Saturday, February 28, 2015

Report assails K12, Inc.-backed California virtual charter school for producing more dropouts than graduates | The Progressive Pulse

Report assails K12, Inc.-backed California virtual charter school for producing more dropouts than graduates | The Progressive Pulse:

Report assails K12, Inc.-backed California virtual charter school for producing more dropouts than graduates

Posted by : Lindsay Wagner Friday, February 27, 2015 Leave a comment In News

A report released Thursday blasts K-12, Inc.-backed California Virtual Academies (CAVA), that state’s largest provider of online education, for producing few graduates and directing large amounts of revenue toward advertising, executive salaries and profit — while paying its teachers less than half the average wage traditional public school teachers earn.

“It is too easy for kids to fall through the cracks in CAVA’s current online schooling system,” said Donald Cohen, executive director for In the Public Interest, the Washington-based think tank that penned the report. “We are calling on California to immediately increase oversight of online education to ensure students are receiving a quality education.”

Notable findings of the report include:

In every year since it began graduating students, except 2013, CAVA has had less than a 50 percent graduation rate, while California’s traditional public school graduation rate has hovered around 80 percent;
Some CAVA students log into their virtual classroom for as little as one minute a day, which is enough to give the charter its daily attendance revenue from the state;
While K12 Inc. paid almost $11 million total to its top six executives in 2011-12, the average CAVA teacher salary was $36,150 that same year — close to half of average teacher pay in California; and
In December 2011, the California Charter Schools Association called for the closure of CAVA in Kern County because the school did not meet its renewal standards.

North Carolina’s State Board of Education gave the green light to K12, Inc. earlier this month to finally open up shop here after years of efforts on their part to open a virtual charter school in the state.

K12, Inc. has a history of producing low performance and graduation rates across the country, recently prompting the NCAA to announce that it will no longer accept coursework from 24 virtual schools that are affiliated with the company.

The company has also been compared to subprime mortgage lenders, pulling in and churning out a disproportionate amount of students who are not well prepared for the online learning model–all in the name of big profits from taxpayer budgets.

Last summer, Tennessee’s education commissioner ordered the closure of a struggling K12, Inc.-operated online school there thanks to poor academic outcomes.

While the State Board of Education has authorized the arrival of K12, Inc. in North Carolina, their approval didn’t come without reservations; several members of the board expressed concerns that the virtual school would only be accessible to those with considerable means, excluding economically disadvantaged students that lack computers or parental support critical to academic success.

Click to read the full report, Virtual Public Education in California.

- See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2015/02/27/report-assails-k12-inc-backed-california-virtual-charter-school-for-producing-more-dropouts-than-graduates/#sthash.W79pUnsg.dpuf

Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools - The Washington Post

Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools - The Washington Post:

Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a report last year titled “Separating Fact & Fiction: What You Need to Know About Charter Schools,” which takes 21 statements that it calls “myths” about charters and attempts to debunk them, one by one. Now three education researchers have completed a fact-checking analysis of the charter report, coming to some difference conclusions about each myth. Following is part of the new analysis, which was published by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and which you can find in full, complete with extensive footnotes on the NEPC website. (I have removed the footnotes and endnotes from the text in this post but you can see them,as well other parts of the report, here.)

This analysis was written by Gary Miron, William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner. Miron is a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University. Mathis is the managing director of the NEPC and a former Vermont superintendent. Welner is the director of the NEPC as well as an attorney and a UC Boulder professor of education policy.

Here are the first two parts of the seven-part fact-checking analysis of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools report:

By Gary Miron, William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner

Introduction

Separating Fact & Fiction: What You Need to Know about Charter Schools is a concise policy document assembled by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS). No authors or contributors are identified. The paper (we use the term “report” throughout this review) lists 21 common “myths” about charter schools, which it then summarily rejects.

There exists an extensive body of research around charter schools, including a great deal of scholarly work published in peer-reviewed journals. The NAPCS report attempts to support its claims in response to the 21 “myths” with a narrative that includes 47 endnote references. But a closer look at these endnotes reveals that 15 of the citations came from NAPCS (the group that prepared the report), and another eight are from two reports produced by the school-choice department at the University of Arkansas, which have been strongly critiqued for advocacy-driven problems.

Because the report relies almost exclusively on other advocacy documents, does not give a balanced or thorough examination of any of the “myths,” and does not provide more than superficial research evidence to support its position that the myths are indeed false, this review will use the more neutral and factual term “criticism” instead of “myth.” The 13-page report is written for a lay audience and is beautifully laid out with colorful text and photographs of children. The criticisms are organized across four general areas: (i) charter school resources, (ii) students served, (iii) performance, and (iv) accountability and impact.

II. Findings and Conclusions of the Report

Although the NAPCS report claims to “set the record straight on the truth Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools - The Washington Post:

More Parents Say No To Standardized Testing | Here & Now

More Parents Say No To Standardized Testing | Here & Now:

More Parents Say No To Standardized Testing

In this Feb. 12, 2015 photo, Yamarko Brown, age 12, works on math problems as part of a trial run of a new state assessment test at Annapolis Middle School in Annapolis, Md. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

A growing number of parents and students are deciding to “opt out” of assessment tests in an effort to stem the rise of what they call a “toxic testing culture.”

Pennsylvania saw a five-fold increase in parents “opting out” over the past three years. In New York, some 67,000 students – 5 percent of all students – sat out the statewide math test.

And it seems that some officials are paying attention. U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan pledged to urge Congress to set state testing limits.

But individual states aren’t waiting for Washington to give them instructions. Just this week, a Maine lawmaker proposed a bill that requires schools to let parents know that they have the right to “opt out.”

Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Morna McDermott, founding organizer of the national “United Opt-Out” movement.

Interview Highlights: Morna McDermott

Why she is against standardized testing

“It’s sort of three-fold. There are the effects on children, including my own. There are the effects on teachers and schools. And then, you know, more broadly there’s the effects on society and what this is doing to public schools as one of our democratic institutions.”

On how to respond in states where testing is required to advance

“That’s a tricky question, I’ll be honest. I think it’s going to require a lot of pushback in order to get that repealed. So if one or two parents do that, they may face the consequences of ‘gosh, is my child going to stay back?’ I would recommend that they look closely at the law and not just rely on what they’re being told. Most likely, that law is also going to say that there are other evaluative instruments that they use in determining a child moving from grade three to grade four, in addition to that test. And one of the reason we’re advocating for what we call sort of a refusal or a boycott of the testing, is in a large part because we’re using data from a test that study after study after study have shown are not necessarily reliable or valid in assessing what they claim to assess.”

On how to measure U.S. students against other countries without tests

“People like to fall back on that narrative, but it ignores a lot of the pertinent information, first of which is that the number one determining factor of how well you will do on your standardized test is your zip code. We know that poverty is the biggest determining factor in how children perform on standardized tests. Now, if we’re under-performing, say, behind Finland that’s because we have a 50 percent poverty rate and they only have a 4 percent poverty rate. You know, it doesn’t necessarily access all of the other measures that enable us to be competitive as a nation.

“The number one determining factor of how well you will do on your standardized test is your zip code.”

“For example, we didn’t really rely on standardized testing for much of anything prior to No Child Left Behind. So, how on earth is it that we became this global empire, the top dog, before we ever had standardized testing drive our curriculum? It’s not to say that we don’t have problems in our schools. We clearly have problems of equity and poverty. We have the highest segregation rates since Brown v. Board, but none of these problems will ever be resolved by test-driven policies.”

On whether refusing to take a standardized test hurts schools or teachers

“I don’t know of any school that has been closed as a result of testing refusals. I know of no More Parents Say No To Standardized Testing | Here & Now:

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National:

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch - Edison NJ News - TAPinto

The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch - Edison NJ News - TAPinto:

The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch

Beth Moroney

Friday, February 27, 2015 • 4:00am

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch Credits: Basic Books

Let's start today's review on The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch with your homework assignment. On a piece of notebook paper . . . no, scratch that … on your keyboard write the name of the best teacher that you ever had. Under his/her name list five reasons why that teacher was the best one you ever had and support your opinions. Repeat the process, substituting “best” teacher with “worst” teacher. When you have finished your two lists, compare your reasons and deduce what qualities one should look for in a good teacher. Then write a five paragraph opinion paper on the qualities of an excellent teacher.

See, anyone who ever went to school thinks that he/she is an authority on what comprises a good educator --- or so many politicians and business people have come to believe. However, Diane Ravitch, former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education, has concluded that those in politics and business have become too entrenched in public education and are steering the “great American School System” in the wrong direction.

Ravitch, who has studied education for over forty years, criticizes the path on which contemporary America schools are headed. She explains the dangers in restructuring schools, rails on using test scores to punish instructors, and points out the dangers in using charter schools to segregate the top students from the bottom instead of using charter schools to help lower ranked students become achievers. Categorically, Ravitch blasts using the “business model” to restructure American education.

Since PARCC is looming ever closer in New Jersey's schools, Ravitch's chapter on standardized testing, “The Trouble with Accountability” is particularly important. She begins, “NCLB (No Child Left Behind) opened a new era of testing and accountability in American public schools.” (150) Just as parents and educators are protesting the implementation of PARCC, those forces filed lawsuits and protested against the new standardized testing during the Bush era to no avail. But Ravitch continues stating that it was the misuse of testing, ranking schools and educators based on test scores, that became the major The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch - Edison NJ News - TAPinto:

Presidential hopefuls share anti-public education views at conservative conference « Education Votes

Presidential hopefuls share anti-public education views at conservative conference « Education Votes:

Presidential hopefuls share anti-public education views at conservative conference

Posted February 23, 2015

by Brian Washington

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By the end of the week, education activists should have a better understanding of how the 2016 field of presidential hopefuls on the Republican side is shaping up and what some of the threats to students, educators, and public education may look like in the future.

Thursday, February 26, kicks off the start of the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC. CPAC represents the largest gathering of right-wing conservatives from around the country.

The event’s agenda is filled with workshops designed to come up with new ways to undermine public education and limit opportunity for students. Without a doubt, there will be discussions about siphoning away taxpayer dollars from public education and funneling them into private and religious schools and expanding privately-run charter schools that, despite getting public funding, are not accountable or transparent to the communities they are supposed to serve.

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If some of this sounds like it comes from the ALEC(American Legislative Exchange Council)playbook, which includes restricting the ability of educators to advocate for their students and dismantling public education, that’s because many of the faces attending this week’s CPAC meeting are also regular attendees at various ALEC events.

Also, because this year’s conference is happening at the start of the 2016 election cycle, a string of GOP presidential hopefuls are expected to attend, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, an ALEC acolyte who’s also a darling of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, the Koch Brothers.

Walker has been leading the fight in Wisconsin against workers’ rights, middle-class families, students, educators, and public schools. He was instrumental in defunding higher education and robbed public schools of critical dollars through private school vouchers and huge corporate tax cuts. He also led the charge to strip educators of their voice to advocate on behalf of students.

Another serious contender for the GOP presidential ticket who will be speaking at CPAC this week is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who also supports private school vouchers, the corporate takeover of public education, and other policies that harm students.

In fact, at last year’s Republican National Convention, Bush told the crowd that public schools should be thought of as competing commodities governed by a free market.

As governor, Bush was also responsible for the implementation of a controversial A-F school grading formula that has since come under fire by parents, educators, and elected leaders and has had to be adjusted at least two dozen times over the last several years.

Other CPAC guest speakers who are looking to head-up the Republican ticket for the White House include U.S. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz of Texas as well as Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas.

CPAC ends Saturday, February 28. Be sure to check the Speak Up for Education and Kids Facebook page and the “What We’re Reading” section of Ed Votes for updates on what’s happening at the conference.Presidential hopefuls share anti-public education views at conservative conference « Education Votes:

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García on What Teacher Do

Thousands of LA teachers, union heads rally in largest action yet amid stalled contract talks

Susana Mercado, left, and Linda Cardwell chant slogans as they join thousands of fellow teachers for a rally to demand higher wages and smaller class sizes amid stalled contract negotiations, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015, in Los Angeles. United Teachers Los Angeles is asking for an 8.5 percent pay increase, a demand the Los Angeles Unified district says cannot be met without significant layoffs. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dressed in red and raising signs into the air, thousands of teachers filled a downtown Los Angeles park on Thursday in demand of higher wages and smaller class sizes amid stalled contract negotiations.

"Everybody in this country is watching this struggle," said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers. "It's a fight about the nature of public education. What is public education going to look like?"

The rally was the largest action yet amid an escalating standoff between union and Los Angeles Unified district leaders: United Teachers Los Angeles is demanding an 8.5 percent salary increase, a demand interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines contends the district cannot meet without significant layoffs.

The union declared an impasse in February and is set to meet with the district and mediators in March. If a resolution is still not reached, a fact finding panel will convene.

Though still several steps away, union officials say they are prepared to strike if needed.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and other union leaders have visited hundreds of schools in recent months, talking to teachers and handing out commitment cards. The cards ask teachers to pledge support for a variety of actions, from leafleting to a strike. About half have been returned so far.

"The vast majority of our members have checked off, 'Are you willing to strike?' with a, 'Yes I am willing to strike,'" Caputo-Pearl said to applause and cheers at the rally.

The last major urban district to strike was Chicago Public Schools in 2012. That contract dispute centered largely on the role of student test scores in teacher evaluations.

In contrast, the Los Angeles contract standoff has focused mostly on teacher salaries, class sizes and increasing the number of support staff members like nurses and counselors. The union notes that teachers have gone eight years without a salary increase or cost of living adjustment.

Union leaders contend the negotiations highlight an ongoing post-Great Recession concern: That while economic conditions have improved, cuts made during the height of the crisis have been disparately restored. They point to new pockets of money that could be used to finance their demands, including the governor's proposed budget, which would increase spending on K-12 education by at least 8 percent.

Contines, meanwhile, is projecting a $160 million deficit for the next school year. He is asking every department to reduce expenses by 8 to 15 percent. In a letter to Caputo-Pearl Thursday, he also warned that $171 million is at risk if union leaders don't agree to evaluation requirements necessary for the district to receive its No Child Left Behind waiver.

Congress is currently attempting to revamp the George W. Bush-era law.

"We're entering a tough phase because of the significant decline in enrollment, primarily," said Tom Waldman, a spokesman for the district.

There were 677,538 student enrolled in Los Angeles Unified in the 2009-10 school year. In the 2013-14 school year, that number had declined to 653,826.

A recent survey by the Schools Superintendents Association found that about half of superintendents described their districts as stable, while nearly four in 10 believe their district's economic situation has gotten worse; but the study concluded that over the last three years, conditions have mostly improved.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, said what happens in Los Angeles will have national implications, as districts weigh what to prioritize as the economy improves.

"The teachers here are pulling out of their own pockets," she said in an interview with The Associated Press Thursday. "They feel the district has not met them halfway."

At the rally, teachers waved signs demanding, "Safe and clean schools now!" and "Don't want to but I'm ready to strike!" A band played songs with protest-themed lyrics.

http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/02/26/los-angeles-teachers-union-leaders-rally-amid-stalled-talks

Who are Democrats for Education Reform? | United Federation of Teachers

Who are Democrats for Education Reform? | United Federation of Teachers:

Who are Democrats for Education Reform?

And why do they keep bashing public schools and unions?

BY MICHAEL HIRSCH | DECEMBER 16, 2010 NEW YORK TEACHER ISSUE

Joe Williams heads Democrats for Education Reform and its sister organization, Education Reform Now.

DFER advisory board member Joel Greenblatt is a protégé of fallen junk-bond icon Michael Milliken.

Hedge-fund manager John Petry, a DFER board member, co-founded the Harlem Success Academy Charter School with Eva Moskowitz.

There’s a political action committee called Democrats for Education Reform. A great name, but I heard that they only support nonunion charter schools, bash unions and get subsidized by Wall Street hedge-fund managers. What’s up with that?

You heard right. They’re like other public school bashers, except they call themselves Democrats. Democrats for Education Reform claims that it “leads efforts to frame the fight that is playing out within the Democratic Party on education issues.” It tries to accomplish that by pushing aside teacher unions as education spokespeople or even as informed practitioners. The organization advocates for nonunion charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, test-based teacher evaluations, curbs on tenure and removing teacher unions from almost any role in shaping curriculum or determining working conditions.

In just three years, DFER directed more than $17 million into political and grassroots advocacy for its version of education reform and for what Joe Williams, the group’s executive director and a former Daily News education reporter, credits as “creating momentum which has the potential to dominate education policymaking for years to come.”

DFER calls Barack Obama “the first ever Democratic president elected without significant support of teachers’ unions” — a shocker to those UFT members who went to toss-up state Pennsylvania to stump for Obama and to AFT and NEA members nationwide who campaigned for the candidate in 2008.

Board member Whitney Tilson is chief of T2 Partners and Tilson Funds and vice chair of New York’s KIPP Academy Charter Schools.

David Einhorn, another hedge-funder on DFER’s advisory board, is president of Greenlight Capital, LLC.

What has DFER been up to in New York?
In New York State elections this fall, the group stumped exclusively for pro-charter candidates, but because it has no community membership, just a letterhead stacked with super-rich backers, it advertised on Craigslist for campaign workers. DFER was zero for three on the incumbent state senators that it targeted in the Democratic primary.

The ex-Bloomberg aide tapped to topple Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins, who took issue with charter management companies for their lack of accountability, got clobbered. State Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Shirley Huntley also handily defeated DFER-backed insurgents in the primary. Among the group’s key list of 15 nationally endorsed candidates in the November elections, just seven won.

Why do Democrats for Education Reform hate teachers?
They say they don’t (hard to believe if you look at their policy positions). It is unions that they say they hate.

What’s their beef with unions?
That we exist. It’s the typical economic royalist rationale, that unions — unlike themselves — are selfish special interests. They’re deaf to counter-arguments that what’s good for kids is good for teachers, too, and that tenure means due process and not job security for incompetents.

Who are these people? They don’t sound like Democrats.
If party registration and political donations indicate political allegiance, these DFER deep pockets are blue-blood Democrats. The group’s financial records show board members, advisers and the Who are Democrats for Education Reform? | United Federation of Teachers:

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Saturday, February 28, 2015