Why the IRS’ Recent Dark Money Decision May Be Less… — ProPublica

Why the IRS’ Recent Dark Money Decision May Be Less… — ProPublica

Why the IRS’ Recent Dark Money Decision May Be Less Dire Than It Seems
With the tax agency already “toothless” on political cases, how much difference does it make if it’s now “deaf and blind,” too?

Starting next year, the Internal Revenue Service will no longer collect the names of major donors to thousands of nonprofit organizations, from the National Rifle Association to the American Civil Liberties Union to the AARP. Democratic members of Congress and critics of money in politics blasted the move, announced last week by the Treasury Department, the IRS’ parent agency. The Democrats claim the new policy will expand the flow of so-called dark money — contributions from undisclosed donors used to fund election activities — in American politics. For their part, Republicans and conservative groups praised the decision as a much-needed step to avoid chilling the First Amendment rights of private citizens.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United unleashed these groups, typically organized as 501(c)(4) nonprofits, to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign ads. Their role in American politics has grown increasingly central. In theory, the new IRS policy could have a significant impact on the tax agency’s ability to detect improper contributions — and thereby curb illegal campaign spending.

But in practice, even critics acknowledge that the IRS very rarely audits nonprofits. In other words, the IRS will no longer receive information that it was seemingly making little use of. And the information in question was already shielded from the public’s view.

Up to now, IRS regulations have required all types of nonprofits to report the names and addresses of each major donor, as well as the dollar amount the donor contributed that year, on their tax returns. But the IRS can override this reporting requirement in certain cases when it finds that the information is “not necessary for the efficient administration of the internal revenue laws.”

That’s what the IRS did last week — relieving most nonprofits, excluding 501(c)(3) charities and foundations, of the need to report the names and addresses of major donors. “The IRS simply does not need tax returns with donor names and addresses to do its job in this area,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a press release.

The Treasury Department pointed to 2015 changes to the tax code that exempted from taxation many gifts or contributions to nonprofits. Without the need to Continue reading: Why the IRS’ Recent Dark Money Decision May Be Less… — ProPublica

Education Dept. Illegally Curbed Workers’ Union Protections, Mediators Suggest - The New York Times

Education Dept. Illegally Curbed Workers’ Union Protections, Mediators Suggest - The New York Times
Education Dept. Illegally Curbed Workers’ Union Protections, Mediators Suggest

WASHINGTON — Federal labor mediators have advised the Education Department that it most likely imposed new work rules on its employees illegally, curtailing workers’ protections and access to union representation in violation of federal law.

The American Federation of Government Employees said Tuesday that the Federal Labor Relations Authority advised the Education Department that it had engaged in “bad-faith bargaining” when it implemented a contract this year that gutted compensation and benefits provisions for the department’s 3,900 employees, and limited employees’ ability to carry out union duties during the work day.

The decision could have broad implications because the Education Department’s actions mirror Trump administration efforts throughout the federal government. The Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs have begun implementing work rules similar to the ones at the Education Department, union officials said. And many of the anti-union elements reflect a series of executive orders on the federal work force that President Trump signed in May.

The union plans to use the finding as it pursues labor disputes across the federal government.

“For the first salvo to be knocked down by the F.L.R.A., it sends the message that the government isn’t going to be allowed to operate outside the bounds of the law,” said David A. Borer, general counsel for the union.

The Education Department imposed the contract after a year of  Continue reading: Education Dept. Illegally Curbed Workers’ Union Protections, Mediators Suggest - The New York Times

As fiscal problems mount, Celerity charter network closes a school

As fiscal problems mount, Celerity charter network closes a school

As fiscal problems mount, Celerity charter network closes a school

For months after federal agents raided the offices of a Los Angeles charter school network, seizing documents and electronic records, the Celerity Educational Group tried to overhaul its image.

The nonprofit cut financial ties with its parent organization and replaced its chief executive. It launched a rebranding effort to distance itself from allegations of financial wrongdoingthat have hovered for more than a year.

But in a sign that all is not well, the charter management organization made the decision last week to close one of its seven schools in Los Angeles County: Celerity Rolas, in Northeast L.A.

In a letter to parents, Nadia Shaiq, the group’s CEO, said that Rolas had been unable to attract enough students to justify the costs of keeping it open.

“Closing a school is always a disappointment for our entire community,” Shaiq wrote. “But keeping the school without the enrollment necessary for a balanced budget would threaten the overall health of our other schools, impacting students, parents and employees.”

A spokesman for Celerity did not respond to requests for comment.

Rolas’ closure means that several hundred students will be forced to find new placements — and without much time. The first day of school in the Los Angeles Unified School District is Aug. 14, and many of the deadlines for enrollment lotteries at the most sought-after charter schools have passed. Celerity’s leaders have encouraged families to switch to its school in Glassell Park, Celerity Octavia.

The closure is the first public sign that Celerity is under considerable financial strain.

In the aftermath of the January 2017 raid and news that the FBI was investigating the nonprofit and questioning its employees, Celerity was thrown into turmoil. The State Board of Education refused to renew two of its charter schools, and although both schools were able to reopen under different names, the network said some its families never came back.

At Celerity Rolas, an elementary and middle school split between two sites — one in Eagle Rock and one in Highland Park — the school needed 435 students to break even, according to the organization’s correspondence with the state. But only 309 students enrolled last year.

The loss of students meant less funding from the state. Meanwhile, the organization’s legal fees were rising.

Facing investigations by federal agencies and L.A. Unified’s Office of Inspector General, the group hired the law firm Gibson Dunn to aid it during the inquiries and help it separate from  Continue reading: As fiscal problems mount, Celerity charter network closes a school

Big Education Ape: Few school supplies but a lavish party: At charter school, teachers saw a clash between scarcity and extravagance - LA Times - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/01/few-school-supplies-but-lavish-party-at.html

Big Education Ape: Los Angeles Rocked by Another Charter School Scandal: State Awards Two New Schools to Ethically Challenged Charter Chain | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/03/los-angeles-rocked-by-another-charter.html

Big Education Ape: Under federal investigation, Celerity charter schools are in danger of losing their accreditation - LA Times - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/04/under-federal-investigation-celerity.html

Big Education Ape: 2 Celerity charter schools shut down by California board of education | 89.3 KPCC - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/05/2-celerity-charter-schools-shut-down-by.html

Big Education Ape: Meeting Notice/Agenda for April 5, 2017 - Advisory Commission on Charter Schools (CA Dept of Education) - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/03/meeting-noticeagenda-for-april-5-2017.html

Challenging Doug Harris to a Follow-Up Study Isolating OPSB and RSD Outcomes | deutsch29

Challenging Doug Harris to a Follow-Up Study Isolating OPSB and RSD Outcomes | deutsch29

Challenging Doug Harris to a Follow-Up Study Isolating OPSB and RSD Outcomes

In a July 15, 2018, study on market-ed reform in New Orleans, researchers Doug Harris and Matthew Larsen combined data on two sets of New Orleans schools: those not taken over by the state and remaining with the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), and those taken over by the state to form the Recovery School District (RSD).

OPSB schools, most of which are charter schools, include selective admission charter schools and also have notably more white students. Not considered “failing,” OPSB schools have had higher school performance scores and ACT scores. OPSB schools are fewer in number, but examination of the number of students attending OPSB high schools from 2007 – 2014 indicates that OPSB schools have served more New Orleans students than have RSD high schools for all years but one.

RSD schools are not the schools that white students choose to attend. The number of RSD schools has fluctuated over the years, with the ratio of RSD schools to OPSB schools being 4:1. However, as previously noted, the number of students attending OPSB high schools rivals and exceeds the number of RSD high school students from 2007 – 2014 (the years included in Harris and Larsen’s study.

New Orleans has two school systems, if you will: one for the “haves” (OPSB), and one for the “have nots” (RSD).

It is misleading to analyze all New Orleans students together as one “choice” district.

I believe that OPSB success can conceal RSD deficit, especially in analyses of high school and college success.

I believe Harris and Larsen have done the public a disservice by ignoring where a student has attended school (OPSB or RSD) in their study.

It is not enough to even offer analyses by race or low-income divisions alone since many black students attend OPSB schools.

I challenge Harris and Larsen to redo their study and compare OPSB outcomes with RSD outcomes. To do so offers distinct insight into the outcomes associated with state takeover and subsequent charter conversion (RSD) versus non-state-takeover that includes selective admission charters (OPSB).

When the state took control of most of New Orleans’ public schools, it was with a boast of turning those schools around. Provide the public with measurable outcomes on this boast.

The public deserves to know the degree to which such turn-around was achieved.

Produce the study. And if you cannot produce the study, produce a brief explaining why you cannot produce it. Challenging Doug Harris to a Follow-Up Study Isolating OPSB and RSD Outcomes | deutsch29

Challenging Doug Harris to a Follow-Up Study Isolating OPSB and RSD Outcomes | deutsch29

RELATED: 

Big Education Ape: A Failure On ALL FRONTS: What We Really Need To Know About SCHOOL UNIFICATION – The New Orleans Tribune - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-failure-on-all-fronts-what-we-really.html

A Failure On ALL FRONTS: What We Really Need To Know About SCHOOL UNIFICATION – The New Orleans Tribune

A Failure On ALL FRONTS: What We Really Need To Know About SCHOOL UNIFICATION – The New Orleans Tribune

A FAILURE ON ALL FRONTS: WHAT WE REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SCHOOL UNIFICATION

By July 1, 2018, all schools under the Recovery School District-New Orleans will be under the control of the Orleans Parish School Board. But what does that really mean?

The Orleans Parish School Board will exercise little control over charter schools under the unification plan, essentially having veto power only when school management organizations seek to renew their charters.

Dr. Raynard Sanders

In the summer of 2016, the mainstream media and others hailed the return of public schools from the state-run Recovery School District to the Orleans Parish School Board. The return was viewed by many as an accomplishment as they boasted that the schools were returning after making dramatic academic performance compared to the poor academic performance public schools in New Orleans pre-Hurricane Katrina. In reality, the unification plan does not mean that schools have improved or that the elected school board will have any real governance power. Consider that in an article in The Advocate in August 2016, Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, warned the local Orleans Parish School Board, “As the primary authorizer for public schools in Orleans Parish, OPSB needs to. . . restructure itself accordingly so that it serves as a thought and support partner for its schools”.  To be sure, words like “authorizer” and “support partner” hardly equate to real local governance.

While there were tainted voices from the community and the media declaring that the autonomy of the charter school boards and good leadership were responsible for improved academic performance after Hurricane Katrina, numerous researchers and journalists here in New Orleans and across the country have found that charter schools in New Orleans have consistently scored lower than public schools across the state of Louisiana on mandated state tests and the ACT Test (a national college admission test). The education reform efforts have also been criticized for the less than honest pronouncement of issues around access and equity, serving special needs students and fiscal mismanagement.

Remembering How the reform in New Orleans happened

In the name of school reform, within months after Hurricane Katrina, state officials along with powerful national organizations decided to drastically change the delivery model of public education in New Orleans from a system of public schools governed by an elected school board to a system of charter schools managed by unelected individual charter school boards.  The Louisiana Legislature passed ACT 35 on November 29, 2005, while the city was mostly depopulated after Hurricane Katrina. ACT 35 changed the requirements for state takeover of schools by raising the required minimum School Performance Score (SPS) score and redefining “academically acceptable”  and “academically unacceptable”. A school’s SPS is a composite score based on one of three student performance exams, the school’s dropout rate and its student attendance rate. Before Hurricane Katrina, a SPS score of 60 was the cutoff score for a school to be labeled acceptable. Any school in Louisiana that was designated Academic Unacceptable (AU) for four consecutive years and showed no improvement was eligible for state takeover and placed under the jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Education’s Recovery School District (RSD).

Act 35 significantly changed the rules by raising the minimum SPS score to 87.4 even if these schools had not been AU for four straight years. Act 35 also expanded the state’s takeover authority so that it applied to school districts with more than 30 “failing” schools and with at least 50 percent of their student population in academically unacceptable schools. The 30- failing school provision meant that Act 35 had a unique impact on Orleans Parish, the state’s largest school district. Given the fact that 50 of Louisiana’s 64 parish school districts have fewer than 30 schools, the vast majority of parishes will never be affected by the 30-failing school threshold. When Act 35 was written, only, seven parishes had more than 40 schools; and Orleans Parish had far more public schools than any other district—47 more than the next largest district. Overnight, the new lines drawn by Act 35 Continue reading: A Failure On ALL FRONTS: What We Really Need To Know About SCHOOL UNIFICATION – The New Orleans Tribune

Big Education Ape: Charter school’s refusal to admit students lacking uniforms wasn’t its first violation | The Lens - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/07/charter-schools-refusal-to-admit.html

BREAKING NEWS: Ref Rodriguez pleads guilty to conspiracy and resigns from L.A. school board

Ref Rodriguez pleads guilty to conspiracy and resigns from L.A. school board

Ref Rodriguez pleads guilty to conspiracy and resigns from L.A. school board

Dogged by accusations of political money laundering, Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty Monday to a felony count of conspiracy and resigned from office.

Rodriguez, 47, who had no previous criminal record, will avoid jail time. Instead, he will get three years’ probation and 60 days of community service. His resignation was effective immediately.

As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Rodriguez also pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of assumed-name contribution.

Rodriguez had faced three felony charges and 25 misdemeanor counts and could have received several years in prison if convicted.

The deal ends a strange and stormy saga for Rodriguez, a widely admired educator who became the first charter school executive elected to the governing board of the nation’s second-largest school system.

Just over a year ago, Rodriguez was selected school board president by a narrow 4-to-3 margin, which included Rodriguez’s vote on the seven-member Board of Education. He became board president as a result of a first-ever majority elected with substantial financial support from charter school backers.

Charter schools are independently operated and compete with L.A. Unified for students — and for the government funds that follow them. Los Angeles has more charters and more charter students — about 18% of district enrollment — than any other school system.

Many charter enthusiasts had long believed that the district treated their schools unfairly in terms of sharing campuses and other resources. They saw the rise of Rodriguez as the herald of a new day.

But the campaign finance problems surfaced within months of his becoming board president. Rodriguez had known about the investigation for as long as two years but had kept the Continue reading: Ref Rodriguez pleads guilty to conspiracy and resigns from L.A. school board

Will He Still Be Running His Charter School?

Big Education Ape: OMG: CCSA's Ref Rodriguez's PUC Lakeview Charter Academy Audit - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/04/ccsas-ref-rodriguezs-puc-lakeview.html

End of Public Schools in Milwaukee? | tultican

End of Public Schools in Milwaukee? | tultican

End of Public Schools in Milwaukee?

This past school year, Wisconsin taxpayers sent $250,000,000 to religious schools. Catholics received the largest slice, but protestants, evangelicals and Jews got their cuts. Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) reveals that private Islamic schools took in $6,350,000. Of the 212 schools collecting voucher money, 197 were religious schools.

The Wisconsin voucher program was expanded before the 2014-2015 school year. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, “Seventy-five percent of eligible students who applied for taxpayer-funded subsidies to attend private and religious schools this fall in the statewide voucher program already attend private schools, ….”

Money taken from the public schools attended by the vast majority of Milwaukee’s students is sent to private religious schools. Public schools must adjust for stranded costs while paying to serve a higher percentage of special education students because private schools won’t take them. Forcing public schools to increase class sizes, reduce offerings such as music and lay off staff.

A mounting social division like those faced after the civil war is developing. Katherine Stewart shared that history in her stunning book, The Good News Club:

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, Lutherans as well as Catholics had developed extensive systems of parochial education. For many Protestants, however, the loss of students from those denominations was not a welcome development. It was feared that the combined force of the Lutheran and Catholic electorate would endanger the existence of public education altogether. The tensions between those who wanted universal public education and those who wanted their schools to look like their churches continued to grow. In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant declared that if a new civil war were to erupt, it would be fought not across the Mason-Dixon Line but at the door of the common schoolhouse. In an 1876 speech in Des Moines, Iowa, he articulated the conclusion many people had already drawn concerning the continuing struggles over religion in the public schools: “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions,” he said. “Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.” (pages 73-74) (emphasis added)

Privatizing Public Schools Not Achieving Predictions

John E. Chubb was a cofounder of the for-profit Edison Schools and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Terry M. Moe was a professor of political Continue reading: End of Public Schools in Milwaukee? | tultican

New Study: The Genetics of Staying in School - The Atlantic

New Study: The Genetics of Staying in School - The Atlantic

Why Study the Genetics of Staying in School?

Researchers have found 1,271 gene variants associated with years of formal schooling. That’s important, but not for the obvious reasons.

When scientists publish their research, it’s rare for them to write an accompanying FAQ that explains what they found and what it means. It’s especially rare for that FAQ to be three times longer than the research paper itself. But Daniel Benjamin and his colleagues felt the need to do so, because they work on a topic that is frequently and easily misunderstood: the genetics of education.

Over the past five years, Benjamin has been part of an international team of researchers identifying variations in the human genome that are associated with how many years of education people get. In 2013, after analyzing the DNA of 101,000 people, the team found just three of these genetic variants. In 2016, they identified 71 more after tripling the size of their study.

Now, after scanning the genomes of 1,100,000 people of European descent—one of the largest studies of this kind—they have a much bigger list of 1,271 education-associated genetic variants. The team—which includes Peter Visscher, David Cesarini, James Lee, Robbee Wedow, and Aysu Okbay—also identified hundreds of variants that are associated with math skills and performances on tests of mental abilities.

The team hasn’t discovered “genes for education.” Instead, many of these variants affect genes that are active in the brains of fetuses and newborns. These genes influence the creation of neurons and other brain cells, the chemicals these cells secrete, the way they react to new information, and the way they connect with each other. This biology affects our psychology, which in Continue reading: New Study: The Genetics of Staying in School - The Atlantic

KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education | EduResearcher

KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education | EduResearcher

KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education

[Original Title]: Will KIPP Be Allowed To Bypass Conflict of Interest Law In Its Bid For State Funds?

[3/14/18] Update: The California State Board of Education has voted to approve two KIPP petitions to expand campuses into San Francisco and San Jose despite strong community resistance and knowledge of the charter chain’s refusal to agree to abide by a basic conflict of interest law – Government Code 1090. The following is an open letter that had been sent to the State Board of Education to urge a no vote on the expansions.   For related posts on past State Board of Education votes, see here and here.

______________________

Dear California State Board of Education Trustees,

We urge you to uphold local decisions by publicly elected board trustees to deny the KIPP charter petitions that will be up for appeal at your March 14th meeting.  San Jose’s East Side Union High School District has more charters than traditional public schools and is facing budget drains of over 15 million dollars per year as a result. Such losses impact valuable student supports, human resources, and programs. Charter schools are the recipients of millions of dollars of public funding, yet many insist on private governance without equivalent standards for transparency, open meetings, or compliance with conflict of interest laws. To see the impact of these lax governance and oversight policies as they have unfolded, consider the following:

1) NAACP Calls For a Moratorium on Charter School Expansion 

The following links lead to the official NAACP statement about the resolution and the original resolution with research links. See also the recent Task Force report/recommendations, which specifically highlight the importance of local governance in decision-making about charter schools.

2) Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage: Voices from America’s Affected Communities of Color 

KIPP is mentioned several times throughout this report (see refs for p. 7 and 21 in addition to the quotes below).

“A study of KIPP charter schools – the largest corporate charter school chain in the U.S. – found that they enrolled a much lower percentage of students with disabilities (5.9%) than did their local public schools (12.1%). The same was true for English language learners (11.5% compared to 19.2%). p. 11   

and
“For example, the KIPP network of charter schools, well- known for their strict, military-style atmosphere, loses 15% of their students per year, far higher than their surrounding school districts.”

The patterns revealed in the above report are consistent with other published critiques of KIPP and with our own local Continue reading: KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education | EduResearcher

Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching - 9781475825794 - Rowman & Littlefield - Rowman & Littlefield - 

Related: 

Big Education Ape: A Topsy-Turvy Week for Charter Schools and School-Choice Tax Credits | Capital & Main - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-topsy-turvy-week-for-charter-schools.html

Don’t Make Me Enforce School Uniforms. Just Let Me Teach. - NWLC

Don’t Make Me Enforce School Uniforms. Just Let Me Teach. - NWLC

Don’t Make Me Enforce School Uniforms. Just Let Me Teach.

A typical morning, when I was a middle school teacher, went something like this:

Arrive at school by 7:30 am. Run to the copier with any last-minute printing for my classes. Get back to my classroom by 7:50 when students begin arriving. Greet students. Remind them to bring necessary materials to class. Address any conflicts in the hallway while also keeping an eye on students already in the classroom. Make sure students are quiet enough to hear morning announcements. Observe student moods—does anyone seem off today? Sad? Angry? Check in with students individually. Offer encouragement. Diffuse tensions. Give warnings. Take attendance. Listen to whatever life updates, issues, and anxieties students bring to me that day. Provide informal counseling. Make note of anyone that needs extra assistance so I can follow up with them later. Find out which teacher is out that day and who needs me give up my lunch or prep period to cover their class.

Oh, and before the 8:00 am bell sends students to their first class, send an email to the front office naming which students are out of uniform.

In this email, I was required to note numerous and arbitrary uniform violations: who is missing their lanyard, whose shoes have the wrong color soles, who has a vest without the school logo on it, who doesn’t have a tie, who has the wrong brand pants, whose shirt isn’t tucked in. The list went on and on.

To my administrators’ eternal frustration, I did not send that email every day like I was supposed to. It was a miracle if I could even take attendance by 8:00 am instead of playing catch up in my lunch period (if I had one). And the problem wasn’t just time, though that was a huge factor. Writing that email made me feel uneasy. Don’t get me wrong; my problem wasn’t discipline—I was voted strictest teacher my very first year teaching. I had high standards, because holding students to high standards was one of my ways of showing them they mattered. I wasted no time in addressing disruption and disrespect in the classroom.

But this—this always felt different. I hated writing that “out of uniform” email. I internally raged about how it was a waste of time, which it absolutely was. More than that, it never felt right to listen to a student tell me about their most recent Continue Reading: Don’t Make Me Enforce School Uniforms. Just Let Me Teach. - NWLC