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Sunday, July 26, 2015

State of Michigan Failing Charter Schools: One Year Later Nothing Has Changed

State of charter schools: How Michigan spends $1 billion but fails to hold schools accountable | Detroit Free Press | freep.com:
State of Michigan Failing Charter Schools: One Year Later Nothing Has Changed



 Big Education Ape: Incomplete: Michgan’s grade on charter school reform http://bit.ly/1eqT7Tf


  Jul. 16, 2014

What the Free Press found
A year long Free Press investigation of Michigan's charter schools found wasteful spending, conflicts of interest, poor performing schools and a failure to close the worst of the worst. Among the findings:
 Charter schools spend $1 billion per year in state taxpayer money, often with little transparency.
 Some charter schools are innovative and have excellent academic outcomes — but those that don't are allowed to stay open year after year.
 A majority of the worst-ranked charter schools in Michigan have been open 10 years or more.
 Charter schools as a whole fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty.
 Michigan has substantially more for-profit companies running schools than any other state.
 Some charter school board members were forced out after demanding financial details from management companies.
 State law does not prevent insider dealing and self-enrichment by those who operate schools.
Day 1: Weak state oversight allows secrecy, abuses
Sunday, June 22: Charter management companies flock to Michigan, which — unlike some other states — requires little transparency or accountability in the rapidly growing number of charter schools.
Day 3: School board power often limited to a rubber stamp
Tuesday, June 24: Critics say many boards are not independent — and some have been punished when they asked too many questions.
Day 4: Pro charter school group wields increasing power
Wednesday, June 25: The Great Lakes Education Project aggressively lobbies on behalf of charter schools — and punished one lawmaker who defied its agenda.
Day 6: Authorizers allow poor performance to go on and on
Friday, June 27: Authorizers tend to let low-performing schools continue — and the state does not provide guidelines on when schools should be closed.
Day 7: In Detroit, helping educate poor children still elusive
Saturday, June 28: While charters have given Detroit parents many options, they haven't provided what the city needs: high-quality schools that can succeed with disadvantaged children.
Day 8: Some top-notch schools fulfill the original mission
Sunday, June 29: The Free Press profiles selected charter schools that provide innovative alternatives to traditional schools.
Solutions: How Michigan can fix our charter school system
Sunday, June 29: Michigan can learn from other states, including Massachusetts, Delaware, Minnesota and Arizona, to better ensure public dollars will be spent wisely on behalf of both children and taxpayers.
Followup: National Heritage Academies' unusual arrangement
Sunday, Dec. 14: Michigan's largest charter management company, and not the schools, owns the contents of its school buildings, even if purchased with tax money
Reaction and response
Explore video, graphics
You can find Web-only stories, video interviews, documents and a statewide database with academic results.
How the reporting was done
The Detroit Free Press did hundreds of interviews and examined tens of thousands of documents in a yearlong investigation of Michigan's charter schools and how the state oversees them.
Among the records: More than 400 three-ring binders the Michigan Department of Education keeps on every charter, including those that closed, with contracts between schools and authorizers, management agreements, leases, building inspections, correspondence, internal MDE e-mails, court filings and parent complaints. Also examined were school audits, lawsuits, deeds, assessor records and school Web postings.
The Free Press also surveyed all 296 charters in the state — under which about 370 schools operate — plus numerous authorizers and management companies, both full-service and those that provide limited services such as human resources. The information was used in part to build a comprehensive searchable database listing every charter school, its test results and rankings, its management company, whether the company is for-profit or not, and what services it provides. That database will be posted Thursday on freep.com/charters.
The news organization used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain records from schools and authorizers, including payments to vendors and lease amendments.
The reporting team
Jennifer Dixon, investigative reporter, jbdixon@freepress.com
Lori Higgins, statewide education issues, lhiggins@freepress.com or @LoriAHiggins
David Jesse, higher education, djesse@freepress.com or @Freephighered
Kristi Tanner, database analyst, ktanner@freepress.com
Ritu Sehgal, senior editor, rsehgal@freepress.com or @rsehgalfreep
Contributing staff
Ann Zaniewski, Detroit Public Schools
Tim Good, print designer
Gerry Skora, lead copy editor
Martha Thierry, graphics artist
Eric Millikin, data analysis, illustration and web design
John Sly, data analysis, database architect and programming
Brian Todd, database design
State of charter schools: How Michigan spends $1 billion but fails to hold schools accountable | Detroit Free Press | freep.com:
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The Multiple Teacher Evaluation System(s) in New Mexico, from a Concerned New Mexico Parent | VAMboozled!

The Multiple Teacher Evaluation System(s) in New Mexico, from a Concerned New Mexico Parent | VAMboozled!:

The Multiple Teacher Evaluation System(s) in New Mexico, from a Concerned New Mexico Parent





A “concerned New Mexico parent” who wrote a prior post for this blog here, wrote another for you all below, about the sheer numbers of different teacher evaluation systems, or variations, now in place in his/her state of New Mexico. (S)he writes:
Readers of this blog are well aware of the limitations of VAMs for evaluating teachers. However, many readers may not be aware that there are actually many system variations used to evaluate teachers. In the state of New Mexico, for example, 217 different variations are used to evaluate the many and diverse types of teachers teaching in the state [and likely all other states].
But. Is there any evidence that they are valid? NO. Is there any evidence that they are equivalent? NO. Is there any evidence that this is fair? NO.
The New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) provides a framework for teacher evaluations, and the final teacher evaluation should be weighted as follows: Improved Student Achievement (50%), Teacher Observations (25%), and Multiple Measures (25%).
Every school district in New Mexico is required to submit a detailed evaluation plan of specifically what measures will be used to satisfy the overall NMPED 50-25-25 percentage framework, after which NMPED approves all plans.
The exact details of any district’s educator effectiveness plan can be found on the NMTEACH website, as every public and charter school plan is posted here.
There are massive differences between how groups of teachers are graded between districts, however, which distorts most everything about the system(s), including the extent to which similar (and different) teachers might be similarly (and fairly) evaluated and The Multiple Teacher Evaluation System(s) in New Mexico, from a Concerned New Mexico Parent | VAMboozled!:
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Judging Success and Failure of Schools and Districts: Whose Criteria Count? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Judging Success and Failure of Schools and Districts: Whose Criteria Count? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Judging Success and Failure of Schools and Districts: Whose Criteria Count?





The dominant standard used by most policymakers, media editors, and administrators to judge success is effectiveness: Have you done what you said you were going to do and can you prove it? In a society where “bottom lines,” Dow Jones averages, sports statistics, and vote-counts matter, quantifiable results determine success. No Child Left Behind and its focus on standardized test scores is effectiveness on steroids.
Yet even before No Child Left Behind, policymakers had relied on theeffectiveness standard to examine what students have learned by using proxy measures such as state test scores, college attendance, and other indicators. For example, in the late-1970s policymakers concluded that public schools had declined because scholastic aptitudes test (SAT) scores had plunged downward. Even though test-makers and researchers repeatedly stated that such claims were false—falling SAT scores fueled public support for states raising academic requirements in the 1980s. What mattered most to decision-makers and media were numbers that could be used to establish school rankings, thereby creating easily identifiable winners and losers.
Note, however, that test results in some instances proved unhelpful in measuring a reform’s success. Consider the mid-1960s’ evaluations of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). They revealed little improvement in low-income children’s academic performance thereby jeopardizing Congressional renewal of the program. Such evidence gave critics hostile to federal initiatives reasons to brand President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs as failures.
Low test scores, however, failed to diminish the program’s political attractiveness to constituents and legislators. Each successive president and Congress has used that popularity as a basis for allocating funds to needy students in schools across the nation including No Child Left Behind.
Popularity, then, is a second standard that public officials use in evaluating success. The spread of an innovation and its hold on the imagination of voters, has meant that fashionableness can translate into political support for reform. The rapid diffusion of special education, bilingual education, accountability, and computers in schools since the 1980s are instances of innovations that captured both policymakers’ and practitioners’ attention. Few educators or public officials questioned large outlays of public funds for these popular reforms because they were perceived, at least at first, as resounding successes.
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OPT OUT: Colorado State Board of Education at crossroads after contentious run - The Denver Post

Colorado State Board of Education at crossroads after contentious run - The Denver Post:

Colorado State Board of Education at crossroads after contentious run






The item was not even on the agenda. The Colorado State Board of Education was supposed to spend the morning recognizing award-winning teachers and digesting a routine school-finance update.
But sitting to the right of the board chairwoman, an impatient new member with a reputation as a whip-smart, ruthlessly effective lobbyist and lawmaker wasted little time showing a new era had begun.
On that January day, Colorado Springs Republican Steve Durham sprung the first of many surprises that would shake the state's education establishment, prevailing in a vote to allow school districts to skip a portion of new state tests required by federal law.
The drama stretched out for months, with 30 districts seeking the waiver; the state Attorney General concluding that the board had overstepped its authority; decisions being delayed; then finally the board backing off — weeks after the tests had already been given.
This is the 2015 state board of education in microcosm — unpredictable, contentious and pushing the boundaries of its limited power at a time of angst over testing, accountability and other issues.
The board has taken controversial stands or engaged in long debates about a student health survey, parents opting their children out of state tests and a disputed scoring system for high school science and social studies tests.
"There are lots of things I appreciate about what they are trying to do — efforts to hold back the overabundance of state statutes and regulations that have put additional strains and pressure on local schools," said Jason Glass, superintendent of the Eagle County School District. "But they have sort of been in this reality distortion field where they are trying to ignore restraints and do whatever they want."
Tensions spilled over last month when Republican board chairwoman Marcia Neal of Grand Junction resigned, citing board dysfunction and the exodus of top Department of Education staff headlined by education commissioner Robert Hammond, who retired in June.
The board now sits at a crossroads. A Republican vacancy committee on Aug. 8 will select from among nine candidates to replace Neal as representative of the 3rd District — potentially shaking up the board dynamic again — and the next few months will be consumed with finding a new commissioner, a key board responsibility.
The board is expected to push contractors to adopt stronger safeguards for handling student data and again challenge the status quo by questioning the role private foundations play in funding education.
Testing reform legislation signed into law this spring brings the possibility of districts proposinglocally developed alternative assessments through a pilot program created by the bill.
The state board's role is narrowly defined; its responsibilities include regulating teacher licensing, hearing charter school appeals and granting waivers to Colorado education law and regulations.
Durham, who filled a seat vacated when Paul Lundeen was elected to the state House, has emerged as a force.
While a member of the state House, Durham was a member of "House Crazies," hard-core conservatives who dominated the General Assembly in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Durham also served in the state Senate, including a four-year stint on the Senate Education Committee in the 1980s when battles raged over school choice and conflicts with teachers unions.
As a lobbyist for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, he championed Colorado's 2010 educator effectiveness law, Senate Bill 191.
"In terms of tempo, I think Steve's personal expectations and his habits are to crank it up," said Bob Schaffer, a Republican former board chairman and legislator who leads a Fort Collins charter Colorado State Board of Education at crossroads after contentious run - The Denver Post:
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Incomplete: Michgan’s grade on charter school reform

Incomplete: Michgan’s grade on charter school reform:

Incomplete: Michgan’s grade on charter school reform








 One of my favorite stories about the lunacy that Michigan indulges with regard to charter schools comes, of course, from Detroit. It’s where the spectacular lack of oversight and standards over the past 20 years has created a sprawling, scattered system of privately operated public schools that produce mixed results and inspire a fair amount of chaos.

To wit: The Aisha Shule/W.E.B. Dubois Preparatory Academy welcomed students in September 2013 as the new year began. But the school shut down because of a lack of funding just six weeks later, sending its students, some just beginning their senior years, to the winds.
And I always hold this detail back until the end of the tale, for dramatic effect: The school’s authorizer? Detroit Public Schools.
Even the city’s established public school district was unable to suss out the false promise of a well-meaning, but poorly managed charter under Michigan’s charter system.
There are Aisha Shules dotting the historical landscape of the charter movement in Michigan. Schools that open and close willy nilly, that hit high academic marks or fail, with no mechanism to hold them accountable or even to find successes and grow or expand them.
A year ago, the Free Press published an eight-day series that documented the tragic missed opportunities of Michigan’s charter experiment. Charter schools began with the promise that privately operated public schools would provide quality options for parents in cities where education was failing, as well as pressure public schools to be better in order to compete. But Michigan’s charter schools have never lived up to their promises.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
State of charter schools: How Michigan spends $1 billion but fails to hold schools accountable
Yes, there have been spotty successes — not least of which has been my own experience, having enrolled my own kids in one of the few high-performing charters in the city.
But overall, charters don’t perform much better than the public schools in their districts. They have countenanced myriad conflicts of interest among board members and operators. They have not found a good way to accommodate children with special needs, whose educations cost more than other kids’. And they have siphoned just enough children and money from public schools to leave districts like Detroit looking like half-deflated balloons: There’s still a lot of structure there, but nowhere near the support to keep them solid.
The aim of the Free Press’ series on charters wasn’t to halt Michigan’s charter Incomplete: Michgan’s grade on charter school reform:
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