Nevada ‘Abolishes’ Their Achievement School District
The ‘portfolio’ model of education reform was pioneered in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the creation of the Recovery School District (RSD) in 2005. Then Tennessee, fueled by Race To The Top money, brought in TFA alum and Michelle Rhee ex-husband Kevin Huffman who hired TFA alum and YES prep founder Chris Barbic to create a similar thing called the Achievement School District (ASD) in 2012.
Even though the Tennessee has been a complete failure by every metric possible (unless you count Huffman and Barbic getting high paying consultant jobs after resigning in shame as one of your metrics), other states around the country have followed their ‘lead’ and proposed or created ASDs of their own. There was one created in Michigan, North Carolina, and Nevada and others proposed in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Not surprisingly, the ASDs have all been utter failures. And since it is hard to keep such failure a secret, states are starting to wake up to this fraud. So it is somewhat good news that another ASD has bitten the dust, this time in Nevada.
On June 3, 2019 Nevada passed SB321 abolishing their ASD. The official description is that it is “An act relating to education; abolishing the achievement school district; requiring an existing achievement charter school to convert to a charter school under the sponsorship of the State Public Charter School Authority or cease operations; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.” So even though their ASD is officially ‘abolished,’ it is not like those schools are converted back to public schools. Instead they CONTINUE READING: Nevada ‘Abolishes’ Their Achievement School District | Gary Rubinstein's Blog