Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/31/18

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/31/18

TODAY

CHARTER SCHOOL CROOKS IN THE NEWS: Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds - Chicago Tribune | WBEZ

by mike simpson / 3h

Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds - Chicago Tribune Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds A for-profit company that educates at-risk students won tens of millions of dollars from Chicago Public Schools with help from then-CEO Barba

Inside A FCMAT Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team Audit of One More Unaccountable California Charter School

by mike simpson / 7h

Livermore charter schools accused of misuse of public funds Inside A FCMAT Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team Audit of One More Unaccountable California Charter School LIVERMORE — An audit released Thursday suggests Livermore’s two charter schools misappropriated public funds, including a tax-exempt bond totaling $67 million, and mainly pointed the finger at former CEO Bill Batchelor. The

What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market | The New Yorker

by mike simpson / 8h

What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market | The New Yorker What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market A year ago, I volunteered to serve on the board of a charter elementary school in New Orleans, where I live. Two months ago, in a cafeteria crowded with whiplashed parents, I tried to give some comfort by explaining why,

LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. | Arkansas Blog

by mike simpson / 8h

LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. | Arkansas Blog LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. Give a read to the new public school basketball star LeBron James is backing to serve at-risk kids in Akron. Imagine. It's a part of the Akron School District. It is NOT a charter school. It is NOT a private school. They aren't skimming students from motivated families who might alrea

L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member's Felony Plea | Capital & Main

by mike simpson / 9h

L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member's Felony Plea | Capital & Main L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member’s Felony Plea A troubled charter-school advocate calls it quits — but not before participating in a string of key policy votes. “Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements

YESTERDAY

Randi Weingarten joins Margaret Hoover to Discuss the Supreme Court Janus Ruling | Firing Line | PBS

by mike simpson / 1d

Randi Weingarten | Firing Line | PBS Randi Weingarten joins Margaret Hoover to Discuss the Supreme Court Janus Ruling Randi Weingarten | Firing Line | PBS

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

by mike simpson / 1d

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out Dissatisfied with low pay and school funding, teachers in more red states are poised to protest. I n 2015, Jennifer Vetter decided to change careers and become a teacher. The 46-year old quit her well-paying management job at an orthodontic clinic in Gilbert, Ariz

The DeVos Democrats and Betsy DeVos’ Message to Students: You Have the Right to Be Ripped Off

by mike simpson / 1d

Betsy DeVos’ Message to Students: You Have the Right to Be Ripped Off Betsy DeVos’ Message to Students: You Have the Right to Be Ripped Off The education secretary’s new rules on student loans favor the predatory institutions that don’t provide good educations and blame the students who trusted them. When I read about what Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did last week on student loans, I thought

JUL 29

An Explanation to My Readers | Diane Ravitch's blog

by mike simpson / 2d

An Explanation to My Readers | Diane Ravitch's blog An Explanation to My Readers Dear Readers, Most of you have been faithful readers of this blog since I started it in 2012. I consider you my friends, even when we disagree. You have 

LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. | Arkansas Blog

LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. | Arkansas Blog

LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons.

Give a read to the new public school basketball star LeBron James is backing to serve at-risk kids in Akron.

Imagine.

It's a part of the Akron School District. It is NOT a charter school. It is NOT a private school. 

They aren't skimming students from motivated families who might already be achieving in school. They are SEEKING out students who need help in reading and math.

There will be long school days and intensive tutoring.

But that's not all.

But it will also focus on factors outside the classroom.

Services will help parents with stress related to their struggles. There will be extra activities to keep kids out of trouble in idle time. 

There will be family services, including job placement assistance and a food bank. James remembers the freedom a bicycle gave him as a child to escape dangerous neighborhoods. Every student will receive a bicycle.

The I Promise school embodies James' pledge not to ever forget where he came from.

Imagine if the Walton Foundation didn't spend $8 million to open yet another an unproven charter school amid a neighborhood overbuilt with school seats with an enrollment system likely to attract children more likely to succeed. Imagine if it poured this kind of effort into one of the Little Rock School District's real public Continue reading: LeBron James, education reformer. Attn. Waltons. | Arkansas Blog

What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market | The New Yorker

What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market | The New Yorker
What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market

A year ago, I volunteered to serve on the board of a charter elementary school in New Orleans, where I live. Two months ago, in a cafeteria crowded with whiplashed parents, I tried to give some comfort by explaining why, three days before the school year ended, the school had announced that it wouldn’t be open this fall. I apologized. I described the scrambling to try to solve a six-hundred-thousand-dollar budget shortfall. I apologized again. But what I didn’t explain was that the fate of Cypress Academy, a unique closure in a unique, charter-dominated school district, was not just about one school. It was about how startups fail, and about what happens when a school system is redesigned around the engines of the free market—autonomy, competition, and customer choice. Frankly, I didn’t understand this until later. Which is good, because the parents didn’t want to hear market theory. They just wanted their children to get a good public education.

In New Orleans, alone among large urban districts, almost all schools are now charter schools. This is the result of perhaps the most ambitious school-reform effort in the country’s history. In 2004, the year before Katrina, only fifty-four per cent of New Orleans high-school students graduated. After Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over almost all of the city’s schools and began turning them over to independent groups—either single-school charters, like Cypress, or largely local charter-management organizations, or C.M.O.s. This month, after thirteen years, the Orleans Parish School Board assumed control as the regulatory body over all the public schools in the city, reunifying the district and stirring intense reflection—locally and nationally—on the effects, so far, of ceding the city to a charter system.

That system, in which eighty-three per cent of students are economically disadvantaged, still has a long way to go. Forty per cent of the city’s schools are ranked “D” or “F” by state standards, and New Orleanians are no rookies at the national pastime of school segregation: the C.M.O.s serve mainly poor black students, while independent, “community” charters serve racially mixed populations. But, in the years since Katrina, the rates of high-school graduation, college attendance, and college persistence have increased by a range of ten to sixty-seven per cent. That’s confirmed in a recent study by Matthew Larsen, a professor at Lafayette College, and Doug Harris, an education researcher and economist at Tulane who, in the past, has been wary of “teach-to-the-test” results and the notion that “scores equal learning.” New Orleans achieved all this without two of the features most detested by charter critics: there are no for-profit charter schools in the city, and the charter system doesn’t drain money from the “regular” school system. In New Orleans, there is no other system.

Sitting on a charter-school board, I could observe that system firsthand. I joined the board of Cypress because Bob Berk, the founder of the school and a childhood acquaintance, convinced me that volunteering in elementary education was the most direct way to help children in a state that’s hard on them. (Save the Children recently ranked Louisiana the worst state for children, for the second year in a row.) And I admired the school’s philosophy, which stressed diversity, a “whole child” education, and a commitment to teaching all types of learners, from gifted to special-needs, in one classroom.

In New Orleans, parents rank schools through a common application, so Cypress treated every challenge—teacher turnover, disappointing enrollment—as an existential threat that demanded a creative response. By the end of the Continue reading: What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market | The New Yorker

L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member's Felony Plea | Capital & Main

L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member's Felony Plea | Capital & Main

L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member’s Felony Plea
A troubled charter-school advocate calls it quits — but not before participating in a string of key policy votes.

“Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements of upcoming events to  braden@capitalandmain.com, @BillRaden.

The three-year scandal that has embroiled the Los Angeles Unified school board concluded anticlimactically this week when besieged District 5 board member Ref Rodriguez tendered his resignation. The bow-out followed a Monday court appearance in which Ref pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy and three misdemeanors connected to his laundering $24,000 of his own cash during his successful 2015 election campaign.

It ended an ethically challenged 10 months in which Ref’s legal bills were paid by his lone legal-defense fund donor – billionaire charter school enthusiast and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. The patronage had kept alive LAUSD’s slim, 4-3 pro-charter school board majority as it doggedly ticked off a dream list of California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) wins. Gut “district required language” for charter petitions? Check. Deny CCSA bête noire Ken Bramlett a contract renewal as inspector general? Check. Hire non-educator venture capitalist Austin Beutner as a disruption-prone superintendent? Check.

The suddenly even-split LAUSD board now has 60 days to either appoint a successor or to follow recent board precedent by letting District 5 voters decide in a special election.

One group paying close attention will be L.A. teachers, whose union on Tuesday submitted its “last, best and final offer” in contract talks that it says have again ground to a deadlock. “Anti-union, pro-privatization ideologues are currently running the school district but are setting us up for failure,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl charged in a statement. The district has 48 hours to respond to the LBFO.

One of California’s most notorious charter corruption cases reemerged last week with the announcement of a court settlement stemming from 2017’s catastrophic failure of Tri-Valley Learning Corporation (TVLC). The undisclosed payment to bond trustee UMB Bank, by municipal bond law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, was for its part in brokering a 2012 bond issue for the Livermore-based charter management organization.

This latest fallout covers only a fraction of the $67 million in tax-exempt, facilities-funding bonds at the center of a bankruptcy that affected over 1,200 students and shuttered four TVLC schools.

The closures led to a devastating June, 2017 audit by the Livermore Valley Joint Continue reading: L.A. School Board in Limbo After Member's Felony Plea | Capital & Main

CHARTER SCHOOL CROOKS IN THE NEWS: Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds - Chicago Tribune | WBEZ

Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds - Chicago Tribune

Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds 

A for-profit company that educates at-risk students won tens of millions of dollars from Chicago Public Schools with help from then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and her co-conspirators in a separate bribery scandal, the school district’s inspector general found in a report released Tuesday.

That “highly unethical conduct” was essential for Camelot Education to open four CPS campuses several years ago, Inspector General Nicholas Schuler’s office said in the report. Camelot now operates six schools in CPS, with a total of about 800 students, and the Texas-based company has received more than $67 million in district business, the IG said.

Schuler’s office asked the Chicago Board of Education to disqualify Camelot and two unnamed company executives from future business with CPS. If the board concludes doing so would be too disruptive, Schuler recommended the board fine Camelot $6.7 million and appoint an independent monitor to review the company’s conduct for three years.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett checks into federal prison known as 'Camp Cupcake' »

Schuler concluded Camelot first won “behind-the-scenes access” to Byrd-Bennett and top staff plus “confidential inside information” with help from Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas — two consultants who served as Camelot’s “undisclosed lobbyists” before they were indicted and convicted in federal court alongside Byrd-Bennett for organizing a kickback scheme that upended the district.

Schuler’s report does not allege any criminal behavior occurred as part of the Camelot case.

“We’re alleging ethical violations and procurement violations,” Schuler told the Tribune.

But the IG’s investigation illustrates how Byrd-Bennett’s disgraced administration continues to reverberate in a school system that’s sought to clean up its reputation for crisis and scandal. It also shows how a murky array of lobbyists, attorneys and consultants can influence the awarding of public contracts with minimal oversight.

CPS pledged Monday to strengthen vendors’ requirements to report lobbying activity, and also to launch a process that, following the inspector general’s recommendations, may sanction Camelot or disqualify the company from future business with the district.

Key players and organizations in CPS contract scandal »

That raises the prospect of shutting down the firm’s Chicago schools, although CPS argues state law would prohibit any closures at least until August 2019.

“The actions uncovered by the Office of the Inspector General undermined the best interests of Chicago students, city taxpayers, and the honest, hard-working educators and administrators who have worked to dramatically improve schools throughout the city,” CPS spokesman Michael Passman said in a statement.

A negotiated settlement could occur instead of a shutdown. Camelot executives disputed Schuler’s report as inaccurate.

Schuler’s examination of Camelot centers on behavior that largely occurred between 2012 and 2013. Authorities also investigated Byrd-Bennett, Solomon and Vranas for steering multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts to the SUPES Academy education consulting firm in exchange for the promise of lucrative kickbacks during the same time period.

The trio were eventually indicted for their roles in that scheme, pleaded guilty and are now Continue reading: Company used convicted Chicago schools chief in 'highly unethical' work to win millions in CPS business, watchdog finds - Chicago Tribune

Pastors, Savvy Connections and Chicago Schools: How One Private Company Raked In $50 Million | WBEZ -https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/holy-alliances-how-one-school-company-learned-the-chicago-way/949a1a9f-8d92-464c-a3c6-38d04d89e768 via @wbez

Former Chicago Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse after she was sentenced on bribery charges in 2017. File Photo. | James Foster/For the Sun-Times

CPS Inspector general: For-profit Camelot Education had unfair bid help from Barbara Byrd-Bennett, SUPES owners -http://bit.ly/2mVnlok 

Inside A FCMAT Audit of One of California’s Most Notorious Charter Corruption Cases

Livermore charter schools accused of misuse of public funds

Inside A FCMAT Audit of One of California’s Most Notorious Charter Corruption Cases

LIVERMORE — An audit released Thursday suggests Livermore’s two charter schools misappropriated public funds, including a tax-exempt bond totaling $67 million, and mainly pointed the finger at former CEO Bill Batchelor.

The audit was ordered by the Alameda County Office of Education in November and conducted by the Fiscal Crisis &; Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

Analysis shows that the Tri-Valley Learning Corporation, which oversees the charter schools: Failed to disclose numerous conflict-of-interest relationships; diverted, commingled and/or misappropriated public funds, including tax-exempt public bonds totaling over $67 million with various private entities; and contributed to an environment of significantly deficient internal controls, according to a county statement.

“The lack of internal controls coupled with financing schemes designed to divert millions of dollars by Batchelor and others through relationships fostered between board members, close associates and other professionals with his nonprofit public and private companies created an environment that made it possible for the essential elements of fraud to occur,” the report states.

Related Articles

• Charter schools closing for good in Livermore
• Charter schools in danger of closing this week after bailout fails in Livermore
• Ex-Livermore schools CEO buys private schools in three states with investment firms

The audit states that internal controls were “so weak” that Batchelor was able to divert $2.7 million of public charter school funds without any supporting documents, covering a span of five years.

Nathan Ballard, Batchelor’s spokesman, maintained Batchelor’s innocence.

“Mr. Batchelor is innocent of any wrongdoing, and this audit doesn’t change that fact. He is just seeing the audit for the first time, but one thing is clear: Its conclusions are vague and are based a series of inaccurate assumptions,” Ballard said.

The audit revealed that Batchelor controlled to some degree eight different entities at once during the time that a 2015 bond was issued for TVLC.

TVLC and California Preparatory Academy went before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to seek approval for a $30 million municipal bond to finance the purchase of a new high school building at 3090 Independence Drive in May 2015.

The bond was approved and the Livermore Valley Charter Prep high school and the private school now share the same space.

At the time of the bond, Batchelor, was the manager of Goldstone United Investments — the seller of the buildings and owner of the land purchased with public bonds. Batchelor was also the owner of California Preparatory Academy and San Francisco Bay Preparatory Academy, which were the co-tenants to the property at 3090 Independence Drive in Livermore.

FCMAT points out conflicts of interests that Batchelor did not report. The paperworks reveals “a significant lack of disclosure of numerous entities in which Batchelor represented both sides of contracts and lease agreements, which benefited him personally.”

Officials with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said they have received the audit and are reviewing it.

This week, TVLC announced it plans to shutter the charter schools early — before the end of the school year — after an expected $2.4 million loan bailout fell through. The Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District said it would help cover the costs of payroll until the end of the week so students could finish out their school year.

The loan was to come from Batchelor himself. Batchelor has not been CEO of TVLC since September 2015 but since then he remained linked to controversies plaguing the charters, including financial mismanagement, decreased enrollment and criminal charges.

In an email to Alameda County education officials in November, Michael Fine of FCMAT wrote that some documents showed school bond proceeds were paid to Batchelor “at the same time that he purchases a very expensive home and sports car.”

Though not mentioned in the report released Thursday, the email helped trigger the official audit by FCMAT, ordered by the county superintendent of schools.

Livermore charter schools accused of misuse of public funds

Orrick settles negligence claim on charter school deal | Bond Buyer - https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/orrick-settles-negligence-claim-on-charter-school-deal

READ THE AUDIT

Alameda County Office of Education
regarding the
Tri-Valley Learning Corporation
AB 139 Extraordinary Audit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BB8nsQPMxogXkWRNK05AIIprMK-i1C2a/view?usp=sharing

Randi Weingarten joins Margaret Hoover to Discuss the Supreme Court Janus Ruling | Firing Line | PBS

Randi Weingarten | Firing Line | PBS

Randi Weingarten joins Margaret Hoover to Discuss the Supreme Court  Janus Ruling

In the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that is a major setback for teachers unions, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, joins Margaret Hoover to discuss the implications and what lies ahead.
Randi Weingarten | Firing Line | PBS

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out
Dissatisfied with low pay and school funding, teachers in more red states are poised to protest.

In 2015, Jennifer Vetter decided to change careers and become a teacher. The 46-year old quit her well-paying management job at an orthodontic clinic in Gilbert, Arizona, to go back to college full-time and become a special-education teacher. She received a scholarship to earn her master’s in education, refinanced her home to help with other expenses and went all in on her dream of teaching kids with special needs.

Then she got her first couple of paychecks. “With everything taken out, it was an absolute shock to me,” she says.

Vetter did the math. After health care costs, deductions for taxes and her pension, and the number of hours she was working – sometimes 10 or more hours per day – she was making about $6 an hour. Weekly, she made about $300.

Low pay has lead teachers across the country to organize and strike for better wages and greater investment in schools. In Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Colorado, the growing “Red for ed” movement is demanding legislatures in these red states invest more money in schools and school staff.

Tammy Kim is a freelance writer who wrote about teachers losing their grip on the middle class for The Hechinger Report. Continue reading: Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

Big Education Ape: Teachers Are Leading the Revolt Against Austerity | The Nation - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/05/teachers-are-leading-revolt-against.html

Big Education Ape: 'We're militant again': US teachers at convention galvanized by wave of strikes | US news | The Guardian - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/07/were-militant-again-us-teachers-at.html

Big Education Ape: Striking teachers burst neoliberals' fantasy in one amazing moment | Thomas Frank | Opinion | The Guardian - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/05/striking-teachers-burst-neoliberals.html