The Monday Twist Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

The Monday Twist Diane Ravitch's blog 

A site to discuss better education for all

Nancy Bailey: Time for DeVos to Resign

by dianeravitch / 10min

Nancy E. Bailey writes here about Secretary Betsy DeVos’s unpleasant experience at Bethune-Cookman University, where she was booed by the graduates of the class of 2017. She thinks it was a travesty that the students were not allowed any say in the choice of their commencement speaker. After all, the day is meant to honor them and their accomplishments. Instead, they got a speaker who is in a job

Florida: Chaos at Palm Beach Charter School

3by dianeravitch / 1h

Florida is a welcoming state for charter school. It is easy to win approval to open, there is virtually no supervision or accountability, and public money flows freely based on enrollment. In this environment, problems are inevitable. The latest mess is the Eagle Arts Academy, a charter school in Palm Beach. http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/post-investigation-eagle-arts-charter-chaos-are-kids-

Susan Ochshorn: The Danger of Universal Pre-K

8by dianeravitch / 2h

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s major initiative in education was implementation of universal pre-K for four-year-olds. Now he has announced his plan to provide universal pre-K for three-year-olds. The earlier initiative was popular, so what could go wrong? The Mayor needs the state to fund it with $700 million, which is far from certain. Leonie Haimson, founder of Class Size Matters, says there are too m

Hawaii: Why Import Corporate Reformers from the Mainland?

1by dianeravitch / 32min

Andy Jones’s a high school teacher in Hawaii. He writes here with profound dismay about the search for a new superintendent for the schools of Hawaii. He was not sorry to see the current superintendent go. She was an avid supporter of test-based accountability and data-data-data. “This week we learned that the new superintendent will likely be one of two products of the current educational Big Bo

William Mathis on the Illusory Graduation Rate of Students in D.C. Voucher Schools

6by dianeravitch / 1h

Trump recently told a group of students attending voucher schools in D.C. that they were very lucky because the graduation rate of the voucher program was 98%. That was far more than the evaluation of the program, which claimed a rate of 82%. But when I re-read the final evaluation report on the program, I couldn’t understand how the evaluators arrived at 82%. Newspaper accounts regularly say tha

YESTERDAY

Bernie Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla

30by dianeravitch / 19h

The critical runoff election for school board in Los Angeles is Tuesday May 16. There are two crucial races. One is Steve Zimmer Vs. Nick Melvoin. Melvoin has received millions from leaders of the charter industry, such as Eli Broad, Alice Walton, Michael Bloomberg, and Reed Hastings. He is the beneficiary of millions from people who do not live in Los Angeles. The other is Imelda Padilla vs. Kel

Texas: Republicans in State Senate Try Again to Push Through a Voucher Bill

9by dianeravitch / 20h

You know about the camel’s nose under the tent? That’s the game that Texas Republicans are playing in an effort to establish a foothold for vouchers. They have copied this tactic from other states. It goes like this: We don’t want vouchers for everyone; we want them just for this very small, very needy, very deserving group of children. If they get that bill passed, within a year or two, another

California: Charter School Will Close Because of Founder’s Audacious Misuse of School Funds

16by dianeravitch / 21h

The California State Board of Education accepted its staff recommendation and voted not to renew the Oxford Preparatory Academy charter school in Chino. The school will close June 30. Parents defended the school, and one member of the board made a last-ditch plea for the school but he was outvoted. “But board members grappled over the fate of the high-performing school that might be fatally encum

Will the Trump-DeVos Alliance Win Control of Los Angeles Public Schools?

13by dianeravitch / 22h

“In the Public Interest,” an organization that keeps track of privatization of the public sector, points out that Trump and DeVos have a lot riding on the outcome of the school board election in Los Angeles on May 16. Their allies have invested millions of dollars in gaining control of the school board so they can turn students and schools over to private hands. If they can defeat Steve Zimmer an

Happy Mother’s Day to All the Moms Who Read This!

4by dianeravitch / 22h

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there! I hope you enjoy the day and have the chance to see your child or children. I had three sons. One died of leukemia at the age of two. My sons are my treasure. Though I must admit that I am sorry that I did not have a daughter. My two sons each have two sons. They add to my treasure. Enjoy your day!

Peter Dreier: Who Are the Corporate Plutocrats Trying to Defeat Steve Zimmer in Los Angeles?

19by dianeravitch / 23h

Peter Dreier, professor of political science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, warns that a cabal of billionaires are trying to defeat Steve Zimmer in order to take control of the public schools and privatize them. The vote on May 16 is in the national spotlight. Can a handful of billionaires buy control of the nation’s second largest school district? Before naming names, Dreier writes: Some

Good News: Vergara-Copycat Lawsuit Tossed Out by Judge in New Jersey

18by dianeravitch / 1d

A judge in New Jersey threw out a lawsuit intended to remove teachers’ seniority rights. This is the third loss for the corporate reformer groups that have tried to use the courts to strip away teachers’ job security. The “reformers” blame teachers and unions for low test scores while ignoring overwhelming evidence that poverty is the proximate cause of low scores. The first was the Vergara lawsu

Weaponized Philanthropy: A Report on the Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee

11by dianeravitch / 1d

What do you know about the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation? Likely, not much. While Gates, Broad, and Walton go public with their eagerness to privatize public schools, Bradley has the same goals but stays under the media radar. The Center for Media and Democracy now reveals what everyone needs to know about the Bradley Foundation . It has more assets than the Koch family foundations. It was t

Los Angeles: The Great Smear Campaign Nears Its End

5by dianeravitch / 1d

Blogger Red Queen in LA has created a graphic to depict the spending in the Los Angeles school board race between Steve Zimmer and Nick Melvoin. A shocking amount of Melvoin’s money has been spent on negative campaigning, ads that 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

500 Students in a One-Room School: Fallout of New Jersey’s Funding Woes - The New York Times

500 Students in a One-Room School: Fallout of New Jersey’s Funding Woes - The New York Times:

500 Students in a One-Room School: Fallout of New Jersey’s Funding Woes

FREEHOLD BOROUGH, N.J. — At an elementary school in Freehold, over 500 students share a vast, open space where bookshelves, whiteboards, storage cubbies and other pieces of furniture are the only boundaries between classrooms.

There are no walls because the building was originally designed in the 1970s to be a smaller Montessori school, Rocco Tomazic, the superintendent of the Freehold Borough School District, explained during a recent tour. But now it is noisy and crowded, and the district does not have the money to move students into traditional closed classrooms — the kind with walls and fewer distractions.

The issue for Freehold Borough — and about two-thirds of New Jersey’s 586 school districts — is the state’s nine-year-old formula for paying for public schools. Adopted by the State Legislature in 2008, it calculates how much each district needs to ensure that students receive a “thorough and efficient” education, regardless of income, as New Jersey law requires.

The formula directs extra dollars to districts with children who are learning English, students with disabilities and those living in poverty. But hundreds of towns, including Freehold Borough, where 75 percent of the schoolchildren are Latino, have not gotten their full share of funding under the formula since 2010. This year, for instance, the district was due $23 million, Mr. Tomazic said. It got $9 million.

“State aid has been flat-funded since at least 2010, with no adjustments for enrollment, for our at-risk students, for our special-needs students, for our English-language-learner students,” said Joe Howe, the district’s business administrator.

When the state falls short, the burden falls on local governments. In Freehold, that has meant overcrowded classes, a library converted into classrooms for English learners, a small gymnasium that doubles as a school cafeteria and an elementary school class with 28 students — well over the recommended 21.

The Freehold Borough School District is the 33rd-poorest district in New Jersey; 78 percent of its students are eligible for subsidized meals. Low-income communities cannot turn to property tax payers to cover what the 500 Students in a One-Room School: Fallout of New Jersey’s Funding Woes - The New York Times:

A look at the political activities of education secretary Betsy DeVos | National News | nwitimes.com

A look at the political activities of education secretary Betsy DeVos | National News | nwitimes.com:

A look at the political activities of education secretary Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump's education secretary, built her political resume by raising and contributing millions of dollars to support the cause of giving parents choices on where their children go to school.

The daughter of one wealthy businessman and the wife of another, DeVos has headed a series of groups that help rich contributors spend large sums on elections, including one that was assessed the biggest fine ever by the Ohio Elections Commission.

A look at her political activities.

WHO IS BETSY DEVOS?

DeVos is the daughter of an auto parts manufacturer who married into another wealthy Michigan family, the one that runs Amway.

Her family is steeped in politics. Her father, Edgar Prince, was a major early donor to the Family Research Council. Her husband, Dick DeVos, lost a 2006 run for governor of Michigan, and DeVos herself served as the chairwoman of the state Republican Party. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of the security company Blackwater, which has had key government contracts.

Her education experience is mainly through advocating for school choice. She attended private Christian schools. Her children, now grown, were educated through a combination of private schools and homeschooling.

During a 2001 appearance at a retreat of Christian philanthropists, she said, "Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God's kingdom."

GIVING TO POLITICS

DeVos personally contributed at least $2.3 million to candidates and political action committees from 2007 through last year.

Her family, including husband and one-time Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, mother Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, brother Erik Prince and father- and mother-in-law Richard and Helen DeVos contributed a combined $19 million in that same period.

RAISING SOFT MONEY

Twenty years ago, DeVos wrote an opinion piece for the Washington publication Roll Call in which she said A look at the political activities of education secretary Betsy DeVos | National News | nwitimes.com: