Texas: IDEA Corporate Charter Chain Plans Massive Expansion | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: IDEA Corporate Charter Chain Plans Massive Expansion | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: IDEA Corporate Charter Chain Plans Massive Expansion

The IDEA charter chain hopes to double its enrollment in Texas. This is the free-spending chain that planned to lease a private jet for $2 million a year but backed off after bad publicity; that flies its e ecurives and their families in first-class; that bought premium box seats for professional basketball games; that pays its executives exorbitant salaries; that has received more that $200 million in federal funding from Betsy DeVos.

If the expansion plan goes forward, the IDEA enrollment will grow from 50,000 to nearly 100,000; its annual budget will grow from half a billion to one billion. This is larger than the budget of the University of Texas at Austin. Just in the past five years, IDEA’s budget has tripled.

One state representative called for an audit, but was careful to praise the organization that is gobbling up public dollars and sucking the life out of community public schools.

STATE REPRESENTATIVE TERRY CANALES CALLS FOR COMPREHENSIVE STATE AUDIT OF IDEA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

For Immediate Release
August 18, 2020
Contact: Curtis Smith
(512) 463-0426 office

AUSTIN, TX – In a letter addressed to Commissioner Mike Morath of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Texas First Assistant State Auditor Lisa Collier, State Representative Terry Canales calls for a comprehensive and multi-agency audit of the IDEA Public Schools (IDEA) after recent disclosures of lavish expenditures for its CONTINUE READING: Texas: IDEA Corporate Charter Chain Plans Massive Expansion | Diane Ravitch's blog

EDUCATION MALPRACTICE? – Dad Gone Wild

EDUCATION MALPRACTICE? – Dad Gone Wild

EDUCATION MALPRACTICE?

50, there is a new warmth and mellowing. Friends become more important than ever, but so does privacy. Since it is so often proclaimed by people past midlife, the motto of this stage might be “No more bullshit. Gail Sheehy,  Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life

“Status seekers, I never cared
Once I found out they never dared
To seize the world and shake it upside down
And every stinking bum should wear a crown”
― Iggy Pop

I must admit to having a fascination with the story of Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn. Who wouldn’t be enthralled by the tale of the daughter raised by a single parent school teacher? She starts her journey in 2001 as an intern with Senator Feinstein and rises to the top as the handpicked Commissioner of Education of Tennessee under Bill Lee. Along the way she stacks the wins up at every stop, building a resume that ranks with the best in the country, all the while serving as a champion of the downtrodden and the marginalized. At least that’s what the book jacket says. 

But is it a resume that holds up under scrutiny? For this episode of as the Schwinn turns, we are going to take a deeper look at the events and circumstances around the founding and subsequent years of Capitol Collegiate Charter School in Sacramento. I think that we will find that not all that glitters is gold…well at least not for everybody. But I’m spoiling the plot. 

Capital Collegiate Academy was founded back in 2011 by one Penny Schwinn. In the past, I’ve talked about Schwinn’s tenure with the St. Hope Foundation, the charter network founded by Michelle Rhee’s husband and former Mayor of Sacramento Kevin Johnson. I think it’s a safe assumption that in opening her own school, Schwinn benefited from her relationship with Johnson. It worth noting that Penny’s husband Paul, also worked for the St. Hope Foundation. Stick around, CONTINUE READING: EDUCATION MALPRACTICE? – Dad Gone Wild

CURMUDGUCATION: GA: Bad Cover-Up Management In Times Of Crisis

CURMUDGUCATION: GA: Bad Cover-Up Management In Times Of Crisis

GA: Bad Cover-Up Management In Times Of Crisis

For years, I worked for an administration whose philosophy about any problematic or controversial issue was, "If we don't talk about it, the public won't notice and this will all blow over in a while."

It was a terrible management philosophy, not just because it was dishonest and unfair, but because it failed. It failed hard. Every. Single. Time.

See? Doesn't everything look better now?

People always found out, and they always got upset about the exact things administration was afraid they'd get upset about. And on top of that, they were upset that administration had been trying to hide problems instead of solve them or share them with the affected parties, which in turn meant that they had zero trust in leadership moving forward. It just always ended poorly, and yet, administration never learned.

We're seeing some of that already with the news out of Georgia, where a couple of photos of unmasked students crowded wall to wall in the hall made Paulding County schools look pretty--well, not good. Buzzfeed (yes, you really have to start taking them seriously as a news outlet) has the whole story so far.

The school's nurse had already quit over the policy. Football players at North Paulding had already tested positive. And the first day of school was a scary mess. The superintendent responded to the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: GA: Bad Cover-Up Management In Times Of Crisis