s hard not to notice how it has become fertile territory for entrepreneurs with no education experience. Take a case in point: The meteoric career of Ron Packard. Begin by reading this dated biography, posted on SourceWatch. When it was written, Ron was making $5 million a year as CEO of the online charter chain K12 Inc. The company had a market value of

YESTERDAY

Hate Hate Hate in America Today

by dianeravitch / 9h

Three students at the University of Mississippi posed with rifles at a memorial to Emmett Till, a Black boy who was murdered by vigilantes in 1955. For a long period of time, open racism was underground. Now, thanks to our president, racism is okay again. The students were suspended by their fraternity . But not by the university. Not yet.

Eve Ewing: A Paragraph from “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” about School Closings in Chicago

20by dianeravitch / 21h

Jan Resseger reminded me of this moving paragraph in Eve Ewing’s profound book Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side: Understanding these tropes of death and mourning as they pertain not to the people we love, but to the places where we loved them, has a particular gravity during a time when the deaths of black people at the hands of the state—through such m

California: Public Pays for Home School Trips to Disneyland

100+by dianeravitch / 22h

It is very cool to home school in California! There are charter schools for home schoolers where you don’t have to go to school! Home schoolers get a list of approved expenses , and they can decide how to spend the public’s money. How cool is that! This is a program that Betsy DeVos must love! True educational freedom on the public’s dime! In California, there’s a way parents can use money from t

Peter Greene on the Big Standardized Test

24by dianeravitch / 23h

Our friend Peter Greene is now a regular contributor to Forbes, where he enlightens readers from the business community about education. Many years ago, I wrote a column for Forbes and visited their offices. I discovered to my surprise that my editor was married to a classroom teacher. We have friends everywhere. Recently, Peter has been enlightening readers of Forbes about standardized testing.

The D.C. “Miracle” Turns to Ashes

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

A year ago, reformers were touting D.C. as their triumphant example. Those graduation rates! Unfortunately, like every other reformer tale, it was a hoax. The graduation rate was phony . Students were walking across the stage without the necessary attendance or credits. Metrics! “Critics view the problems, particularly the attendance issue, as an indictment of the entire data-driven evaluation sy

JUL 25

Valerie Jablow: SHHH! Charter Schools in D.C. Keep Their Industry Secrets! No Transparency for Them!

31by dianeravitch / 1d

Valerie Jablow is a parent and blogger in D.C. who thinks that the city government should take care of all children, not just charter schools. What a revolutionary idea! And she believes that charter schools should be accountable and transparent, which puts her at odds with the charter industry. She writes here about a recent meeting of the City Council, which demonstrated that transparency is ab

The Price of Test Scores at Success Academy

38by dianeravitch / 1d

Katy Crawford-Garrett is an associate professor at the University of New Mexico. Success Academies, a network of 47 charter schools in New York City that serves a majority of Black and Brown youth from poor communities, has long been considered a star of the school reform movement, garnering accolades from politicians, philanthropists, and the media. Founded by Eva Moskowitz in 2006, Success Acad

Jersey Jazzman: How “Creaming” Works in the Charter Schools of Newark

28by dianeravitch / 1d

Jersey Jazzman seems to be in an endless battle with New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, or at least with the writer of its editorials. He went to the trouble of getting a doctorate in statistics so he could persuade that editorialist to understand how the charters produce high test scores. It is called creaming, picking the best and excluding the rest. This article explains how in w

Jan Resseger: Will Raj Chetty Revive the American Dream?

by dianeravitch / 2d

Jan Resseger writes here about Raj Chetty’s return to Harvard to start a new project, reviving the American dream. l In the past, we have known Raj as the prime author of a widely doubted study that concluded that one effective teacher (who raised test scores) would have a significant impact on lifetime earnings, pregnancy rates, and other important life outcomes. In the years since that study wa

JUL 24

Bill Phillis: Oklahoma and Indiana Join the States That Were Defrauded by Online Charter Operators

100+by dianeravitch / 2d

Bill Phillis points to the latest online charter scams. He forgot to mention the A3 scam in California, in which eleven people were indicted based on allegations that they embezzled between $50-80 million by inflated enrollments and phantom students. ‌ ‌ ‌ Indiana and Oklahoma online charters caught stealing tax dollars It should not be surprising that online charters steal tax funds for students

Can Kentucky Steer Clear of Charter Scams and Frauds?

by dianeravitch / 2d

Linda Blackford, a writer for the Lexington, Kentucky, Herald Leader asks whether Kentucky can somehow manage to avoid the charter scandals that have occurred with startling frequency in other states. The Kentucky legislature authorized charters but has not yet funded them. The parents in SOS Kentucky have thus far stopped the funding of charters, because the money will defund the public schools

Johanna Quaas: The Oldest Active Gymnast in the World

by dianeravitch / 2d

This is an inspiring video. It will activate couch potatoes. Johanna Quaas is 92 years old. Remind me why some schools are cutting physical education to make time for more testing.

Mercedes Schneider: How One Corporate Reform Incubated Another Corporate Reform Group

by dianeravitch / 2d

Mercedes Schneider was curious to learn about the new organization Results for America. And so she went to the source: tax documents. The origin story is almost comical, as one useless but well-funded Organization begets another one. The Result for America: big take-home pay for executives. Lots of verbiage. If RFA is really interested in evidence-based policy, it will speak out against privatiza

Puerto Rico: Governor Expected to Resign Today

20by dianeravitch / 2d

Democracy raised its voices in the streets of Puerto Rico, demanding the resignation of the governor of Puerto Rico. He said no. They said yes. He is resigning today, according to this report from CNN: Puerto Rico’s embattled governor Ricardo Rosselló is expected to resign today after more than a week of protests that have rocked the capital city of San Juan. The dominos began to fall yesterday w

Betsy DeVos: Almost Everything You Wanted to Know

68by dianeravitch / 2d

The Republican National Committee did background research on Betsy DeVos. Some of it might surprise you. It was leaked and posted by Axios. Here is the slightly redacted result.

Georgia: K12 Inc. Proposes Another Virtual Charter School, for 8,000 Students

by dianeravitch / 3d

The Virtual Charter schools of for-profit K12 Inc. have been noted for high attrition, low test scores, low graduation rates, and high profits. The corporation currently operates a virtual charter school in Georgia which is the largest “school” in the state but of course low-performing. Now it proposes to open another K-12 online charter that will eventually enroll 8,000 students. It will be care

JUL 23

Rhode Island: State Will Take Control of Providence Schools

58by dianeravitch / 3d

The Boston Globe reported: The Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education on Tuesday granted Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green the authority to take control of Providence schools, an unprecedented intervention effort designed to turnaround the struggling district. The details of Infante-Green’s plan for Providence remain scarce, as the commissioner said she plans to re

Randi Weingarten: Corruption and Mismanagement in Puerto Rico

66by dianeravitch / 3d

The people of Puerto Rico are in the streets demanding the resignation of Governor Rosselló, following the release of emails revealing his bigotry and contemptuous comments about those who elected him. Former Secretary of a Education Julia Keleher was brought to the Island to privatize public schools, adopting the Trump-DeVos plan of charters and vouchers. She was recently arrested on fraud charg

Teresa Hanafin on Trump’s Wall and Boris Johnson

20by dianeravitch / 3d

Teresa Hanafin writes the daily Fast Forward for the Boston Globe. Here are two stellar items from today’s bulletin: So Trump is manipulating his gullible supporters again (I could start an item with those words every day), trying to convince them that replacing decrepit barriers on the southern border — a regular maintenance item that every recent administration has done — is the same as buildin

Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools

300+by dianeravitch / 3d

The Charter Industry has led a sterling marketing campaign to persuade the public that they are public schools, that they are far better than “traditional” public schools, and that they are hotbeds of innovation. None of this is true. They are privately managed schools. They receive public money but they are not public schools. Other than those that select their students, they do not get higher t

John Merrow: The Public Purpose of Public Schools

22by dianeravitch / 3d

John Merrow here examines the public purpose of public schools, which has been corrupted by forty years of treating standardized tests as the measure of school success. He writes: What exactly is the public purpose of school? Why do communities invest in the education of all their young, instead of simply leaving the task of education to families? We know that parents send children to school for

Tennessee: How Dark Money, DeVos, and Governor Lee Conspired to Pass a Voucher Bill—and Questions about Crime and Punishment

300+by dianeravitch / 3d

Andy Spears, publisher of the Tennessee Education Report, explains how voucher forces finally passed a bill in Tennessee. The FBI is investigating how one vote flipped at the last minute. But no matter the outcome of these investigations, backers of school privatization can claim public policy victory. It took a new governor, an unscrupulous house speaker, and untold dark money dollars, but after

Pennsylvania: The State’s Largest Charter School—Low-Performing But Profitable

300+by dianeravitch / 4d

Chester Community Charter School is the largest brick-and-mortar charter school in Pennsylvania, with more than 4,000 students. It is a for-profit charter school owned by a wealthy lawyer named Vahan Gureghian, who was the largest individual contributor to former Governor Corbett. It is hard to know how much money CCCS makes, because its books are not open to the public. It must be doing very wel

JUL 22

Bill Phillis: What Do Ohio and California Have in Common?

by dianeravitch / 4d

‌ ‌ ‌ More about the indictments in the $80 million California charter school scam At least three individuals that were indicted in the California charter scam have connections with the STEAM charters in Ohio. Diane Ravitch called our attention to Mercedes Schneider’s investigation of the California fraud. It is of interest that one of the counts against those involved is securing funds for stude

Ed Johnson: Atlanta Schools Need Improvement, Not Change

22by dianeravitch / 4d

Ed Johnson is an adherent of the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, who wrote and spoke about the superiority of Improvement over disruptive change. Ed lives in Atlanta, where the school board and its superintendent believe that they must shock the system, privatize, impose constant disruption. As he shows in the chart below, their approach (the so-called “portfolio model”) has made matters worse.

St. Paul: Will a Historic Church Be Razed to Make Room for a Segregated White Charter School?

45by dianeravitch / 4d

Sarah Lahm wrote in The Progressive about a community battle in St. Paul, Minnesota, over the fate of a historic church building. The church in question is St. Andrew’s. Built in 1927 in the Romanesque Revival style, the brown brick church boasts an impressive, multicolored terra-cotta tile roof and a handsome bell tower. From the street, it looks alive and well kept, although Mass hasn’t been ce

Domingo Morel: State Takeover is the Wrong Answer for Providence Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

Domingo Morel is a scholar of state takeovers. He wrote a book called Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy. He was also a member of the team from Johns Hopkins that studied the problems of the Providence schools. And, what’s more, he is a graduate of the Providence public schools. In other words, he has solid credentials to speak about the future of the Providence public schools. The

JUL 21

Laura Chapman: Who Are the K-12 Education Experts at the Center for American Progress?

20by dianeravitch / 5d

The Center for American Progress is considered by the media to be the voice of the Democratic establishment, or at least the Obama-Clinton center of the party. Referred to as CAP, it is resolutely pro-charter school, pro-testing, and anti-voucher (if it were not anti-voucher, its education agenda would be identical to the DeVos agenda). So who are the experts who speak for the Democratic mainstre

Laura Chapman on the Center for American Progress Plan to Return to the Bush-Obama Agenda

42by dianeravitch / 5d

Laura Chapman has been doing research on the Center for American Progress, which the media views as the voice of the Democratic Party. This may be the most depressing thing you read today. It calls for a return to the principles of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Both failed. CAP wants to resuscitate the worst features of both. Maybe CAP can persuade Arne Duncan to return as Secretary o

Mercedes Schneider Dives into the Tax Returns of Oklahoma’s EPIC Charter Fraud

78by dianeravitch / 5d

We learned recently that Oklahoma officials have charged the EPIC online charter with fraud, alleging that its leaders siphoned off $10 million for themselves while inflating enrollments of ghost students. Schneider does her specialty investigation of EPIC’s tax returns and discovered that the corporation was created in 2009 for a variety of purposes, but not education. It eventually amended its

Utah: Charter-Friendly Legislator Makes Millions from Helping Charters

39by dianeravitch / 6d

Salt Lake City station KUTV noticed that the charter industry has a good friend in the Legislature. He has made millions from charter schools. Journalists Chris Jones and Nadia Phlaum report: State Sen. Lincoln Fillmore (Dist. 10) is one of the foremost experts on charter schools in the state legislature. That makes sense given that he runs Charter Solutions, a company that from 2015 to 2018 has

Justin Parmenter: Mega-Corporation Threatens Legal Action Against 3 North Carolina Teachers

500+by dianeravitch / 6d

Under normal circumstances, when a teacher disagreed with the state educatuon department’s decision to switch from one test to another, it would be called a difference of opinion. Under normal circumstances, when teachers called attention to the state chief’s decision to ignore the recommendations of his evaluation team and pick a different assessment, it would be treated as criticism and grounds

JUL 20

Los Angeles: I Feel Sorry for Nick Melvoin

500+by dianeravitch / 6d

Nick Melvoin was elected to the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District with the most money ever spent on a school board election in American history. The money came from the charter lobby. It was not hard to assume that he owed an enormous debt of gratitude to Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Richard Riordan, Bill Bloomfield, and the other uber-rich who funded his election. Yet, I feel sorry f

John Thompson: The Cruel Policy of Punishing Little Children to Raise Their Test Scores

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, posts frequently about education in his state. Last week, National Public Radio’s Alexandra Starr first reported on Florida’s mandatory retention of 3 rd graders who don’t pass a reading proficiency test. Even though it is stigmatizing for children to be retained, and “multiple studies have found that flunking a grade makes it much more li

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

61by dianeravitch / 6d

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

1Kby dianeravitch / 7d

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