Students of Color Are Much More Likely to Attend High-Poverty Schools - The Atlantic

Students of Color Are Much More Likely to Attend High-Poverty Schools - The Atlantic:

The Concentration of Poverty in American Schools

An exclusive Next America analysis uncovers that students of color in the largest 100 cities in the United States are much more likely to attend schools where most of their peers are poor or low-income.

In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, a new analysis of federal data shows.

This systemic economic and racial isolation looms as a huge obstacle for efforts to expand opportunity because researchers have found that the single-most powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students attend schools surrounded by other low-income students.

Underscoring the breadth of the challenge, the economic segregation of minority students persists across virtually all types of cities, from fast-growing Sunbelt places like Austin, Denver, Dallas, and Charlotte to struggling Rust Belt communities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, to the nation’s largest metropolitan centers, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. But cities, educators, and researchers are also exploring new ways to abate the negative impact of concentrated poverty on black and brown students.

The economic isolation is so intense that in about half of the largest 100 cities, most African American and Latino students attend schools where at least 75 percent of all students qualify as poor or low-income under federal guidelines. These stark results emerge from a Next America analysis of data from the National Equity Atlas. The Atlas is a joint project of PolicyLink and the University of Southern California’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, or PERE. Following federal guidelines, the National Equity Atlas defines low-income students as those eligible for the federal free- and reduced-lunch program. That includes students with incomes up to $44,863 for a family of four, or 185 percent of the federal poverty line. (Students from families with incomes up to the 130 percent of the poverty line, or $31,525 for a family of four, are eligible for free lunch; the remainder can obtain reduced price lunches.)

The overwhelming isolation of students of color in schools with mostly low-income classmates threatens to undermine efforts both to improve educational outcomes and to provide a pipeline of skilled workers for the economy at a time when such students comprise a majority of the nation’s public school enrollment. Educational reformers are quick to underscore that in individual schools around the country dedicated teachers and principals have produced impressive results even for students submerged in communities of pervasive poverty. But, overall, concentrated poverty is tightly correlated with gaps in educational achievement.

“It’s the measure of segregation that is most strongly correlated to the racial Students of Color Are Much More Likely to Attend High-Poverty Schools - The Atlantic:

With Fewer Members, a Diminished Political Role for Wisconsin Unions - The New York Times

With Fewer Members, a Diminished Political Role for Wisconsin Unions - The New York Times:

With Fewer Members, a Diminished Political Role for Wisconsin Unions

MILWAUKEE — Gov. Scott Walker’s foray into the Republican presidential field ended months ago, but he may yet have sway over the outcome.

Mr. Walker led a push five years ago to cut collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers, saying he needed to solve a state budget gap. Since then, union membership has dropped precipitously. Long a labor stronghold, the state has lost tens of thousands of union members, leaving Wisconsin with a smaller percentage of union members than the national average, new federal figures show.

The drop is most pronounced in the public sector: More than half of Wisconsin’s public workers were in unions before Mr. Walker’s cuts took effect. A little more than a quarter of them remain.

The shift has shaken the order of election-year politics. Democrats, who most often have been the beneficiaries of money and ground-level help from the unions, said they were uncertain about what the coming elections would look like, and what forces could take the place of depleted labor groups.

The change is certain to affect the Democratic presidential nominee in November. But Democratic political consultants are more concerned about the fate of state legislative contests, in which phone banks and extra door knocks have proved pivotal here in the past and which are seen as especially important if labor leaders hope to fend off the passage of more anti-union legislation.

“Maybe we can win high-profile races because Wisconsin still leans slightly Democratic, but at the level where Walker has produced the most profound change, it may prove very difficult to turn that around,” Paul Maslin, a longtime Democratic pollster in Madison, said. “That’s where we pay the price.”

Presidential races automatically draw large numbers of voters, often receive support from national labor groups and have seen the Democrat win Wisconsin every time since 1988. But other elections are looming, including an April contest for a seat on the sharply polarized Wisconsin Supreme Court and a highly anticipated fall rematch between Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, and Russ Feingold, his Democratic predecessor.

Top union leaders insist that labor remains a powerful election force.

“The people who have stayed have been much more politically active,” said Rick Badger, the executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Wisconsin, which last year condensed three thinning union locals into a single organization.

Phil Neuenfeldt, the president of the Wisconsin State A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, “We have been — and we will be — a big part of the election outcome.”

Yet declining membership, resources and money are creating an uncertain With Fewer Members, a Diminished Political Role for Wisconsin Unions - The New York Times:

Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation

Dr. Don Coberly, the superintendent of the Boise, Idaho, school district,wrote a blunt letter to the district’s staff telling them not to believe the smears disseminated by the rich and powerful Albertson Foundation. This would be like the superintendent of Los Angeles telling Eli Broad to take his money and go away. Or the superintendent of any district turning down a bribe from the Gates Foundation to open more charters.

For his courage, I add Don Coberly to the blog’s honor roll.

The Albertson Foundation has been pushing charters and virtual charters. It doesn’t like public education. It is running an anti-public school campaign called “Don’t Fail Idaho.” It is about time that an educator with guts started a campaign calling out the Albertson Foundation for their anti-public school propaganda. Call it the “Albertson Foundation Fails Democracy” campaign.

Superintendent Coberly wrote:
Dear Boise School District staff member:

It’s been a while since we have communicated directly with you in an update. We wanted to take this opportunity to address an important issue.

Over the last few weeks you may have heard or seen the latest advertisements from the J.A and Kathryn Albertson Foundation’s “Don’t Fail Idaho” campaign. Perhaps the most controversial claim is that four out of five Idaho students are not prepared for life after high school. There are four facts we want you to understand about this campaign:
It promotes an agenda that is designed to undermine public schools.
It is highly inaccurate.
It offers no real solutions to increasing post-secondary readiness.
It is a disservice to the work you do every day for the youth of this district.
Undermining public schools

Why would someone want to undermine public education in Idaho? The motive is quite clear. At a recent Downtown Rotary Club meeting, the executive director of the Albertson Foundation stated that the goal of the Foundation is to increase charter school seats by 20,000 in the next few years. That will only happen if Idahoans lose faith in their public schools.

Predicting college success

Now let’s set the record straight. The data in question have been spun to create the illusion that 80% of Idaho’s high school graduates are not prepared for college. The source of the data is the 2015 SAT test, administered to juniors in Idaho’s high schools last April. The criteria used by the Foundation? A score of 500 on each of the 3 sections of the test, and an overall score of 1550, adopted by the Idaho Board of Education as an indicator of college success.

The creator of the SAT indicated that achieving this score provides a Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

“I’m not a superpredator!” Ashley Williams, a young Black Lives Matter protester, tells Hillary.

"Oink oink" 

"And this is who your going after? This is where we start the battle? You fucking idiots!" That's consummate liberal racist Bill Maher going after young, black activist, Ashley Williams after she protested Hillary Clinton's "superpredator…bring them to heel" comments at a South Carolina campaign event. -- Raw Story

Derrion's mom finds herself in an Alvarez ad

The mother of Derrion Albert, the 16-year-old honors student killed in a melee outside Fenger High School on Sept. 24, 2009, says she was in shock.

 “I didn’t understand. I couldn’t believe it. Why was I in a commercial without my knowledge? And without my permission?” Albert asks. “How can they do that?” --Sun-Times

Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard resigns from DNC to support Sanders

"As a veteran, as a soldier, I've seen firsthand the true cost of war. As we look at our choices as to who our next Commander-in-chief will be is to recognize the necessity to have a commander-in-chief who has foresight. Who exercises good judgment. Who looks beyond the consequences — who looks at the consequences of the actions that they are willing to take before they take those actions. So that we don't Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Every Student Succeeds Act Helps Put Equity Front and Center, Say Experts - NEA Today

Every Student Succeeds Act Helps Put Equity Front and Center, Say Experts - NEA Today:

Every Student Succeeds Act Helps Put Equity Front and Center, Say Experts

While the U.S. child poverty rate is higher today than ever before, its impact is compounded by education policies that fail to address poverty-related impediments to teaching and learning. At a recent panel discussion held at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the organization, Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), panelists called for policy reforms to address the impact of poverty on schools, students, families, and neighborhoods.

The Broader, Bolder Approach campaign originally launched in 2008 to call attention to the root causes of inequity in education. As the core of BBA’s policy agenda – early childhood education, support for health care and nutrition, afterschool and summer enrichment programs – has become more prominent in the national debate, the organization relaunched its mission this month to help draw even more attention to these important initiatives.

“Policy members are now addressing in-school and out-of-school barriers to success,” said Elaine Weiss, BBA’s national coordinator.

Now that Congress has replaced the disastrous test-driven No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law with the promise of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state and district policy agendas can now more effectively mitigate poverty’s impact.

“ESSA claws back some of the most problematic federal accountability requirements, and it emphasizes the need for social and emotional, as well as traditional academic, measures of student success,” Weiss said. “It also sets aside new money for investments in quality pre-kindergarten and for wraparound supports that help provide disadvantaged students equal opportunities to learn.”

“This is the perfect time to work with states,” said Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy at Duke University. “ESSA presents new opportunities for states to set up their own accountability systems in moving forward… Disadvantage matters. It affects the ability of children to learn.””

Before passage of ESSA in 2015, Ladd said “there was no way schools alone could Every Student Succeeds Act Helps Put Equity Front and Center, Say Experts - NEA Today:

Inquiry: District sought to keep immigrants out of schools - Yahoo News

Inquiry: District sought to keep immigrants out of schools - Yahoo News:

Inquiry: District sought to keep immigrants out of schools

FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2016 file photo, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman speaks during a news confer

 WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) — A suburban New York school district is changing its policies following complaints that it denied or delayed access to immigrant students arriving from Central and South America and elsewhere.

Investigators concluded that the Westbury School District on Long Island had an unwritten policy of excluding English language learners over the age of 16 from the district's high school and diverting these students into nondegree alternative education programs.

Westbury is the 22nd in the state to reach an agreement on policy changes with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Schneiderman's office began investigating enrollment policies in October 2014, after receiving reports that a significant number of children who had arrived in the U.S. from Central and South America, unaccompanied by parents, were either not being permitted to enroll in several Long Island school districts, or were facing delays of up to six months in admission.

Nearly two dozen students were told that they could not enroll because they were too old, but could instead enroll in high-school equivalency or English as a Second Language classes with limited academic offerings.

Among other things, the district agreed to retain an ombudsman for oversight over enrollment policies. It also will retain an independent monitor to ensure that the district places students properly.

"Education is the bedrock of our American democracy, and every child in our country, no matter where they were born, deserves the chance to attend school and seek a diploma," said Schneiderman.

A call to the Westbury School District superintendent's office was not immediately returned.

Javier H. Valdes, co-executive director of the advocacy group Make the Road New York, said many unaccompanied minors in New York are children who have suffered trauma in their home countries or on the way to the U.S.

"We must ensure that these young people receive the care they need and are able to attend school here in New York," he said.Inquiry: District sought to keep immigrants out of schools - Yahoo News:

Special Report: Plugged-in groups snag $40M in no-bid Boston schools contracts | Boston Herald

Special Report: Plugged-in groups snag $40M in no-bid Boston schools contracts | Boston Herald:

Special Report: Plugged-in groups snag $40M in no-bid Boston schools contracts
Worried experts, parents see a ‘privatization’ trend

 Cash-strapped Boston schools have inked $40 million worth of no-bid contracts with plugged-in “strategic partners” in recent years, raising concerns that a lack of oversight has allowed politics and money to trump performance in the city’s neediest classrooms.

A Herald review of two dozen Boston Public Schools contracts signed since 2011 — totaling about $40 million in commitments — revealed some politically wired board members, spotty outcomes and services that one leading expert says could be handled in-house. The contracts include:

• A $9.5 million contract with City Year through 2017 to expand their “Whole School, Whole Child” program, which pays young classroom tutors $282 weekly stipends “to impact the drop-out rate and academic achievement.” In 2012, five of 12 district schools hit their improvement target for all students; that dropped to four out of 20 in 2013 and 2014; and five out of 21 in 2015. Prior City Year contracts with BPS were signed by then-superintendent ­Carol Johnson. She now sits on City Year’s national board of trustees, which doesn’t handle BPS contracts.

• A $1.6 million contract with Teach Plus through 2017 to place its “Turnaround Teacher Teams (T3)” in high-needs schools. Two schools that started the program last year, Channing and Winthrop, did not meet their overall improvement targets for 2015, and another, Mattahunt, saw no improvement over two years. Michelle Boyers, a former top official in BPS Human Resources and the Orchard Gardens school, helped to launch the firm and chairs its board. Former state education commissioner David Driscoll is on the board.

• A $2 million contract with Achievement Network through 2016 to conduct assessments and coaching “geared toward improving student performance” in 24 schools. So far, nine met their improvement targets for all students in 2013; four in 2014 and two in 2015. Former interim superintendent and Boston Latin School headmaster Michael Contompasis was a longtime Achievement Network board member, but recused himself from voting on the BPS contract. He is also a $120,000 consultant for Mass Insight Education, which has a $450,000 contract with BPS to help more students access advanced courses.

• A $1 million contract running from 2013 to 2016 with Blueprint Schools Network to implement changes at two struggling schools, the Elihu Greenwood and English High, including “high dosage” tutoring and “building a pipeline of teachers and leaders.” Last January, $462,000 was added to the contract, which is partially funded by grants, to compensate Blueprint “math fellows,” who make $21,000. Despite the outside help, Elihu Greenwood closed last year, and English did not hit its improvement target for all students in 2013, 2014 or 2015.

• A $325,000 contract with the National Center on Time and Learning, founded by former gubernatorial candidate and venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli, to expand the school day and implement its “Effective Time Use Audit Tools.” NCTL employs former state Senate President Robert Travaglini as a $121,000 senior director.

The Herald review comes amid a pitched battle over school funding for next year, with BPS facing a projected $40 million shortfall and an expired teachers contract. Special Report: Plugged-in groups snag $40M in no-bid Boston schools contracts | Boston Herald:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Criticism for Reversals - WSJ

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Criticism for Reversals - WSJ:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Criticism for Reversals
Major policy changes unsettle state capital; governor calls criticism ‘nasty and derogatory’

ALBANY—More than five years into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tenure, some legislators, lobbyists and political players said his tendency to change positions has left them unsure where he stands on issues and uncertain of his core beliefs.

Now, as Albany enters its deal-making season with the state budget due by April 1, several high-profile proposals topping the Democratic governor’s agenda are issues that months ago he opposed or dismissed as unworkable, a change that has left some lawmakers scratching their heads.

“I don’t know what he wants,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Manhattan Democrat. “Nobody ever knows what this governor wants. He’s a chameleon.”

In an interview, Mr. Cuomo disputed the notion that he regularly shifted his positions, saying most of the changes marked different strategies toward the same goal or were the result of new political circumstances. He said critics who described him as a political shape-shifter were taking “nasty and derogatory” shots at him.

Mr. Cuomo has shifted on a range of issues, including minimum wage and family leave, but perhaps no move has stirred as much surprise as his apparent change of heart on teacher evaluations.

Declaring last year that he would pass “a complete overhaul of the entrenched education bureaucracy,” Mr. Cuomo fended off millions of dollars in spending on negative ads from teacher unions as he advanced his plan for student test scores to account for about half of teachers’ evaluations.

After about one in five students declined to participate in statewide testing last spring—part of a parent-led protest against extensive testing—the state Board of Regents, with Mr. Cuomo’s support, backed off the governor’s plan to use certain test scores more heavily in teacher evaluations.

“Common sense prevailed, and I give the governor all credit,” said Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a Queens Democrat who opposed the greater emphasis on test scores in teacher evaluations.

But asked which policy Mr. Cuomo actually preferred, Ms. Nolan said she didn’t know. “You can ask him what his real position is,” she said.

Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University, said it was “hard to say what Cuomo’s education plan is. He has shifted many times.”

In the interview, Mr. Cuomo said he supported a change of course because the large number of parents who allowed their children to skip statewide tests last year was “a totally new fact to take into consideration.”

“Let’s say you’re going to drive to Massachusetts tomorrow, then you turn on the Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Criticism for Reversals - WSJ:

How will the new education secretary shape the law replacing No Child Left Behind? | News OK

How will the new education secretary shape the law replacing No Child Left Behind? | News OK:

How will the new education secretary shape the law replacing No Child Left Behind?

Six months after Arne Duncan announced he was retiring as education secretary, President Obama formally nominated acting Secretary John King this week for a short tenure of great significance.

Less than a year in office, most department secretaries would be seen as a lame duck, but with the overwhelming passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in December, King will be in a position to implement and help shape the new law, which replaced the controversial 15-year-old No Child Left Behind program.

In theory, he takes over a department much less powerful than it was just two months ago. The NCLB had endowed the education secretary with unprecedented power, because the strict targets the law required each state to achieve were unachievable. By 2014, this had left all states "out of compliance," which would subject them to severe financial consequences that they could only escape through waivers granted by the Department of Education.

For several years, Duncan had been able to freelance education policy outside of the law, because there were no real limits on what he could require as a condition of granting these waivers.

“If we had a national school board, Arne would be a great chairman,” Sen. Lamar Alexander told Politico. “But Americans don’t want a national school board. He doesn’t seem to understand that.” Alexander is the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a former education secretary under the first President Bush.

The education law that passed in December garnered broad bipartisan support through a strange bedfellows alliance between conservatives who sought to return power from Washington to the states and teacher union advocates, who objected to the testing mandates emanating from Washington.

Rick Petrilli, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Fordham Institute, took to Twitter to refer to the new ESSA as the "Education Secretary Stay Away Act." The bipartisan replacement, as Petrilli suggested in his Tweet, sharply constrains the education secretary's power.

But in his exit interviews with the media, Duncan did not sound at all chastened,telling Politico that the bill entailed "the core of our agenda from day one."

As King takes over, skeptics likes Rick Hess, at the American Enterprise Institute, argues that "both Duncan and King have seemed to suggest a desire to ignore parts of the statute and to imply that the rightness of their cause dwarfs picayune questions of legality."How will the new education secretary shape the law replacing No Child Left Behind? | News OK:

Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill

Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill:
Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA

 In December, I was honored to be at the White House when President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – the reauthorization of our nation’s education law that was passed with bi-partisan support in Congress and broad support from across the country. At the bill signing, President Obama called it “a Christmas miracle.” He recognized, as have many educators, that the one-size-fits-all approach of No Child Left Behind was no longer working for all students. The time had come to update our path for ensuring every child has access to a high quality education and graduates career and college ready, regardless of race, national origin or family income.

Two months after the enactment of ESSA, a new debate is beginning about the federal role as the new law is implemented. ESSA clearly provides more authority to states and local school districts to make key education decisions, and that’s a good thing. At Teach For America, we have seen first-hand that context matters—each community has its own rich history and assets that we must embrace as we work to empower and educate our students.

We also know that a high bar of achievement must exist for all students nationwide. Whether we are talking about schools in urban or in rural areas, in the Rio Grande Valley, where I grew up, or Phoenix, where I taught, we must hold that high bar constant. From classrooms on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to those in Newark, New Jersey, we know there are certain ways in which all kids need to be prepared. That is why there must be critical federal guardrails put in place to ensure that states’ accountability goals include student proficiency, English-language proficiency and graduation rates, for example. It’s also why states must be required by the federal government to demonstrate transparent and accurate subgroup academic performance as we aspire to reach educational equity and excellence for all.  

The future of tens of millions of students and billions of public dollars hang in the balance. While Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill:

Guilty plea good reason to reform charter school process | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com

Guilty plea good reason to reform charter school process | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:

A union for charter school teachers?

There’s a whole lot of shaking going on as the long-simmering tension between school districts over charter schools seems to be coming to a boil.

The guilty plea this past week by charter school broker Steve Van Zant to a conflict-of-interest charge is a symptom of broader issues with the law that allows school districts to authorize charters in other school districts.

Some across the state want to tighten up that law, suggesting there are loopholes that are allow for abuse. Even the California School Board Association is now making such noises, clearly wanting to draw a distinction between those who establish and run charters properly from some bad actors.

More than a few folks in the traditional educational industrial complex would even like to do away with charters altogether. A nascent initiative effort in San Diego’s North County seeks to repeal the California Charter School Act adopted nearly 25 years ago.

Charters aren’t going anywhere, though that’s not to say there won’t be some changes in the system. Many are innovative and with admirable academic records — some traditional schools are borrowing their ideas to keep from losing students. Further, there’s a big push by billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad and others to vastly expand charter schools in Los Angeles.

The California Teachers Association and other unions are watching all these developments closely. Unions along with many in the education hierarchy still chafe at the autonomy of charters.

Charter schools were freed from many state education regulations and union rules to allow for flexibility and innovation in return for improved academic performance. The first happened, but the results have been mixed on the latter. Nevertheless, the growth of charters has been astounding, and threatening to districts. In Escondido, a 12 percent drop in enrollment has been partially attributed to charters; in San Diego Unified, 20 percent of students are in charters, a figure expected to rise to 30 percent in a decade.

That’s a lot of teachers and as time has worn on it’s clear that some are looking longingly at the benefits and job protections obtained by their counterparts in traditional schools through unions.

It may be tough for the big expansion Broad envisions to happen if the unions up there resist. But there’s been quiet talk among union types about finding a way for teachers in charters to organize to some degree. That would be fertile ground for the CTA and its local branches and, if it’s something the charter advocates can live with, a big expansion for them.A union for charter school teachers? 

Guilty plea good reason to reform charter school process

 Charter schools are a big deal in California, educating nearly 600,000 students this school year. But they shouldn’t be a big business.

Yet that was the goal of Steve Van Zant, who helped set up 13 independent-study charter schools in other districts from 2008 to 2013 while superintendent of the Mountain Empire Unified School District in a remote corner of East County. He did so under an arrangement in which he got 5 percent of the revenue from each school Mountain Empire authorized — a deal that gave him an incentive to keep authorizing new charters whether or not they were well-run and had competent administrators and teachers.

Last week, Van Zant pleaded guilty to one felony count of violating state conflict of interest laws. He will serve 30 days of home confinement and reimburse Mountain Empire for his charter bonuses; he also was required to resign as superintendent at the Sausalito Marin City School District, where he has worked since 2013.

This prosecution may set a deterrent that makes such illicit maneuvering less likely in the future, but that’s not good enough. We need the Legislature to tighten accountability provisions for districts that authorize charter schools. Many charter school advocates support reforms — so long as they don’t morph into another of the periodic attempts in Sacramento to undercut the charter movement. That’s a reasonable starting point for fixing what the California Charter School Association calls a “broken authorizing system.”Guilty plea good reason to reform charter school process | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:

Are Publicly Funded Charter Schools Accountable to Parents and Taxpayers? Apparently Not.

Are Publicly Funded Charter Schools Accountable to Parents and Taxpayers? Apparently Not.:

Are Publicly Funded Charter Schools Accountable to Parents and Taxpayers? Apparently Not.

 Several weeks ago, the New York Times published a surreptitiously recorded videoof a charter school teacher berating a first grade student and ripping up her work in front of the class for being unable to explain how she solved a math problem. The publicly-funded school, the Success Academy founded by Eva Moskowitz, circled the wagons and launched a public relations blitz.

According to the Times, the girl's parent tried to raise questions at a meeting organized by the school to get parent support for the teacher in the press. She was concerned that the parents were being asked to help without even being shown the video. "She's like 'You've had enough to say' and [Ms. Moskowitz] tried to talk over me," the mother told the Times. Frustrated, she gave up and walked out of the meeting.

The student's parent went to the NY Department of Education to file a complaint. She was told that Success was independent from the school district and that she needed to contact the school's board of trustees. But the board, chaired by hedge fund CEO Dan Loeb, that gets to spend taxpayer dollars aren't elected by nor accountable to New York voters. They have no obligation to neither listen to her nor take action. They are a group of hedge fund and private equity investors, lawyers, public relationships professionals, philanthropists and one full-time educator.

Here's a few of the Wall Street investors on the school's board of trustees who the girl's mother was told to petition:

• Joel Greenblatt is a Managing Partner at the hedge fund Gotham Capital and former Chairman of the Board of Alliant Techsystems, a NYSE-listed aerospace and defense company.
• Steven M. Galbraith is a former Chief Investment Officer at Morgan Stanley who now runs Herring Creek Capital, a Connecticut based Hedge Fund.
• John Petry is the founder and managing principle at the hedge fund, Sessa Capital.
• Richard S. Pzena is the founder of Pzena Investment Manager, a global investment firm.
• David Roberts has been for the last 21 years with the investment firm, Angelo, Gordon David, responsible for helping to start and grow a number of the firm's businesses including opportunistic real estate, private equity, and net lease real estate.
• John Scully is a founding partner of SPO Partners & Co., a private investment firm and a director at the Plum Creek Timber Company and chairman of Advent Software.
• Paul Pastorek, the co-executive director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation founded by billionaire Eli Broad, who is leading an effort to turn half of Los Angeles schools into charter schools. Pastorek led the post-Hurricane Katrina effort in New Orleans that converted all elementary and secondary schools into charter schools. Recent research has shown that the New Orleans school system is now a multi-tier system that works for some, but leaves many behind.

They are private citizens who get to spend taxpayer dollars to educate children. They argue that the market will determine success. Unfortunately, they get to define what success looks like -- not the public whose taxes fund the school, nor voters who are the ultimate policy makers in a democratic society. The problem is that the market doesn't need to pay attention to the whims of democracy that demands Are Publicly Funded Charter Schools Accountable to Parents and Taxpayers? Apparently Not.:

Groups want early ed block grant pulled from this year’s state budget | EdSource

Groups want early ed block grant pulled from this year’s state budget | EdSource:

Groups want early ed block grant pulled from this year's state budget

Stephanie Baltazar, left, and Yaretzi Orozco enjoy a book at a Kidango preschool in San Jose.

As the deadline for the May Revision of the state budget approaches, a group of education organizations is asking Gov. Jerry Brown to remove his proposed early education block grant from the budget process.

The organizations – including the California State PTA, the California School Boards Association, CASBO, early education advocates, school districts, preschool providers and unions – say Brown’s current budget proposal to consolidate preschool and transitional kindergarten funding into one $1.6 billion early learning block grant “is a significant policy change that warrants discussion outside the fiscal process.” The organizations made the statement in a letter they emailed to Brown on Feb. 18.

Brown sees his proposal – which would give control of the funding to school districts – as a way to simplify an unnecessarily complex system, use cost savings to free up preschool funding for more low-income children, and expand the concept of local control already implemented in the K-12 school finance system. This year, the state is spending $3.5 billion for 436,185 child care and preschool slots. The governor’s budget calls for the number of slots to increase by almost 19,000 in 2016-17, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

In response to the letter, Deborah Hoffman, deputy press secretary for the governor’s office, said in an email that “we look forward to working with the Legislature and stakeholders to enact a block grant that best serves California’s lowest-income and most at-risk children.”

The groups applaud the governor for taking on the challenge of streamlining a complex funding system, but say the proposal is fraught with contentious issues that need more time to be fully addressed. These issues include whether the funding would be vulnerable during a recession, leaving quality and income eligibility up to local districts, and the fate of state-funded preschools run by private providers.

The Department of Finance has been holding a series of meetings with early education advocates to flesh out the rather broadly stated proposal. But the organizations say the remaining public meetings with the Department of Finance – at locations across the state on Feb. 29 and two scheduled in Sacramento in March – don’t allow sufficient time to vet such a significant proposal. The proposal deserves the kind of in-depth, multiple-year Groups want early ed block grant pulled from this year’s state budget | EdSource:

Which Delaware Charter School Is Under Investigation By The State Now? How About ALL Of Them!!!!

Which Delaware Charter School Is Under Investigation By The State Auditor Now? How About ALL Of Them!!!! – Exceptional Delaware:
Which Delaware Charter School Is Under Investigation By The State Auditor Now? How About ALL Of Them!!!!

It turns out the Delaware State Auditor’s office is investigating the September 30th Enrollment Counts at certain charter schools in Delaware.  Which ones?  How about ALL OF THEM!!!  Schools were notified in November that the Auditor of Accounts would be coming for a visit.  They started going to the charters the past couple months.  How do I know this?  A few charters actually told me.  But my question would be this: why would the auditor’s office announce they were coming ahead of time?  Isn’t the point of an audit investigation that it takes you by surprise?

“September 30th Procedures.”  The above picture came from Positive Outcomes board minutes from November.  All schools in Delaware are required to submit their enrollment counts on Which Delaware Charter School Is Under Investigation By The State Auditor Now? How About ALL Of Them!!!! – Exceptional Delaware: