The Doublespeak of Ed Reform Regarding Charter Schools | Seattle Education

The Doublespeak of Ed Reform Regarding Charter Schools | Seattle Education:

The Doublespeak of Ed Reform Regarding Charter Schools

Originally published in The Huffington Post, by co-editor Sue Peters

I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t an intentional Catch 22 that some people are trying to trap our public schools in– setting them up to fail, making it impossible for them to be creative or independent, and then saying: “See! They’re losers! They don’t ‘innovate’! Sell them off to private enterprises!” 

While watching part of NBC’s “Education Nation” (aka the week-long made-for-TV ad forWaiting for ‘Superman) last month, I tuned into the Teacher Town Hall where a teacher from a charter school was asked what made her school successful. “Teachers at our school are given the freedom to innovate!” she replied brightly.

Hmm, I thought. Sounds great. So why aren’t the teachers in my children’s public schools given that same freedom?

Instead, they are increasingly being slipped into the full nelson of a standardized curriculum measured by an ever-increasing barrage of computerized tests, all imposed by a top-down district management. (It feels stifling just to write about it.) Then the education reformers point an accusatory finger at our schools, call them “failing,” and hold up charter schools as exemplars of “innovation.”

And that’s one of the first ironies — or hypocrisies — of the current national dialogue on education reform.

The biggest players in ed reform — President Obama, Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, billionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad: the “Superman” crowd, let’s call them — keep pushing privately run charter schools as the answer to all that ails our public schools (the central theme of ‘Superman’). One of the main winning traits of charters, they say, is their freedom to “innovate.” Indeed, free of public and school district oversight and mandates, privately run charter schools are granted the right to create their own curricula and empower their teachers to, allegedly, “innovate.” (They’ve also been allowed to exclude and expel students who don’t perform to their liking, a serious flaw of charters that even Secretary Duncan has acknowledged.)

Understandably, charter operations like to tout this precious autonomy they are given. Green Dot School’s site states:

3. Local Control with Extensive Professional Development and Accountability Principals and teachers own critical decisions at their schools related to budgeting, hiring and curriculum customization.

Now, why aren’t our non-charter public schools being given the creative and managerial autonomy that these reformers value in charters? Instead, when it comes to influencing or running our school districts with their corporate management trained superintendents, or their agenda-laden grants, these same reformers impose strictures on our schools and kids that quash innovation.

For example, here in Seattle, why is our district, led by a reformist Broad Academy-trained superintendent, taking autonomy steadily away from individual schools and principals and centralizing it? Why is it telling our teachers they need to follow the central office mandated curriculum exactly? Why is it sending “visitors” from the central office to escort the school principal on pop-ins into classrooms to monitor teachers? (I’ve heard these are called “Learning Walks” — apparently a trademarked term.) I can understand a principal checking on her/his staff, but why the accompanying Thought Police?)

Some researchers are even determining where exactly in the classroom a teacher should stand in order to deliver the “perfect lesson.”

I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t an intentional Catch 22 that some people are trying to trap our public schools in: setting them up to fail, making it impossible for them to be creative or independent, and then saying: “See! They’re losers! They don’t innovate! Let’s sell these schools to the private enterprises of KIPP charters, Green Dot charters, Billy Bob’s Acme Charters & Co.!”

Unfortunately this is just one of many conflicting messages coming from this latest breed of ed reformers. Those who are driving the national dialogue about the direction of our kids’ public education — from President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and lurking in the shadows with their open checkbooks, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons, the Fishers and the Dells — are The Doublespeak of Ed Reform Regarding Charter Schools | Seattle Education:

CURMUDGUCATION: Testing Still Incentivizing Cheating

CURMUDGUCATION: Testing Still Incentivizing Cheating:

Testing Still Incentivizing Cheating



Yesterday out of Texas we have a new version of an old story-- a school that found a creative-ish new way to cheat on the Big Standardized Test.

This is a predictable and, at this point, oft-noted phenomenon. If you take a bunch of numbers and tie them to high stakes, people will look for ways to manipulate those numbers. Which is kind of the point of making those numbers high stakes. But some people will manipulate the numbers with legitimate okay-by-the-rules, and some people will find other ways to do it. If a plant manager is told that everybody's bonus depends on low injury-on-the-job numbers, there are many ways to keep those numbers down, and only some of them have anything to do with making the workplace safer. Refusing to let anyone report injuries will work, too.

So NCLB ushered in the era of high stakes testing, and within a few years, the cheating began. With 2014 as the deadline to get 100% students above average, American schools were being steadily divided into two groups-- schools that were failing and schools that were cheating. It is of course particularly tempting to cheat when it's impossible to win by legitimate means.

Some cheaters were caught and suffered huge consequences, like the Atlanta teachers who had their lives and careers trashed. Some large cheating scandals, like the one in DC under former honcho She Who Will Not Be Named, don't seem to affect anyone's reputation in the slightest. And those are just the obvious examples. Other schools find less obviously-naughty ways to game the numbers, from CURMUDGUCATION: Testing Still Incentivizing Cheating:

Black Teachers Matter - Lily's Blackboard

Black Teachers Matter - Lily's Blackboard:

Black Teachers Matter

The corporate reformers have wreaked havoc in schools across the nation. They’ve promoted charter schools and vouchers, slapped the “failing” label on struggling schools and students, and shut educators out of the dialogue. In the process, public education in many communities has suffered. And there’s been another result as well.

“In one of the most far-reaching consequences of the past decade’s wave of education reform, the nation has lost tens of thousands of experienced black teachers and principals,” Kristina Rizga writes for Mother Jones magazine in “Black Teachers Matter.”

Over the past several years, “26,000 African American teachers have disappeared from the nation’s public schools—even as the overall teaching workforce has increased by 134,000.” This is not only a teacher disappearance act; we’re also losing black principals, coaches, cafeteria workers, nurses, counselors and other educators.

As an association, we have focused on turning the trend around by promoting partnerships between local school systems and higher education institutions with strong teacher preparation programs, particularly historically black colleges and universities.

Very often, the loss of black teachers is driven by closures of schools that are targeted as “failing” because of low test scores. A study by the Albert Shanker Institute showed how sharply the number of black teachers declined in the nation’s largest urban school districts from 2000 to 2012. In New Orleans, for instance, the percentage of black teachers fell by more than 62 percent. In Chicago and Cleveland, the proportion dropped by 39.2 percent and 33.9 Black Teachers Matter - Lily's Blackboard:

News 9 education series finds 'joyful' learning in Finland - NonDoc

News 9 education series finds 'joyful' learning in Finland - NonDoc:

News 9 education series finds ‘joyful’ learning in Finland

There are a lot of reasons why News 9’s special report, Educate Oklahoma, is bound to be honored with national journalism awards.

The biggest reason is found at the beginning of its second hour, as the news team investigates humane, holistic, science-based paths to school improvement.

In Finland, ‘learning … is a joyful thing’

Reporter Justin Dougherty and State School Board member Bill Price visit world-class schools in Finland. They and the viewers are told “people want to do good.” The reason Finland probably has the best schools in the world is that their system is founded on the truth: “Learning … is a joyful thing.” Even better, viewers are reminded that the key to education improvement is trust.

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Constructive tone helps News 9 ‘Educate Oklahoma’ by John Thompson

Conversely, Finnish teachers who visit America are shocked by the way we treat educators, as well as our ubiquitous phrase, “just a teacher.” The professional autonomy of our teachers has been sacrificed on the altar of increased “output.” To force schools to focus on measurable content and deemphasize far more important tasks, the building of academic and social skills has been undercut. Finnish teachers, however, know that their job is to help their students become better human beings.

Board of Education member Price is an open-minded conservative who has been supportive of reformers, and he did not seem to be taken aback by the Finnish non-punitive team effort to support high-quality instruction. He noted that their high-dollar effort to develop well-trained and supported teachers means that they can focus less on accountability. Like the local business leaders whom I News 9 education series finds 'joyful' learning in Finland - NonDoc:

Will Hillary Clinton's Education Policy Break From Obama's in a Huge Way? | Mother Jones

Will Hillary Clinton's Education Policy Break From Obama's in a Huge Way? | Mother Jones:

Will Hillary Clinton's Education Policy Break From Obama's in a Huge Way?

For starters, teachers' unions are already playing a big role.

Before Hillary Clinton gave her speech at the Democratic National Convention in July, organizers fired up the crowd with a video extolling President Barack Obama's key policies: health care reform that extended coverage to an estimated 20 million more people; the $62 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler that saved about 1.5 million jobs; the killing of Osama bin Laden.

But one major issue was conspicuously missing from the highlight reel of Obama's achievements: education.

This glaring omission is just one of many signs that Clinton is distancing herself from Obama's education policies. On her campaign website, Clinton's K-12 pageavoids any discussion of testing, accountability, or expansion of charters—the main focuses of Obama's administration. Perhaps most telling, Clinton's choices of advisers signal her attempt to move Obama's test-driven K-12 agenda toward the center.

Clinton's K-12 working policy group, according to a Democrat close to the campaign, comprises a mix of teachers' union leaders, proponents of test-driven reforms, and advocates for increased investments in underfunded schools.

The previously unreleased list includes:

• Chris Edley Jr., the president of the Opportunity Institute, a California-based think tank that works mostly on early-childhood and college access initiatives
• Lily Eskelsen García, the president of the National Education Association, the nation's biggest teachers' union
• Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-biggest teachers' union
• Carmel Martin, the executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and onetime adviser to former Education Secretary Arne Duncan
• Catherine Brown, the former vice president of policy at Teach for America and current vice president of education policy at the Center for American Progress
• Richard Riley, the secretary of education under Bill Clinton who's known for his views that don't neatly fit into the pro-reform or pro-teachers' union wings of the Democratic Party. Riley supported testing and accountability but also pushed with equal fervor for smaller classes and more funding for schools.

The inclusion of teachers' union leaders—who were not advising Obama's campaigns and are among some of the most powerful opponents of his education policies—marks an especially sharp break from his administration. By contrast, many of Obama's advisers—and later staffers at the Department of Education—viewed teachers' unions as obstacles to school improvement and had close ties to the Gates Foundation, which championed many federal policies that encouraged Will Hillary Clinton's Education Policy Break From Obama's in a Huge Way? | Mother Jones:

Taxpayers Sue Snyder for Theft of Revenue Sharing Dollars

Taxpayers Sue Snyder for Theft of Revenue Sharing Dollars
TMCG Files Lawsuit Against  the State of Michigan for Withholding Billions from Local Communities

DETROIT — Taxpayers for Michigan Constitutional Government (TMCG) filed a lawsuit against

the State of Michigan on September 7, 2016, with the Michigan Court of Appeals in Detroit.  TMCG is suing the State for withholding billions of dollars of Constitutional payments to cities, townships and villages throughout the state.  

The lawsuit was filed to correct Snyder’s violation of the Headlee Amendment, which stipulates the State must pay 48.97 percent of revenues to communities.  The Snyder administration has carried out a practice of purposefully miscalculating these payments.  The intentional miscalculation has jeopardized communities throughout Michigan.  

According to Eastpointe City Manager Steve Duchane, these miscalculations “has put strain on all municipalities everywhere and wreaked havoc on many of the communities that were hardest hit by the economic recession. The symptoms of underfunding municipalities are clear. Unsafe water, fewer police officers, fewer firefighters, the list goes on…. we are taking action, we are sick and tired of struggling while money that rightfully belongs to us gets spent on select legislative pet projects.”

“The shortfall in payments has been extreme in some years,” said John Mogk, president of TMCG and professor at the Wayne State School of Law. “As a result, local governments, like Flint, have been required to reduce services, work force, pay levels, pensions and, in some cases, turn over local control to the State.” 

Snyder placed the Detroit Public Schools under Emergency Management and created an even bigger deficit for the district.  As a result of the deficit, the schools were in bad shape, lost students and required a loan from the State at as much as 18% interest.  

Detroit Public Schools Board President, Herman Davis says, “I hope that TMCG is successful in getting to the bottom of this.  We’ve suffered greatly under the Emergency Managers.  The DOJ has found lots of fraud took place under State Control.  TMCG has found maybe Emergency Management was not inevitable,  afterall!  Perhaps, the whole Snyder administration should be audited.”  

Retired SurfRay A/S CEO, Bill Cobbs who runs community group,  Putting the People First,  is also concerned.  “ Governor Snyder is ignoring the intent of the Headlee amendment to protect a community’s ability to provide necessary services, like water, railroad tracks, police and fire service for the people who live there.  

The Headlee Amendment establishes a balanced fiscal policy framework and protects local governments from State actions that would undermine their fiscal integrity. The Michigan Department of Technology  Management and Budget (MDTMB) is tasked with calculating these constitutional payments made by the State. 

Their miscalculation occurs because the State includes expenditures which are prohibited from inclusion in the calculation, and in so doing , has hurt municipalities and allowed Constitutional Payments to be kept by the State. Snyder’s DTMB has included in the calculation `four types of prohibited payments:

• Money given to the community to maintain major trunklines on behalf of the State; 

• Payments made under Article 9, Section 25, which prohibits a tax shift placing a tax burden on local governments;

• Payments made to public school academies;

• Payments made to fund obligations imposed upon them by the state.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that funds raised for the purposes prohibited for inclusion in the calculation of tax revenue by Headlee cannot be included in the calculation of the minimum mandatory payment; an injunction barring the State from including funds from these areas in the minimum percentage payment calculation and monetary relief to local governments to recover shortfalls in State spending.

Taxpayers for Michigan Constitutional Government is a non-partisan, Michigan non-profit

organization. TMCG can be found online at michcongov.org. 

Business Is Paying Handsomely for Raising the Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29

Business Is Paying Handsomely for Raising the Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29:

Business Is Paying Handsomely for Raising the Charter Cap in Massachusetts

On September 09, 2016, the ballot committee, Expanding Educational Opportunities (EEO), filed its first funding report with the Massachusetts Office of campaign and Political Finance (OCPF).

The EEO purpose is “to support greater educational opportunities in Massachusetts, including by increasing the number of charter schools.”

EEO was formed in July 2016 and is directly controlled by the lobbying nonprofit,Massachusetts Competitive Partnerships (MACP). From the MACP home page:

The Massachusetts Competitive Partnership is a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(4) public policy group comprised of chief executive officers of some of the Commonwealth’s largest businesses. The Partnership’s goals are to promote job growth and competitiveness in the Commonwealth by working in collaboration with public officials and business and civic leaders in Massachusetts.

So, “some of the Commonwealth’s largest businesses” want to raise the charter cap in Massachusetts. And they are willing to pay to do so. EEO lists four contributionstotaling $325,000 dated 08-10-16 to 09-01-16, all of which originate with the businesses of MECP leadership:

• EMC Corporation, $75,000 (09-01-16)
• Partners Healthcare, $100,000 (08-17-16)
• The Kraft Group, $100,000 (08-10-16)
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals, $50,000 (08-19-16)

According to its September 09, 2016, filing, EEO has had only a single payout, of $250,000, to Great Schools Massachusetts, on September 01, 2016.

Another MECP board member, Abigail Johnson of Fidelity Investments, has already donated $40,000 to Great Schools Massachusetts (GSM), according to GSM’s 2015 end-of-year report.

Great Schools Massachusetts is portrayed as “a statewide coalition of parents, educators, and community leaders working to lift the cap on public charter schools”; however, the Massachusetts (business?) wealthy are clearly the real force behind the cap-lifting agenda, with 9 percent (14 out of 148) of GSM’s 2015 contributors ponying up 96 percent of GSM’s cash.

A sham well financed is still a sham.

We’ll see if Massachusetts voters are taken in by it. If the results of September 8th’s Jehlen-Cheung primary are any indication, the answer is a refreshing “no.”Business Is Paying Handsomely for Raising the Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29:

Pushed Out: The Injustice Black Girls Face in School

Pushed Out: The Injustice Black Girls Face in School:

Pushed Out: The Injustice Black Girls Face in School

“I think education is important, because nobody can take that from you,” a 16-year-old named Jennifer told Monique Morris, author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. But Jennifer hadn’t attended school regularly for years. After being raped at age 12, pushed into prostitution, bounced around foster homes, and repeatedly suspended from school, her opportunity had been lost. This story of Jennifer’s “pushout” is the story of far too many Black girls in America. In her book, Morris, co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, shares the voices and stories of these girls, and also offers specific policy recommendations and strategies for educators. Recently she talked to NEA Today about the need for educators to “lead with love.”

Let’s start with the numbers — Black girls make up 16 percent of girls in U.S. public schools, but 42 percent of girls’ expulsions and more than a third of girls’ school-based arrests. Lately we’ve seen some of those arrests in the news — I’m thinking of that child in South Carolina who was thrown across her classroom by a police officer because she wouldn’t give up her cell phone. What’s at work here? What are the forces that have made these girls targets in their schools and communities?

Monique Morris: There are zero tolerance policies in schools and school districts that have really removed the discretionary decision-making abilities of educators and administrators to respond to the core needs of students. And within this elevated climate of punishment, typical adolescent behavior, when exhibited by Black girls coming from communities under extreme surveillance, is very often misunderstood. Their actions are taken—they are misunderstood—as aggressive, even when they’re not.

What I’ve sought to do in my work is deconstruct the historical legacy that misinforms our ability to really see Black girls, and see their trauma, and see the centrality of that trauma and how it shapes how educators and institutions interact with them. There are ways that Black girls are routinely over-policed, and there are ways that Black girls’ behaviors are read as a threat to safety, even if they’re really no more aggressive than their counterparts of other racial and ethnic groups. It results in them being cast as deviant and defiant, and being cast out of school, even when they’re expressing a desire to be educated.

How early in the lives of Black girls do these issues arise?

MM: Black girls are 20 percent of preschool girls, but 54 percent of the girls facing out-of-school suspensions in preschool. That number, and also the disparities Pushed Out: The Injustice Black Girls Face in School:

From Cuba to Germany: Meet our wonderful FEA members - Lily's Blackboard

From Cuba to Germany: Meet our wonderful FEA members - Lily's Blackboard:

From Cuba to Germany: Meet our wonderful FEA members 

 Our focus as educators is making sure all students have the opportunity for the great education that they deserve—whether they live in a small town in the Midwest, or on a huge military base in Korea.

Yes, we’ve got members on military bases, too. And they belong to the Federal Education Association, which represents teachers, paraeducators and education support professionals in Department of Defense schools around the world.

These professionals work with “military-connected” students: the children of active-duty military members, DoD civilians and military contractors. They are on bases in Europe, the Pacific, Guam and Cuba, as well as 13 military bases within the continental United States.

FEA has three regions: FEA Stateside, with members in eight states and Guam; FEA Pacific, with members in Japan, Okinawa and South Korea; and FEA Europe, with members in Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Cuba.

I’ll be traveling to England this month and joining FEA leaders and activists for their Association Day, which coincides with FEA’s 60th anniversary.

FEA members hold the same responsibilities that NEA members across the nation have. Except, they must deal with the quirks and obstacles that come with being employees of the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).  These challenges bring to mind that very old line about Ginger Rogers: She had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.

My dad was in the U.S. Army, so I know a little about this lifestyle. It can be tough on From Cuba to Germany: Meet our wonderful FEA members - Lily's Blackboard:

Will John Oliver Come Out of Hiding to Do His Show Last Week Tonight With John Oliver @LastWeekTonight

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver | The Official Website for the HBO Series:

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

RETURNS SEPTEMBER 25 AT 11 PM"

Big Education Ape: John Oliver's Last Week Tonight charter school clip spurs $100000 contest - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/john-olivers-last-week-tonight-charter.html

Big Education Ape: Charter Schools: Two Weeks Filled with Scathing Critiques | janresseger - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/charter-schools-two-weeks-filled-with.html

“Educational Choice” is a slogan sick enough for Donald Trump

“Educational Choice” is a slogan slick enough for Donald Trump:

“Educational Choice” is a slogan slick enough for Donald Trump Rhetoric can’t hide a failure to address inequality

Donald Trump outlined his policy and philosophy for K-12 education in a speech at Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy (CASSA), a for-profit charter school in the largest city of battleground state of Ohio.

The Republican presidential nominee and founder of Trump University accused Democrats of trapping black and Hispanic youth in failing public schools and offered the postern door of school choice through a proposed block grant, voucher-like program in which per pupil expenditures would follow students to the school of their parents’ liking.

Related: Hillary Clinton’s preschool revolution?

“I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom, the civil right to attend the school of their choice,” Trump said in his Sept. 8 speech.

The philosophical basis for Trump’s policy should sound familiar. It seems to come out of the playbooks of both Republican and Democrat reformers who advocate for vouchers and/or charter schools. Charter and voucher advocates may distance themselves from the nuclear Trump and his policies, but they will have a hard time distancing themselves from his rhetoric, which reveals how gamey the word “choice” is.

Related: Hillary Clinton’s preschool revolution

After 25 years of having charter schools, it’s clearer that “educational choice” is dangling bait for black and brown parents who are desperate for change. But its becoming even easier through the thin veil of choice rhetoric to see choice policies have found ways to primarily deconstruct the “monopoly” on public schools – not address structural inequalities that generate “Educational Choice” is a slogan slick enough for Donald Trump:

These magnets have become some of L.A.'s highest-scoring public schools - Los Angeles Times

These magnets have become some of L.A.'s highest-scoring public schools - Los Angeles Times:

These magnets have become some of L.A.'s highest-scoring public schools
New tests show the city's magnets have soared far above other schools. Read our guide to what it means and explore a list of how every magnet school scored.

Before we start, let's review. What is a magnet school?

A magnet is a public school that is open to all students, regardless of where they live. They have different themes, including performing arts, science and math. Some share a campus with a larger school. Others are free-standing.

The program at the Los Angeles Unified School District, which now oversees roughly 200 magnets, was created in the 1970s as part of a court-ordered desegregation plan.

Parents and students living in the district can apply for seats at a magnet of their choice between Oct 4. and Nov. 10. In most cases, a lottery decides who is accepted. Priority is given to students from neighborhoods with large numbers of minorities, those living near overcrowded schools, as well as the losers of previous drawings.

New tests show magnets scoring far higher than other city schools

Test scores released in recent weeks show that students at L.A. Unified, the nation's second-largest school district, lag behind the statewide average.

But the city's magnets soared far above other L.A. schools, according to new data obtained by The Times.

At traditional L.A. public schools, 35% of students met or exceeded English standards. Only 25% did the same for math.

At the city's magnets, the scores were nearly twice as high. For the same English exam, 61% of magnet students met or exceeded state standards. For math, the number was 48%.

Taken on their own, L.A. magnets would rank close to higher-scoring nearby districts in These magnets have become some of L.A.'s highest-scoring public schools - Los Angeles Times:

How messed up is California’s charter school sector? You won’t believe how much. - The Washington Post

How messed up is California’s charter school sector? You won’t believe how much. - The Washington Post:

How messed up is California’s charter school sector? You won’t believe how much.

 Ohio and Utah are known in education circles for having extraordinarily troubled charter school sectors, and the same is true in  Pennsylvania, where Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a report this year and declared his state’s charter school law the “worst” in the nation.

But there is another place with a scandal-plagued charter sector that gets less national attention than it should: California, which has more charter schools and charter school students than any other state in the nation, and where one billionaire came up with a secret plan to “charterize” half of  the Los Angeles Unified School District.

There is a never-ending stream of charter scandals coming from California. For example, a report released recently (by the ACLU SoCal and Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group) found that more than 20 percent of all California charter schools have enrollment policies that violate state and federal law. A Mercury News investigation published in April revealed how the state’s online charter schools run by Virginia-based K12 Inc., the largest for-profit charter operator in the country, have “a dismal record of academic achievement” but has won more than $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years.

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There was the scandal involving a charter school principal who also doubled as a National Basketball Association scout, traveling first class to basketball games around the country — and charging his travel expenses to his charter school. Don’t forget the one involving a charter school that closed in 2014 after state auditors found a number of issues, including indications that administrators funneled millions of dollars in state funds to the schools’ operator and her family and friends.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, some of the allegations against the school operator were downright “bizarre.” Auditors questioned the use of school funds to pay a more than half a million-dollar settlement to a former teacher who sued, claiming she had been wrongly terminated after she was ordered by the school director to travel to Nigeria and marry the director’s brother-in-law so he could become a U.S. citizen. The operator’s penalty? She paid “a $16,000 fine for misconduct that includes using public education funds to lease her own buildings,” the Times said.

What these reveal is a state charter law that allows charter schools to operate loosely, with little if any accountability or transparency to the public. The charter lobby in California has successfully fought off legislative efforts to bring more accountability to the charter sector — at least so far.

Now there is a bill awaiting the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown which would require more accountability and transparency from the state’s charters schools. Brown, who has been a supporter of charter schools, has not indicated what he will do, though California’s treasurer, John Chiang, has said the legislation is vital to make charter schools more accountable to the public. Brown, who started two charter schools when he was mayor of Oakland, last year vetoed a bill that would have banned for-profit charters.

This is the first of four posts on the state of charters in California. It was written by Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who is now executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education. She was named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, the same organization named her the New York State High School Principal of the Year. Her four-part series will be part of an extended national report on charter schools that will be published by the Network for Public Education in 2017.

By Carol Burris

You can find a charter in a mall right near a Burger King, where students as young as 12 meet their “teacher on demand.” Or, you can make a cyber visit to the “blended learning” Epic Charter School, whose students are required to meet a teacher (at a convenient, to be determined location) only once every 20 days. There is an added bonus upon joining Epic: Students receive $1,500 for a personal “learning fund,” along with a laptop computer. The enrollment site advertised that students could boost that fund by referring others to the charter chain.

A superintendent can expand his tiny rural district of 300 students to 4,000 by running “independent study” charters in storefronts in cities miles away, netting millions in revenue for How messed up is California’s charter school sector? You won’t believe how much. - The Washington Post: