Charter schools are growing in number where they are not needed, new report says - LA Times

Charter schools are growing in number where they are not needed, new report says - LA Times:

Charter schools are growing in number where they are not needed, new report says

Charter schools are proliferating where they aren’t needed while state funding continues to support even those charters that violate state law, according to a report released Monday by a research and advocacy group.

The new research by an Oakland group called In The Public Interest looks at where charter schools are increasing in number and where schools are needed based on enrollment. The two trend lines do not correspond, researchers found — especially in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the number of school-age children has declined even as the number of charters has exploded.

Charters are privately operated, taxpayer-funded public schools that are exempt from some rules that govern traditional campuses.

The report points out that traditional school districts can’t build new schools when real or potential enrollment fails to justify expansion. But those rules don’t apply to charter schools, which can open anywhere and qualify for state funding or subsidies to build or lease facilities. The report says public funds helped open and sustain at least 450 charters in areas with plenty of existing classroom space.

“Paying for more schools than are needed wastes taxpayer dollars,” the report says. “Furthermore, an oversupply of schools serves to undermine the viability of any individual school.”

The latter argument has been made repeatedly by L.A. Unified officials, who assert that rapid and widespread charter growth is one of several factors threatening the solvency of the nation’s second-largest school system.

The report’s lead researcher, Gordon Lafer, an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, attributes the problem to a lack of clarity and vision in state policy.

Charter supporters insist the need for such schools isn’t based on a shortage of classroom capacity but on a shortage of classrooms providing a high-quality education.

They also believe parents should have more choices, especially in low-income neighborhoods where student achievement and graduation rates at traditional public Charter schools are growing in number where they are not needed, new report says - LA Times:

School choice: In Florida lacks accountability. Arkansas, too. | Arkansas Blog

School choice: In Florida lacks accountability. Arkansas, too. | Arkansas Blog:

School choice: In Florida lacks accountability. Arkansas, too.

The Arkansas legislature barely beat back a school voucher-style program in the recent session, falling only a handful of votes short of a pilot project to give "scholarships" to private schools funded by tax credits given to taxpayers who'd prefer to support private schools than general state government with their tax money.

During the debate, Florida was cited as an exemplar of the school "choice" offering known as scholarship accounts — just a PR-crafted alternative to the unpopular term "school vouchers." In either case, public money winds up paying for kids to attend private schools. And what schools. Check out the Washington Post, which looks at Florida's program now paying for some 100,000 children.

But there is scant evidence that these students fare better academically than their peers in public schools. And there is a perennial debate about whether the state should support private schools that are mostly religious, do not require teachers to hold credentials and are not required to meet minimal performance standards. Florida private schools must administer one of several standardized tests to scholarship recipients, but there are no consequences for consistently poor results.

“After the students leave us, the public loses any sense of accountability or scrutiny of the outcomes,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Miami-Dade County public schools. He wonders what happens to the 25,000 students from the county who receive the scholarships. “It’s very difficult to gauge whether they’re hitting the mark.”

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime advocate for school choice, does not seem to be bothered by that complaint.

Students play chess during an enrichment class at Academy Prep, a private middle school in Tampa that includes students from low-income families who receive tax-credit scholarships to attend. Academy Prep students go to school 11 hours per day and nearly 11 months per year. (Courtesy of Academy Prep Center of Tampa)
She is driven instead by the faith that children need and deserve alternatives to traditional public schools. At a recent public forum, DeVos said her record in office should be graded on expansion of choice-friendly policies. She did not embrace a suggestion that she be judged on academic outcomes. “I’m not a numbers person,” she said.

This is the same faith-based outlook that drives the "choice" movement in Arkansas, exemplified lately by Walton-financed lobbying to keep the Little Rock School District in state control and to encourage interdistrict transfers, vouchers and charter School choice: In Florida lacks accountability. Arkansas, too. | Arkansas Blog:

The library is an important classroom and librarians are super lucky

The library is an important classroom and librarians are super lucky:

Librarians are super lucky, and we are lucky to have them

School libraries and media centers will always have a special place in my heart, maybe because librarians get to teach all the students.

I always thought that if I ever left classroom teaching, I’d be a librarian; in fact, I came within a few credits of getting my certification. Librarians are super lucky, because they not only help students develop an appreciation for reading, but they also teach important research skills and help students cultivate resourcefulness that they’ll need all their lives.

April 9-15 is National Library Week, April 11 is National Library Workers Day, and April 12 is National Bookmobile Day—a week set aside for celebrating libraries and thanking librarians/media specialists for all they do to set students off toward a great future.

In 2015, I met a librarian/media specialist at Brown Elementary School in Jackson, Mississippi who took her role to heart. Miss Ruby created one of the most sparkling, magical libraries I’ve ever seen, and she couldn’t wait to show it off.

By design, every corner and cranny of her Popping Pink Pastel Library featured something eye-catching, colorful, and interesting. “This library is an important classroom. A school library welcomes every child, from the littlest to the biggest. It has to have something for everyone,” Miss Ruby, who has since retired, told me.

It’s up to us to make sure our students have the libraries and Miss Ruby’s they need. That’s how we can make sure every student has an education that inspires his or her natural curiosity, imagination, and desire to learn.

But we face challenges in that mission.  A 2016 study by the NEA concluded that since 2007, the number of public school library/media centers had declined, particularly in inner cities.

The study also found evidence of disparities in school resources along racial lines. Even the wealthiest schools in districts that were comprised mostly of minority students had fewer resources than schools in the poorest, mostly The library is an important classroom and librarians are super lucky:

Betsy DeVos Q & A: On undocumented students, Jeb Bush, bilingualism, other issues | Miami Herald

Betsy DeVos Q & A: On undocumented students, Jeb Bush, bilingualism, other issues | Miami Herald:

Betsy DeVos Q&A: On undocumented students, Jeb Bush, bilingualism and other issues

President Donald Trump’s education secretary spent two days in Miami this week, her first full trip with stops at a variety of schools and colleges since taking office.

Betsy DeVos was a controversial pick because of her advocacy for charter schools and lack of public education experience (she famously raised eyebrows during her Senate confirmation hearing for suggesting guns might be appropriate in remote schools to defend against grizzly bears). But her Friday morning visit to Royal Palm Elementary, a traditional public school in Westwood Lakes, went off without a hitch.

Principal Marta Garcia, right, gives U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos a tour of Royal Palm Elementary with Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on Friday. C.M. GUERRERO cmguerrero@elnuevoherald.com

Accompanied by Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who had invited the education secretary to Miami, DeVos visited classrooms and read a Dr. Seuss book to a group of kindergarteners. Then she stopped by Miami Dade College and dropped in on a class for small business owners. She also sat for a brief Q&A with the Miami Herald to talk about hot topics like school choice and immigration. The secretary was cautious in her responses but shared thoughts on bilingual education and protections for undocumented immigrant students. Here are highlights from the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Betsy DeVos Q & A: On undocumented students, Jeb Bush, bilingualism, other issues | Miami Herald:

Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School : NPR Ed : NPR

Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School : NPR Ed : NPR:

Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School

How important is it to have a role model?

A new working paper puts some numbers to that question.

Having just one black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade reduced low-income black boys' probability of dropping out of high school by 39 percent, the study found.

And by high school, African-American students, both boys and girls, who had one African-American teacher had much stronger expectations of going to college. Keep in mind, this effect was observed seven to ten years after the experience of having just one black teacher.

The study is big. The authors, Seth Gershenson and Constance A. Lindsay of American University, Cassandra M.D. Hart of U.C. Davis and Nicholas Papageorge at Johns Hopkins, looked at long-term records for more than 100,000 black elementary school students in North Carolina.

Then the researchers checked their conclusions by looking at students in a second state, Tennessee, who were randomly assigned to certain classes.

There they found that not only did the black students assigned to black teachers graduate high school at higher rates, they also were more likely to take a college entrance exam. "The results line up strikingly well," says Papageorge.

This paper is another piece of social science evidence reinforcing the case for having more teachers of color and for training teachers to be more culturally responsive. We've reported on instances of implicit bias by white teachers, even toward preschool Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School : NPR Ed : NPR:

Schools Matter: A Gig Economy Is A Rigged Economy

Schools Matter: A Gig Economy Is A Rigged Economy:

A Gig Economy Is A Rigged Economy

A hundred years ago U. S. corporate elites were embarked upon a new "scientific efficiency" movement that would use discriminatory tests and mass schooling to sift, sort, and deliver white workers into rote factory and office jobs that were engineered to maximize profits, deskill employees, and, thus, to serve up to the vast industrial efficiency engine a never-ending supply of human energy.  Despite the efforts of the economic elites, workers fought tooth and nail during the ensuing decades for dignity, wages, and bargaining rights.

By the 1970s, however, a new generation of efficiency zealots had come up with a new plan to quash a rising middle class that posed a threat to the exploitative practices that had built the fortunes of American elites.  Where automation could not be used to replace factory workers, the factories, themselves, would be taken apart and shipped to the Far East where American goods would be made and shipped back to the U. S.  Organized labor would be forced into wage concessions, millions of jobs would be lost, and income inequality would soar.

Now fifty years after the beginning of the great foreign migration of U. S. company jobs and the crushing of the American middle class, the new high priests of the church of "scientific management" are located in Silicon Valley, and they have devised another scheme to eliminate the remaining full-time jobs that still have benefits and retirement plans of any kind.  It's called the Gig Economy, whereby those outside the protection of corporate offices and corporate government offices are expected to spend their lives beating the bushes for one "gig" or another to pay the rent and to buy the kids some shoes.  As for as company benefits or retirement benefits?  Who needs retirement benefits when no one doing any these uber-esque jobs of the corporate dystopian future is ever expected to retire but, rather, just die somewhere between gigs, hopefully.

And, of course, what would such a creepy futuristic dystopia be without an education plan to prop up the master narrative?  And so we have the "gig" equivalent of the education establishment now being touted by Silicon Valley slickologists employed Schools Matter: A Gig Economy Is A Rigged Economy:

Deny charter bid for the last 5 New Orleans district schools, report says | NOLA.com

Deny charter bid for the last 5 New Orleans district schools, report says | NOLA.com:

Deny charter bid for the last 5 New Orleans district schools, report says

The Orleans Parish School Board should deny a request from its current and former staff to turn the city's last five district-run schools into independent charters, a consultant's report said.

The district released Thibodeaux & Walden's report on the Exceed Network's application for Ben Franklin Elementary, Mary Bethune Elementary, Mahalia Jackson Elementary, McDonogh No. 35 College Prep and Eleanor McMain Secondary on Friday (April 7).  

The recommendation, if followed by the School Board, would prevent New Orleans from becoming the nation's first all-charter school district until at least July 2018. 

The consultant's conclusion came as a surprise. The Exceed Network essentially lifted the five current principals, and the small central district office that runs them, into a separate organization. Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. encouraged the principals to charter, though he has not formally endorsed the application.

If the last five schools were chartered, the everyday experience at the five schools probably would not change much for students and parents -- especially if the current principals stayed in place, as the Exceed Network proposed.

But the decision would send a strong message nationally. The charter experiment and the other big changes that followed Hurricane Katrina have put a national spotlight on New Orleans schools.

There was no longer any competition for the elementary schools; Better Choice Foundation withdrew its application March 9. InspireNOLA has applied to run one high school.

The consultant's report is not binding. Lewis will make the official recommendation, and the School Board gets the final say. 

Lewis had no immediate response. "The review process is ongoing. Dr. Lewis will Deny charter bid for the last 5 New Orleans district schools, report says | NOLA.com:

Private charters, Uber and the world of Betsy DeVos

Private charters, Uber and the world of Betsy DeVos:

Private charters, Uber and the world of Betsy DeVos

In case you missed them, here are some recent comments by Betsy DeVos:

“How many of you got here today in an Uber, or Lyft, or another ridesharing service? Did you choose that because it was more convenient than hoping a taxi would drive by? … Just as the traditional taxi system revolted against ridesharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice. In both cases, the entrenched status quo has resisted models that empower individuals. Nobody mandates that you take an Uber over a taxi, nor should they. But if you think ridesharing is the best option for you, the government shouldn’t get in your way…. We celebrate the benefits of choices in transportation and lodging. But doesn’t that pale in comparison to the importance of educating the future of our country? Why do we not allow parents to exercise that same right to choice in the education of their child?” 

So.

This is a long quote, but I wanted to capture it in detail.  The words represent the basic and fundamental education philosophy of Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education.  This is the simple analogy in the mind of Betsy DeVos:  Public Education is to Taxi as Private Charter is to Uber.  So simple.  So simpleminded. 

And so simply wrong. But let’s take Betsy DeVos’s analogy as our lesson for the day, because there are frightening facts she is accidentally teaching with this insight into how she sees the world.

First, and it needs to be clearly said, no, Madam Secretary, taxis and Uber are not like public schools and privatized charters.  No state constitution has declared that taxis are an essential public good that must be publicly funded so that all children receive a free and appropriate “transportation.”  Children are guaranteed a free and appropriate education—an education that does not depend on having a voucher for a religious or private school, winning a charter lottery, or living in a certain neighborhood. There’s a reason for this.

Betsy DeVos makes the essential error common among privateers and profiteers – that education is just another consumer product to buy and sell like shoes or milk.  It’s not.  It’s the foundation of our democracy and should be the fundamental civil right of every child, funded by our local, state and national governments to ensure that children have the opportunity for a quality public education that prepares them to be successful in their work lives and  personal lives, and readies them to be engaged and wise members of our democracy.

But let’s imagine how Uber would change if it existed under the rules of Betsy DeVos’s private and overwhelmingly for-profit charter world.   That world unfortunately exists in her home state of Michigan where for decades she’s led the charge for unregulated, unaccountable, unlimited for-profit private charters and private school vouchers. In that world, an Uber Charter would be given tax dollars to pay for sales campaigns with slick promises to convince passengers to sign up for the trip. But passengers wouldn’t have the right to demand that promises made would be promises kept. 

Passengers wouldn’t have the right to know if the driver had a license; whether the car had insurance; whether the driver had a history of reckless driving; whether the brakes worked. Privatized charters in Michigan have few standards to meet, little public oversight, the thinnest responsibility to be transparent about their staff’s Private charters, Uber and the world of Betsy DeVos:

The DeVos and Weingarten tour. | Fred Klonsky

The DeVos and Weingarten tour. | Fred Klonsky:

The DeVos and Weingarten tour.

The last roadshow featured Al Sharpton, Newt Gingrich and Arne Duncan.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued the following statement after accepting an invitation to visit a school in Van Wert, Ohio:

“I look forward to visiting the students, parents and educators of Van Wert. Every parent should be able to send their children to a school that meets their unique needs, and for many parents, that is a public school. I support and celebrate all great schools.

“I appreciate the district and AFT (American Federation of Teachers) President Randi Weingarten extending the invitation.”

Recall an earlier visit to a Washington D.C. school where parents blocked the Trump Secretary of Education from entering their school.

Randi, relying on the Trump method of not relying on facts to justify her statements, jumped on Twitter within minutes and condemned the DeVos protesters of violence.

Randi “Just heard.” Yes. Like Trump heard on Fox that Obama tapped Trump Tower.

I was not impressed with Randi’sThe DeVos and Weingarten tour. | Fred Klonsky:

CURMUDGUCATION: Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?

CURMUDGUCATION: Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?:

Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?

Well, this was, of course, inevitable. We've heard a lot about CGI students as a training (and evaluation) technique for teachers, a freakish notion in which teachers or neo-teachers square off against cyber-puppets in an uncanny valley showdown.

And we've also hear endlessly about artificial intelligence being used to craft a personalized education program, somehow.

I'm from the future and I'm here to teach you stuff

So why not extend both ideas. Alex Salkever is here with the pitch, not in an education site, but at MarketWatch, a site for investors searching for the Next Big Thing. Salkever is VP of marketing/communications at Mozilla, and the co-author of The Driver in the Driverless Car. On LinkedIN he says that he helps "companies grow by building communities and creating memorable content."

And he thinks avatars are the teachers of the not-too-distant future.

Do avatar teachers seem too far afield? Let me ask another question: Does your child use artificial intelligence to learn? More parents will be answering yes in the coming years.  

It's easy peasy. "AI covers everything from smarter automated robotic reservations systems for airlines to tiny food delivery robots rolling through Washington, D.C. to virtual pharmacists that spot potential for adverse drug reactions based on our past histories and current prescription regimes." CURMUDGUCATION: Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?:

 

The Secret to Fixing Schools (My Next Bestseller) | Grassroots Mom

The Secret to Fixing Schools (My Next Bestseller) | Grassroots Mom:

The Secret to Fixing Schools (My Next Bestseller)

Prologue

I just finished watching a fascinating documentary on Netflix entitled, “The Secret”. The film presented opinion from many speakers of various walks of life, ranging from meta physicists and authors to teachers and pastors. The message was simple:

You are what you think.

In a nutshell, those who think positive thoughts reap positive benefits. The positive energy that emanates from a positive thought is reflective in nature, bringing back to us what we truly desire and focus upon.

Brilliant. As we always knew, prayer works.

I then began to think about my own life. As a public school teacher, now for close to three decades, and as a mom, for at least two of those decades, I couldn’t help but to realize just how important this “Secret” is with regards to our own public schools. It seems so logical.

Just think positive. Teach positive. Believe they can and they will. Period.

It makes total sense. After all, one of the first lessons we were taught as students The Secret to Fixing Schools (My Next Bestseller) | Grassroots Mom:

“Evening the Playing Field:” Will the ESSA Accountability Plan Acknowledge the Work of Teachers in “Truly Disadvantaged” Schools? Will the plan be “Equitable?” | Ed In The Apple

“Evening the Playing Field:” Will the ESSA Accountability Plan Acknowledge the Work of Teachers in “Truly Disadvantaged” Schools? Will the plan be “Equitable?” | Ed In The Apple:

“Evening the Playing Field:” Will the ESSA Accountability Plan Acknowledge the Work of Teachers in “Truly Disadvantaged” Schools? Will the plan be “Equitable?”

A teacher: “We love our kids and love to teach in this school, we make a difference in the lives of our kids. Our kids are poor, really poor, some live in shelters, others in foster care, trauma is part of their daily lives. We’re building out our community school, we prepare our kids to learn by feeding them, by searching for contributions of clothes, and, make our classes as rich as possible. I wanted to take my class on a series of trips out of the neighborhood, my principal said wait till after the tests, the future of our school depends on six days of testing, it’s sad that no one cares about the social and emotional needs of our kids, needs that precede the ability to learn. We just want an even playing field.”

In some school districts kids come into school knowing their letter and number facts, in other schools it’s  their first exposure; kids are behind from day 1.

In “The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (1987)” sociologist William Julius Wilson details how programs across the political spectrum have failed the underclass, he is sharply critical of conservative and liberal policies.

Wilson posits social isolation–a distinction which shifts the problem from the psychological to the socio-economic realm. Instead of blaming poverty and its “Evening the Playing Field:” Will the ESSA Accountability Plan Acknowledge the Work of Teachers in “Truly Disadvantaged” Schools? Will the plan be “Equitable?” | Ed In The Apple:

Heroin Distributor Once Set Up Fake WV Prep School in Apartment | deutsch29

Heroin Distributor Once Set Up Fake WV Prep School in Apartment | deutsch29:

Heroin Distributor Once Set Up Fake WV Prep School in Apartment

Reality television has nothing on modern day school scams.

In 2011, Daniel Hicks created a fake school, ostensibly a boarding school, West Virginia Prep, which somehow “enrolled” over 20 athletes who were actually living in an unfurnished apartment.

The April 05, 2017, Charleston Gazette reported that Hicks “lured students …from around the world to attend a school that didn’t exist.” Hicks told prospective recruits that the school would provide opportunities not only to play basketball and football but also to vie for postsecondary basketball and football scholarships.

From the September 08, 2011, USA Today:

The players never saw the inside of a classroom. When student-athletes began arriving from France, Great Britain and several U.S. states, 17 of them were housed in a three-bedroom apartment with meager food and troublesome air conditioning, according to city officials, players and police.

Also, according to the Gazette, “West Virginia law allows anyone to organize a prep school, with minimal oversight or regulation by state authorities.”

The 2011 USA Today article confirms this:

West Virginia Department of Education spokeswoman Liza Cordeiro said as a exemption K school, West Virginia Prep Academy did the required paperwork and no background checks were performed on Hicks or on any possible teachers at the school.

“Under the law, all they have to do is send us a letter-of-intent, which has an explanation of who they are, where the school is to be located and contact information,” Cordeiro said. “On the back end, the schools have to send us their testing data and there has to be a certain level of proficiency on the tests. If not, the school has to write up a plan of improvement. But, since they are exemption K schools, we have no oversight on them at all.”

Student safety takes a complete back seat to self-regulation. Good test scores “on Heroin Distributor Once Set Up Fake WV Prep School in Apartment | deutsch29:

Teacher Shortage as "Shock Doctrine" | BustED Pencils

Teacher Shortage as "Shock Doctrine" | BustED Pencils:

Teacher Shortage as “Shock Doctrine”

Below is a letter that has been revised.  However, the message is appropriate for any supporter of public schools, professional teachers, and equity for all children. The original letter was sent to the state wide leaders of teacher education in Wisconsin.  The letter was written because of my adamant disapproval of toying with teacher licenses even though we have a hostile legislature hellbent on dismantling teacher education and privatizing our community public schools.

Since the declared teacher “shortage” states have been either dabbling in wishful thinking or downright deprofessionalization.  Believing that the “shortage” is simply a human capital issue complicated by dastardly license requirements, hostile state legislatures have decided that the “shortage” will simply be solved by doing away with license requirements. This in turn will allow “alternative” pathways and create more “robust pipelines” of potential teaching candidates.  These new pipelines—devoid of professional regulations and professional license expectations—will magically create a new force of teachers.

My point is that we don’t have a shortage! We have a mass EXODUS that has been carefully planned for years and executed as an all out war on teachers.  The result: A political movement (ALEC approved) to do away with the profession of teaching and further reduce the costs of our public school systems—A paved pathway to privatization.

Dear Teacher Education Colleagues,

I cannot support any license changes until the conditions causing teachers to leave the classroom and the conditions discouraging young people from entering the profession drive the policy discussions.

There is absolutely no evidence that changing license developmental ranges will do 

Teacher Shortage as "Shock Doctrine" | BustED Pencils:

Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: Another Loss for Paterson Students

Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: Another Loss for Paterson Students:

Another Loss for Paterson Students

NorthJersey.com reports that online speech therapy is up next for students with disabilities in the Paterson School District. This, after the Education Law Center filed a complaint against the district for not delivering services to students with Individual Education Plans. 

Imagine having online services in place of having a therapist in the room with the students in Ridgewood or Princeton or Saddle River. You can't? I can't either. This is the latest hit to some of New Jersey's most vulnerable students. 

53 students in School 18, an elementary school, will be the test subjects for this program. I cannot support using a service that separates the student from a therapist. Students need to have the therapist in the room with them, directly interacting with them, and providing feedback that includes body language. 

How does this work for the student who needs feeding therapy? What about students with intellectual disabilities? What about those who need to be in a group setting for social skills support? I could keep going on, but you get the idea. There are so many basic limitations to Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: Another Loss for Paterson Students:

DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Here’s what it means for school reform. - The Washington Post

DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Here’s what it means for school reform. - The Washington Post:

DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Here’s what it means for school reform

Florida has channeled billions of taxpayer dollars into scholarships for poor children to attend private schools over the past 15 years, using tax credits to build a laboratory for school choice that the Trump administration holds up as a model for the nation.

The voucherlike program, the largest of its kind in the country, helps pay tuition for nearly 100,000 students from low-income families.

But there is scant evidence that these students fare better academically than their peers in public schools. And there is a perennial debate about whether the state should support private schools that are mostly religious, do not require teachers to hold credentials and are not required to meet minimal performance standards. Florida private schools must administer one of several standardized tests to scholarship recipients, but there are no consequences for consistently poor results.

“After the students leave us, the public loses any sense of accountability or scrutiny of the outcomes,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Miami-Dade County public schools. He wonders what happens to the 25,000 students from the county who receive the scholarships. “It’s very difficult to gauge whether they’re hitting the mark.”

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime advocate for school choice, does not seem to be DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Here’s what it means for school reform. - The Washington Post: