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Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Love Public Schools Read This: How Much Charter Schools Cost

How Much Charter Schools Cost:

How Much Charter Schools Cost


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In a first-of-its-kind analysis, In the Public Interest has found that public school students in three California school districts are bearing the cost of the unchecked expansion of privately managed charter schools.
The report, Breaking Point: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts, calculates the fiscal impact of charter schools on Oakland Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District, and San Jose’s East Side Union High School District.
  • Charter schools cost Oakland Unified $57.3 million per year. That’s $1,500 less in funding for each student that attends a neighborhood school.
  • The annual cost of charter schools to the San Diego Unified is $65.9 million.
  • In East Side Union, the net impact of charter schools amounts to a loss of $19.3 million per year.
The California Charter School Act doesn’t allow school boards to consider how a proposed charter school may impact a district’s educational programs or fiscal health when weighing new charter applications.
However, when a student leaves a neighborhood school for a charter school, all the funding for that student leaves with them, while all the costs do not. This leads to cuts in core services like counseling, libraries, and special education, and increased class sizes at neighborhood public schools.
In the Public Interest recommends that public officials at both the local and state levels should be empowered to take fiscal and educational impacts on neighborhood schools into account when deciding whether to authorize a new charter school.

Wondering what the cost is in your district?

In the Public Interest has designed a template to enable any California school district to calculate the net fiscal impact of charter schools in its community. Email info@inthepublicinterest.org to get a copy.

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Help us make sure that every public school student thrives. Want updates on charter schools from In the Public Interest? Sign up here.



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Monday, May 7, 2018

Debate: How Should Unions Deal With Free Riders? | Labor Notes

Debate: How Should Unions Deal With Free Riders? | Labor Notes:

Debate: How Should Unions Deal With Free Riders?

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The U.S. is quickly becoming an open-shop country. A majority of states now have “right-to-work” laws, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME is likely to make right to work the law of the land in the public sector. Many unions are bracing for an immediate exodus of dues- and fee-payers.
In a right-to-work setting, workers have the option to be free riders, receiving the benefits of unionization without paying membership dues or fees. Yet the duty of fair representation requires the union to represent everyone in the bargaining unit, even non-members. This duty arises from a union being the exclusive representative of a group of workers—no other union or organization can speak for them.
Those are the rules in the private sector, anyway. In the public sector, certain states already allow some form of “members-only unions.” In Florida, for instance, public sector unions are not obliged to represent non-members in grievances. The same is true for teacher unions in Tennessee, where multiple organizations compete to represent teachers in the same workplace.
The anticipated Janus decision has sparked a debate. Should public sector unions try to get “members-only” laws passed? Where such laws are in place, should unions really stop representing non-members?
These questions aren’t hypothetical. In April, New York state passed a law, backed by the AFL-CIO, that public sector unions no longer have to provide representation to non-members in disciplinary hearings, grievances, or arbitrations.
Meanwhile national anti-union groups are promoting a similar idea for their own reasons.
Below are links to several perspectives Labor Notes readers sent in. Want to join in the debate? Email us at editors@labornotes.org.
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Debate: How Should Unions Deal With Free Riders?

RELATED
Viewpoint: How One Union's Image Got an Upgrade »
Viewpoint: To Thrive after Janus, Deeper Changes Are Needed »
Viewpoint: Unions Are Class Organizations, and Should Act Like It »
Viewpoint: Don't Rule Out Giving Up Exclusive Representation »
Viewpoint: Don’t Fall for the Members-Only Unionism Trap »
Debate: How Should Unions Deal With Free Riders? | Labor Notes:

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ECOT used for-profit companies to hide source of attack-ad money, Yost says

ECOT used for-profit companies to hide source of attack-ad money, Yost says:

ECOT used for-profit companies to hide source of attack-ad money, Yost says

Using private companies owned by Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow school founder Bill Lager, plus a media-production company run by his daughter, ECOT tried to hide the source of payment for nearly $250,000 worth of TV attack ads aimed at the Ohio Department of Education.
That is the conclusion reached by the office of state Auditor Dave Yost, who, in a draft finding for recovery obtained by The Dispatch, lays out details of a plan designed to avoid the appearance that ECOT illegally used taxpayer money to pay for political ads.
As a result, Yost is ordering a pair of Lager’s ECOT-affiliated for-profit companies, Altair Learning Management and IQ Innovations, along with Third Wave Communications, where Lager’s daughter Jessica Harris is an owner, to repay ECOT a total of nearly $250,000 for illegally spent public money.
ECOT, formerly the state’s largest charter school, was closed in January. The recovered money would go into a fund that is under the control of an interim master who was appointed by a Franklin County judge; the fund is to be used to continue paying the school’s obligations. The companies can formally respond to the finding this week.
>> Join the conversation at Facebook.com/dispatchpolitics and connect with us on Twitter @OhioPoliticsNow
ECOT and the Department of Education engaged in warfare in the courts and a public relations campaign last year after the department found that the online school was unable to verify about 60 percent of its reported enrollment, based largely on the duration of computer log-ins showing that students didn’t meet state-minimum hours of instruction. The state ordered ECOT to repay the state $60 million.
As part of its strategy, ECOT took to the airwaves, launching a string of television ads attacking the Department of Education, urging it to keep ECOT open and accusing it of wanting to end school choice and not caring about ECOT students. Lager is a major contributor to Republican campaigns.
Although charter schools can legally run ads in an effort to recruit students, no public school — charter or traditional — is allowed to spend taxpayer money on political-type ads, including levy campaigns.

On June 13, according to the auditor’s report, Midwest Communications & Media sent ECOT an invoice in the amount of $249,962 related to the placement of the political ads.
Two weeks later, when contacted by The Dispatch, then-ECOT spokesman Neil Clark confirmed that the ads were paid for with public money. He argued that the school had a right to use those funds for “any activity that they believe can lead to making ODE change its current position or affect the General Assembly to try to change ODE.”
The same day that story appeared in the paper, Yost sent ECOT a letter demanding that the school cease using taxpayer money on such ads.
Four days after the story and letter, according to the report, Melissa Vasil, director of operations for Altair, the school’s for-profit management company, sent an email to Amy Davis, marketing coordinator with IQ Innovations, the school’s software provider. Again, Lager owns both companies.
Vasil told Davis to have Third Wave Communications — a company that shares a street address and family ties with IQ — pay the $249,962 invoice. That same day, bank records show that Third Wave made the payment, which, Yost’s office noted, was a departure from the payment practice in the first half of 2017.
“Third Wave Communications had no apparent reason to pay a large sum of money for this and only these advertisements,” the report said, noting that prior Midwest invoices were sent to ECOT for payment.
Since June 2016, ECOT had been paying Third Wave $45,000 per month, plus $4,950 per additional video, as detailed by the contract. Those consulting payments made up a significant portion of Third Wave’s available cash to pay Midwest Communications, and there is no evidence that a third party ever reimbursed Third Wave for the payment, the report said.
“The only reasonable understanding of this process is that it was designed to disguise the use of public money to pay for the non-public purpose of the lobbying ad,” the report said.
Yost is expected to release a new financial audit of ECOT soon.
 ECOT used for-profit companies to hide source of attack-ad money, Yost says:


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Sunday, May 6, 2018

Diane Ravitch and the education debate | My View | santafenewmexican.com

Diane Ravitch and the education debate | My View | santafenewmexican.com:

Diane Ravitch and the education debate


Thank you to the Lannan Foundation for bringing Diane Ravitch to address our community on the challenges that she sees to strengthen our public education system to best serve children (“Author assails state of education in N.M.,” April 16). Obviously our community values public education, as the Lensic Performing Arts Center was packed for the presentation.
We appreciate Ravitch’s clear message that poverty compromises learning and that federal and state mandates that require excessive testing can be punitive. We welcome her strong advocacy for supporting and recognizing teachers, and her emphasis on child-centered learning. We agree that we need to be aware of some corporations’ agendas to privatize our public education system; and that the present agenda of the U.S. Department of Education is to fund the expansion of public charter schools, thereby diminishing funding of traditional public schools. We lament, along with Ravitch, that the testing industry drives and profits from excessive testing, to the detriment of quality education. Best practice requires only occasional testing, and only to diagnose how a child needs to be supported. Best practice then provides additional support for that child.
However, we do not agree with Ravitch that a solution is to do away with national standards. The standards provide a common point of reference for children, families, teachers, principals and school administrators as a student moves from state to state, system to system, and from school to school.
In addressing the Santa Fe audience, Dr. Ravitch may have been unaware that our community strives to address the issues of poverty daily through the work of the Santa Fe Public Schools Student Wellness Division; the Adelante Program, serving 1,700 homeless children and their families yearly; and through partnership with the nonprofit organization Communities in Schools, linking children to wrap-around services related to their health and well-being. While inadequately funded, our school system has struggled to budget for school counselors, nurses and school security. Each week The Food Depot provides backpacks full of food to school children and their families.
We as a community need to support and collaborate with SFPS to expand and implement effective strategies to address poverty and lift student achievement. The Interfaith Coalition for Public Education joins others in recruiting and placing tutors in classrooms, coaching teachers, providing teacher workshops, advocating for increased funding and accountability, and orchestrating education forums to inform the public. We, along with other entities in Santa Fe work collectively in the Birth to Career (now Opportunities Santa Fe) collaborative to maximize support for our children.
Ravitch and many others point to best practices in Finland and other nations as models for New Mexico. We agree that the prenatal years are critical for developing the initial capacity for learning. But our national and state policies have never adequately addressed or funded universal prenatal health care, paid family leave, home visitation for expecting and new mothers, and universal public school pre-K. In our society, teachers do not yet have the status in pay and respect of corporate CEOs, doctors, lawyers, entertainers and athletes. Until we dedicate public funds to rigorous teacher education, high-quality classroom and teacher support and abundant teacher salaries, teachers will continue to be demoralized as they fight for bare necessities. This is inexcusable; we as voters and taxpayers need to demand legislation that will put teacher-honoring policies into effect.
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for stirring our thinking and helping us to recognize the important work in progress in our city. There is work enough for all of us to put power into effective strategies that benefit our children and community.
K. Elise Packard, Ph.D., is a learning consultant and co-founder of the Interfaith Coalition for Public Education. She lives in Santa Fe.Diane Ravitch and the education debate | My View | santafenewmexican.com:
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Don’t let charter schools cloud the race for Brown’s successor. Vote Newsom or Chian | The Sacramento Bee

California primary: Newsom or Chiang are top two for governor | The Sacramento Bee:

Don’t let charter schools cloud the race for Brown’s successor. Vote Newsom or Chiang
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Gov. Jerry Brown is a hard act to follow. No California governor has served longer, or more consequentially.
In the past eight years alone – his second stint in the office – the state has gone from a $27 billion budget deficit to a $6 billion surplus. Unemployment has fallen from 12.2 percent to 4.3 percent, a record. Along the way, Brown has realigned the state’s criminal justice system, overhauled public school finance, licensed more than a million undocumented drivers, put the state at the forefront of addressing climate change and taught Californians a little Latin.
Whoever succeeds him will not only have to pick up where he left off on those issues, but also maintain his defense of California against Trump administration assaults on our environment, trade, diversity and tolerant values. Not to mention our many in-state challenges – affordable housing, health care, underfunded public employee pensions, higher education, water policy and so on. Oh, and the near-term likelihood of a downturn in the state economy.
So voters have their work cut out on June 5 in culling two candidates from a field of more than two dozen contenders. A few prospects are prepared, but let us stipulate: None are Jerry Brown.
The best-equipped candidate for the economy to come – state Treasurer John Chiang – is running an anemic campaign and is probably terminally underfunded. The best-financed and most experienced candidates – former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom – have, in their personal lives, made unnerving and public errors in judgment.
More immediately, there are the great gobs of money from billionaire charter school advocates going to independent expenditure campaigns backing Villaraigosa. Though Newsom, too, has his billionaires – hello, Silicon Valley – the charter movement has direct Continue Reading: California primary: Newsom or Chiang are top two for governor | The Sacramento Bee:





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Friday, May 4, 2018

America’s Youth Under Fire - Center for American Progress

America’s Youth Under Fire - Center for American Progress:

America’s Youth Under Fire
The Devastating Impact of Gun Violence on Young People
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Introduction and summary

On February 14, 2018, 14 students and three staff members were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, by a single shooter armed with an assault rifle. This horrific massacre galvanized the nation’s attention to the issue of gun violence, particularly as it affects young people in this country. However, the scope of gun violence as it affects America’s youth is much vaster than this most recent mass shooting. Gunfire has officially overtaken car accidents as one of the leading killers of young people in the United States.1 As of publication time, since the beginning of 2018, 820 teens ages 12 to 17 have been killed or injured with a gun.2 As mass shootings become more common and more deadly, a staggering 57 percent of teenagers now fear a school shooting.3
 The epidemic of gun violence against America’s youth is more than just a disturbing data point. For each bullet fired, there are multiple stories of lives changed forever. When he was just 6 years old, Missouri State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. saw his brother shot in front of their neighbor’s home.4Nevada activist Mariam El-Haj witnessed the shooting of her mother by her estranged father, who then turned the gun on Mariam.5 Oregon youth mentor Jes Phillip’s siblings have all had close calls—she has three younger sisters who were present at the Reynolds High School shooting in Troutdale, Oregon, and two bullets landed next to her brother’s bed when they came through her family’s apartment wall during a neighborhood shooting.6 Nineteen- year-old student Eli Saldana, a member of the Native American community living in Chicago, was shot on his walk home from work.


These stories of gun violence are all too common among young Americans. The United States’ gun violence epidemic disproportionately ravages young people, particularly young people of color. In short, gun violence is shattering a generation.
Young people are not simply victims of gun violence in this country, they are among the leading voices calling for change to the nation’s weak gun laws and deadly gun culture. Organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement; survivors of the Parkland shooting; youth organizers working in cities hardest hit by gun violence, such as Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis, have all lent their voices to an increasingly loud call to action.
These young people do not just want to reform gun laws—they are also demanding that the issue of gun violence be examined as part of a complex and intersectional web of issues that also include community disinvestment, criminal justice reform, and policing. They are advocating not only for solutions to make schools safer from mass shootings but also for holistic and intersectional solutions that will help make all communities safer.
This report breaks down how gun violence is affecting young people, and how young activists are rising to build an intersectional movement working for solutions. It examines the specific impact of gun violence on young people and considers both how young people as a collective are disproportionately affected and how different communities of young people share different aspects of the burden of this violence. This report also highlights examples of young people leading the advocacy efforts around this issue and discusses a number of policy solutions that are crucial to reducing gun violence, reforming the criminal justice system, improving police-community relations, and encouraging reinvestment in impacted communities.
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Impact of gun violence on young people: A national overview

Young people make up a very small percentage of all deaths in the United States each year. Consider 2016: That year, more than 2.7 million people in the United States died, with the top-three leading causes of death being heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries.7 Of these 2.7 million deaths, only 2.2 percent were individuals between the ages of 15 and 29.8However, looking only at deaths caused by gunfire, the picture changes dramatically. Young people in this age range Continue reading: America’s Youth Under Fire - Center for American Progress:




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Game Changer? Just Maybe. Why Gates' Move Into Anti-Poverty Work Is a Big Deal — Inside Philanthropy

Game Changer? Just Maybe. Why Gates' Move Into Anti-Poverty Work Is a Big Deal — Inside Philanthropy:

Game Changer? Just Maybe. Why Gates' Move Into Anti-Poverty Work Is a Big Deal


The Gates Foundation is getting into anti-poverty work in the United States in a big way with a four-year, $158 million initiative. The move is a significant departure from the foundation’s past domestic endeavors, which focused almost exclusively on education. 
Though the initiative represents a pivot, Gates’ commitment to education played a major role in pushing the foundation in this direction, CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann told Inside Philanthropy. 
“We got into this space because of all the years we worked in education,” Desmond-Hellmann said. “Education leaders told us that to give students the best chance at success, we would have to engage with the problems that face students outside the classroom.”
Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia University professor who wrote Too Many Children Left Behind, is among those experts who've long been arguing for a broader approach to improving student outcomes. Her research supports a link between what happens outside school and kids’ success in the classroom.
“The U.S. has very large achievement gaps between children from low- and high-income families—large relative to what they were historically and also large relative to the gaps in other countries,” Waldfogel said. “We also know that a substantial portion of these achievement gaps is due to factors outside of school.” 
Gaps that exist before kids start school tend to widen once they arrive, she said. “Although, of course, schools have a critical role to play in reducing achievement gaps, there is also a critical role for policies to help level the playing field outside of school.” 
For years, poverty has been one of the most polarizing issues in education. Reformers pushing for more choice and accountability have insisted that poor kids could make big gains if they just had better schools and teachers, and said that defenders of the status quo too often used poverty to excuse failing education systems. Progressives, in turn, charged that the school reform movement had unrealistic expectations for low-income students and was failing to reckon with deep structural inequities in U.S. society. 
Traditionally, the Gates Foundation has been a leader of reform funders focused strictly on schools. But as Bill Gates himself has acknowledged, after years of often disappointing results from its K-12 work, the foundation is finally broadening its approach to look at factors outside the classroom. 
The new initiative has some education experts on the left enjoying a moment of vindication. “I have said repeatedly that the foundation should focus on the root cause of low test scores, which is poverty,” said NYU professor Diane Ravitch, an education historian and one of Gates' harshest critics. “So I am very pleased that the foundation is taking an important step in this direction.” 
This move, moreover, comes after a recent pivot by the Gates Foundation on its K-12 work to back locally Game Changer? Just Maybe. Why Gates' Move Into Anti-Poverty Work Is a Big Deal — Inside Philanthropy:

Gates Foundation Pledges $158 Million to Fight Poverty in U.S. – Next City - https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/gates-foundation-pledges-158-million-to-fight-poverty-in-u.s via @NextCityOrg


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