Jersey Jazzman: Chris Christie LOVES Segregated Charter Schools

Jersey Jazzman: Chris Christie LOVES Segregated Charter Schools:

Chris Christie LOVES Segregated Charter Schools

Chris Christie is back in Jersey doing what he does best: talking up charter schools.

Charter schools are growing rapidly in New Jersey, and one charter school is among the top in the state. Governor Chris Christie is meeting with students at the Thomas Edison Energy Smart School, a school where robots and high-tech are part of the everyday curriculum. 

[...]

Governor Christie is commending the school that ranks third out of ten in the state for high math and science test scores. 

"Every child has extraordinary God-given potential. It is our job to maximize that God-given potential. When we settle for traditional public schools, we settle for less for families. To me, that's immoral," said Governor Christie. [emphasis mine]

Oh, really? You know what I think is immoral, Governor? Setting up charter schools that don't enroll children with special education needs yet are held harmless in their funding -- all while leaving those children in underfunded public district schools.
- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/05/chris-christie-loves-segregated-charter.html#sthash.iKtu7iq6.dpuf

David Hespe: How could you write such a shameful decision? |

David Hespe: How could you write such a shameful decision? |:

David Hespe: How could you write such a shameful decision?

David Hespe–How could you do such a thing?

New Jersey Education Commissioner David Hespe, in what has to be one of the most extraordinarily cynical and disingenuous legal decisions  produced by a state bureaucrat (who also is a lawyer), has upheld the dismissal of nearly 50 pupil attendance officers in Newark, a district with arguably the worst pupil attendance rates of any school district in the state.

Hespe overturned the decision of a state administrative law judge who ruled that former state-appointed school superintendent Cami Anderson violated the law in 2013 when she laid off 46 attendance officers to close a budget gap.

Administrative Law Judge Kimberly Moss, citing the statutes requiring all districts to take action against truants, concluded  Anderson “violated (the statute) by abolishing the position of attendance counselor that is statutorily mandated.”

Anderson, Moss wrote, took the action as part of a plan to close a budget shortfall of $57 million–a shortfall caused primarily by $33 million in payments of district funds to privately-run charter schools. But, while school districts and other public agencies have broad powers to abolish jobs and lay off workers, they may not break the law to do it.

“The testimony in this matter has shown that there is no one in the NPS (Newark Public Schools) who is looking for truant students since the attendance officers were laid off,” Moss wrote in a ruling on a case brought by the Newark Teachers Union (NTU).

Moss described the responsibilities of attendance counselors who, under law, had extensive powers to track chronic absenteeism, search the city’s streets for truants, and even arrest them summarily and return them to school or their parents. She said the district operated four yellow school buses used solely to patrol David Hespe: How could you write such a shameful decision? |:

Alexander Russo: LA Times Charter School Costs Story Raises Coverage Concerns | The Grade | The Washington Monthly

LA Times Charter School Costs Story Raises Coverage Concerns | The Grade | The Washington Monthly:
LA Times Charter School Costs Story Raises Coverage Concerns

LA Times charter school costs story from last week

I was surprised last week to see that the LA Times ran a story about a new UTLA-commission charter school costs report without getting it thoroughly vetted by others, but apparently that practice isn’t as uncommon as I thought. 

“I don’t think it’s that unusual,” said interim education editor Bob Sipchen in a Friday phone call in which he described the circumstances that allowed him to go forward with the piece. “I don’t know of any journalist who turns down information.”

“You get your information wherever you can,” said Sipchen, as long as you’re “completely fair about how you present it.”

Hmm. Ok. Let’s leave that for a minute.

Common or not, is there something wrong with a newspaper running a story under these kinds of limitations, or did the LA Times rush to get something published in a way that might mislead readers? What were the realistic alternatives?

[Disclosure: THE GRADE has received funding from the AFT, of which UTLA is a member, and Education Post, which receives funding from the Broad, Walton, and other foundations.] 

The LA Times story is notable not only because it raises questions about how advocates supply journalists with news that gets shown to the public, but also because LAUSD’s 221 charters and 100,000 students make it the biggest charter district in the country.

Similar debates — and coverage decisions — are being made by journalists all over the country. 

The LA Times is also one of the handful of newsrooms that has taken outside funding to bolster its education coverage — a move that has been controversial among journalists and education funders. Is the LA Times producing high-quality education coverage? Are the outside funders seeing the improvements in size and quality of coverage that they hoped to see? 

By all accounts, the LA teachers union offered the LA Times an advance look at a report purporting to show that LA-area charter schools costs the district tons of cash. But the condition was that the paper couldn’t show the report to other folks — the district, the charter school people, outside experts. 

The LA Times’ Howard Blume wrote the report up, indicating that charters were “bleeding money”from the district (and also that the report came from the union). Charter schools’ growth resulted in “a decline of more than $500 million a year — about 7% — in the district’s core budget,” reported the LA Times “a net loss of about $4,957 per student, the study says.”

The story also indicated that the report was provided to the paper with the “the stipulation that the report not be distributed to outside parties.”

According to Sipchen, reporter Howard Blume actually won permission to talk about the report to others “any way we wanted to,” short of passing it over.  “We were able to discuss [the report] as specifically as we wanted to. We just weren’t allowed to show it.”

However, the quotes from researchers like Erik Hanushek and California Charter Schools Association are vague. They don’t sound like the reactions of people who know the main numbers from the report. 

And, according to CCSA’s Jed Wallace, Blume didn’t give them all that much information to work off of. “He asked us to comment on the ‘fact’ that charters cost the district money.”

There are situations where Sipchen would not have gone ahead, such as attempts to not allow the other side have “a shot at what was being claimed.

  

To be sure, the initial LA Times story goes into great detail about who wrote the story, how much it cost, and even into the weeds of the policy recommendations that accompanied the report. In these regards, the piece seems extremely conscientious. 

But still,  it doesn’t seem like readers got the whole story.

What else could the LA Times have done to have come up with an even better result? Four variations come to mind:

The paper could have declined to take the story without being able to show it to outside experts, under embargo, and let UTLA accept the condition or try and find another outlet to run the story in a way that’s favorable to them. The paper sells itself short when it gives in to conditions set by stakeholders — especially when there aren’t many other large-circulation outlets that UTLA could have gone to.

It could have traded the short-term advantage of being first to report the findings for a more informed, nuanced story that put the methods, findings, and larger debate in context. Even if its details and conclusions had been different, an LA Times version of the story written by LA School Report could have been deeply useful. See here.

  

Even if it had accepted the UTLA’s conditions, it could have more thoroughly vetted the report conclusions and methods with an outside expert, for starters - to get at the underling premise of the report and its data. There’s no shortage of economists and financial experts who could look at some of the data and confirm or debunk its methods, but no such insights are given in the piece. 

  

Last but not least, it could have produced a more analytic second-day story than the one it ran,

 LA Times Charter School Costs Story Raises Coverage Concerns | The Grade | The Washington Monthly:

Do you really believe all children can learn? Then stop disciplining black students out of the system - The Hechinger Report

Do you really believe all children can learn? Then stop disciplining black students out of the system - The Hechinger Report:
Do you really believe all children can learn? Then stop disciplining black students out of the system
Ending education’s original sin

If  we viewed students as learners and not uneducable criminals, then we wouldn’t kick them out of schools.

We certainly wouldn’t shuttle children through an adult justice system.

Education’s original sin of not believing children are actually children erodes even the most strident of educators’ belief that all children can learn and should be educated in school (and not disciplined out of it).

Believing in children as learners is why schools should applaud Louisiana  Senate bill 324.

Under the Senate bill, youth arrested for nonviolent crimes would be tried and imprisoned under the juvenile justice system. Sponsored by Sen. J.P. Morrell (D-New Orleans), the bill would raise the legal age in the definition of a delinquent from 17 to 18. This bill should shortly reach Gov. John Bel Edwards for signage.

The complicity between education and criminal justice systems should be apparent. From a negative view of youth, schools not only adopted no tolerance policies of the criminal justice system, they often fueled it through suspension and expulsion.

Arrests are often made on the school grounds. Police and Security Resource Officers are becoming hired muscle for teachers. In addition, we issue suspensions as if it helps students graduate. Actually, multiple suspensions increase the likelihood of dropping out of school by 10th grade threefold. This is the same rate dropping out of school increases one’s chances of being incarcerated.

At the core of both these horrible sets of policies is the lack of belief in children as learners. Locking up or putting out problems is the antithesis of teaching. Regressive criminal justice policies and harsh school discipline policies are evil cousins that rob black and brown students’ humanity.

Related: Mississippi leads south in black student suspensions

According to Louisiana Department of Education, during the 2013-2014 school year, 13,535 of 61,201 total out of school suspensions were due to willful disobedience. Eight thousand willful disobedience suspensions were dispensed to the very young: grades Pre-K to 5. A higher percentage of those suspensions were handed out to black children who make up 44 percent of Louisiana students but 67 percent of out of school suspensions and 68 percent of expulsions.

Willful disobedience is code enforcement for those who believe black kids don’t deserve Do you really believe all children can learn? Then stop disciplining black students out of the system - The Hechinger Report:

Join the conversation later on Andre Perry’s radio show, “Free College,” hosted Tuesdays on WBOK1230 in New Orleans at 3pm Central/4pm Eastern 504.260.9265.

Lawmakers deciding the future of Detroit schools accepted thousands from pro-charter DeVos family | Blogs | Detroit Metro Times

Lawmakers deciding the future of Detroit schools accepted thousands from pro-charter DeVos family | Blogs | Detroit Metro Times:

Lawmakers deciding the future of Detroit schools accepted thousands from pro-charter DeVos family

At the same time Detroit Public Schools teachers were rallying in front of the Fisher Building on May 3 for pay promised to them and a forensic audit of their district, lawmakers in Lansing were gathering to discuss the district's future. 

While the 10 a.m. House Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday has been highlighted as the forum where 18 GOP representatives voted "no"on a motion for a forensic audit of the district, the meeting is in fact far more significant than a single vote. The meeting, attended by lawmakers and parties interested in the legislation, showcases just who the bigger House legislation was created for. And more specifically, how money and politics work together. 

The largest players in Michigan's for-profit charter schools industry were at the Capitol to give their blessing to the "Putting Students First" legislation, according to meeting minutes from that day. They were Bill Wortz,representing National Heritage Academies — Michigan's largest charter school operator, owned by billionaire J.C. Huizenga; Beth DeShone, representing the Great Lakes Education Project — a Michigan-based charter advocacy group, funded largely by the right-to-work, union-adverse DeVos family; Alicia Urbain, representing the Michigan Association of Public School Academies — a coalition for charter school leaders; and Jared Burkhart, representing the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers — an alliance for charter school sponsors, who receive public funds for sanctioning charters. 

For those not following education politics in Michigan over the last few years, the list of supporters for the legislation could go unnoticed. But all of these advocates represent the interest of charter schools, the competitors to the flailing public school district the House legislation is supposed to benefit. 

Digging into the legislation, we can see why charter advocates may support the Putting Students First proposal for Detroit Public Schools. While it creates many limitations for the traditional public school district — penalties for striking teachers, 401k plans instead of pensions, and a push for uncertified teachers — the legislation does very little when it comes to regulating the proliferation of charter schools in the city. 

"The House plan is clearly designed to cripple DPS, not to save it but to put it in a worse position than now," says Fix The Mitten's Nick Krieger, a constitutional law attorney, who has been focusing on the current legislative plans for Detroit.

Krieger points out that under the House and Senate plans local property tax dollars, typically earmarked for students (per-pupil funding), are getting Lawmakers deciding the future of Detroit schools accepted thousands from pro-charter DeVos family | Blogs | Detroit Metro Times:

 

CNS - Would-Be Mayors of Sacramento Battle Over Campaign Funds

CNS - Would-Be Mayors of Sacramento Battle Over Campaign Funds:

Would-Be Mayors of Sacramento Battle Over Campaign Funds

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Former California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg dodged state fundraising laws and illegally transferred $220,000 from his defunct lieutenant governor campaign to his current bid for Sacramento mayor, a rival candidate claims.

     Sacramento Councilwoman Angelique Ashby sued Steinberg's mayoral campaign on Friday in state court, accusing him of bloating his campaign's coffers with outside money that was initially donated to his cancelled campaign for California lieutenant governor.

     The five-year Sacramento councilwoman says Steinberg should be forced to return over 100 statewide contributions that he transferred to his Sacramento campaign war chest because it gave him a decided fundraising advantage over other mayoral candidates who were held to strict fundraising rules.

     "Instead of refunding the general election campaign funds he raised for the lieutenant governor 2018 race, Steinberg improperly funneled the funds to the Steinberg Mayoral Committee in violations of state law," the complaint states.

     Steinberg served a combined 14 years in both California statehouses, including a six-year stint as Senate President pro tempore that ended in 2014. The former administrative law judge and Democrat ended his short break from politics by announcing his bid for Sacramento Mayor last fall.

     The accomplished politician is considered the heavy favorite to replace current Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and has received endorsements from many of his former colleagues, including Gov. Jerry Brown and California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom.

     Ashby's lawsuit comes less than a month before the mayoral election and her campaign has blasted Steinberg for transferring "outside money" into the Sacramento race. She had previously challenged Steinberg's $1.4 million in campaign transfers, but they were deemed legal by the Sacramento city attorney.

     While her initial claims were rejected by the city, Ashby's latest challenge centers on just 15 percent of the funds transferred to Steinberg's mayoral campaign. She claims Steinberg's campaign violated the California Political Reform Act by closing down his statewide lieutenant governor campaign in April and transferring specific funds meant CNS - Would-Be Mayors of Sacramento Battle Over Campaign Funds:

CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching To the Test Is Not Okay

CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching To the Test Is Not Okay:

Teaching To the Test Is Not Okay

Last week US News, a reliably reformy news outlet, gave some space to Michael Hansen of Brookings Institution, a reliable outlet for bone-headed education analysis, and he used that space to declare that Teaching To the Test Is Okay, thereby preserving Brookings' record of  getting almost everything about education dead wrong. But stick around, because this article has one of the best closing lines ever.

Hansen starts out by stating the problem in terms that set the stage for the answer Hanson likes. Since No Child Left Behind kicked off the "springtime ritual" (well, that sounds pleasant, like a Maypole or Senior Prom) Hanson notes that "many have wrung their hands" (rhetoric only slightly less dismissive than "clutched their pearls") about testing crowding out other instruction. And he formulates the questions by aiming straight at teachers. How do teachers respond to these conflicting goals? "Are they teaching to the test to the detriment of authentic instruction? And how do their choices affect our kids?"

Got it? If testing is crowding out authentic instruction, that's because of teacher choices. It's on us, colleagues, and not on policies that link the futures of our schools schools, our students, and our careers to the test results.

Hansen calls these "important questions" and ties them to the rise of the opt-out movement. Then this

And perhaps to counter the narrative that teachers may be at fault and to protest the encroachment of test-driven evaluation on teachers' autonomy,teacher unions have also joined in condemningpolicy's overemphasis on standardized tests. 

Got it? We teachers oppose the Big Standardized Tests because we're hiding our own blame for the narrowing of education and to keep our crowns of mighty power in our classrooms. Couldn't possibly be because as  education professionals, we can see and understand that the tests are bad policy and bad tests, bringing no educational benefits and in many cases plenty of damage to our students. No-- there's no chance that teacher and teacher union objections to the tests are grounded in legitimate CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching To the Test Is Not Okay:

Low-Graduation-Rate Schools Concentrated in Charter, Virtual School Sectors

Low-Graduation-Rate Schools Concentrated in Charter, Virtual School Sectors:

Low-Graduation-Rate Schools Concentrated in Charter, Virtual School Sectors

The U.S. high school graduation rate reached  a record high of 82.3 percent in 2014, according to the latest Building a Grad Nation report. Improvements were seen in all  subgroups and the number of low-graduation-rate schools decreased overall. The report points out, however, that much works needs to be done to reach the national goal of a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020.

In order to meet this milestone, a 1.2 percent increase in graduation rates would be needed each year. This year, graduation rates only increased by .9 percent.

The GradNation campaign is led by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University, America’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education. For seven years, the four organizations have released updates on the progress and the challenges in increasing graduation rates across the nation.

For the first time, the GradNation report analyzes data using new criteria established by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed by Congress in December to replace No Child Left Behind, to identify low-graduation-rate high school schools. Despite an overall decline nationally, these schools “pose a significant roadblock” in the effort to reach that landmark 90 percent graduation rate.

“As the number of low-grad-rate schools grows in some states, it is necessary to take a closer look at when and where these schools are part of the solution or a wrong turn on the path to 90 percent  graduation rates for all students,” says Jennifer DePaoli, senior education advisor at Civic Enterprises and the report’s lead author.

ESSA defines a low-graduation-rate school as one that enrolls 100 or more students and has a graduation rate of 67 percent or below.  Under this definition, charter, virtual and alternative high schools make up 52 percent of all low-graduation-rate high schools in the nation, compared to 41 percent  for regular public schools.

Charter schools currently account for about eight percent of all high schools. Of these, 30 percent  are classified as low-graduation-rate schools. Charters in general have a national average graduation rate of 70 percent , below the 85 percent  level for regular high schools. Seven percent of these schools are classified as low-graduation-rate schools.

Alternative schools, which are established to meet the needs of “at risk” students, make up 6 percent of all high schools and share a similar graduation rate with charter schools—52 percent . Fifty-seven percent of alternative high schools are low-graduation-rate schools.

Virtual schools, which offer full-time instruction online and represent a slim 1 percent of all high schools, have the highest percentage of low-graduation schools – 87 percent . The average graduation rate for virtual schools is 40 percent .

The GradNation report states that “in light of the finding that alternative, charter, and virtual schools make up only about 10 percent of high schools, yet make up more than 50 Low-Graduation-Rate Schools Concentrated in Charter, Virtual School Sectors:

NYC Public School Parents: Should excerpts from the high-stakes PARCC exams be allowed under the "Fair Use" doctrine?

NYC Public School Parents: Should excerpts from the high-stakes PARCC exams be allowed under the "Fair Use" doctrine?:

Should excerpts from the high-stakes PARCC exams be allowed under the "Fair Use" doctrine?

See the post I reblogged with excerpts from the PARCC exam here.  Thanks to SO MANY of you who have reblogged it as a collective act of defiance after PARCC demanded that the excerpts from the 4th grade exam be deleted from the original post on Celia Oyler's blog, claiming that these excerpts violated their copyright.

Since then, others have pointed out that publicizing items from an exam is critical for demonstrating how unfair and inappropriate these exams really are.  See this column by Anthony Cody, for example, who writes:

In 2012, the patent absurdity of Pearson’s talking pineapple made that story irresistible to mainstream media, and Haimson’s report made its way into the New York Daily News and other major newspapers. Pearson initially defended the pineapple question, However the pressure became too great, and New York removed the question from the test. The underlying issues this time are similar. Fourth grade students are being given questions that cannot be justified educationally. The test cannot be seen as a legitimate means of measuring their learning. Just as we needed to read the question about the talking pineapple to understand how lousy it was, we must be able to discuss and criticize the content of the PARCC test. These are not sacred texts. They ARE, however, being used to make Godlike judgments about children and teachers, with potentially life-altering or career-ending consequences.

I have heard from others that these excerpts should be allowed under the "Fair Use" exception.  Here is a discussion of the "Fair Use" doctrine, on the Stanford University website dealing with Copyright and Fair Use:

What Is Fair Use?

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.

So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.

Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.

Commentary and Criticism

If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:

• quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
• summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
• copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
• copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.

The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public reaps benefits from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material. Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples of fair use cases.

- See more at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/#sthash.miyRCr5D.dpuf 

Clearly, the brief excerpts used from the 4th grade PARCC exam were used in the context of a larger critique and should be allowed under the Fair Use exception.  What do others think? Comments welcome, especially from attorneys! NYC Public School Parents: Should excerpts from the high-stakes PARCC exams be allowed under the "Fair Use" doctrine?:

Maintaining the status quo of two Connecticuts (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?

Maintaining the status quo of two Connecticuts (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Maintaining the status quo of two Connecticuts (By Wendy Lecker)

Wendy Lecker, leading public education advocate, education funding expert and fellow education columnist, returns to the issue of Governor Dannel Malloy and his administration’s utter failure to address the historic underfunding of Connecticut’s public schools or provide our students, parents, teachers and public schools with the resources and support they need to ensure a quality education for every Connecticut child.

At a time when a comprehensive, quality education is more important than ever, it is a stunning and terrible commentary that a governor, commissioner of education and legislature would intentionally refuse to fulfill one of their most fundamental and important responsibilities.  It is truly a sign of the times.

In her latest column, that first appeared in the Stamford Advocate this past weekend, Wendy Lecker writes;

Maintaining the status quo of two Connecticuts

The defense is in full swing at Connecticut’s school funding trial, CCJEF v. Rell. The state is attempting to make the case that Connecticut’s poorest schools do not need any more state funding.

As if to hammer home their point, the newly minted deal from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Democratic legislators slashes nearly $100 million from state education aid. More than $30 million will be cut from the state’s funding formula, ECS, along with tens of millions cut for school transportation, millions cut from special education; and cuts to additional state aid to Connecticut’s poorest districts, such as millions cut from priority school grants and turnaround funds.

These state aid reductions will have the most devastating effect in our poorest school districts. As detailed in an earlier column, Hartford is already forced to cut teachers, guidance counselors, intervention specialists and other key staff and programs. Further cuts to state aid will force more deprivation for these already starving schools.

How is the state dealing with this reality in court? The testimony of Education Commissioner Wentzell provides a clue. Wentzell, who spent most of her career in wealthy school districts or selective choice programs, repeatedly asserted on the stand that “leadership is much more important than money.” She even went so far as to claim that “(l)eadership without money works very well.” When asked whether resources might have something to do with student achievement, she pointedly evaded the question, even when the judge asked her directly.

Wentzell clung to her notion that all schools need is “leadership” even while 

Maintaining the status quo of two Connecticuts (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Phantom Students—One Part of a Much Bigger Problem of Unregulated Charter Schools | janresseger

Phantom Students—One Part of a Much Bigger Problem of Unregulated Charter Schools | janresseger:
Phantom Students—One Part of a Much Bigger Problem of Unregulated Charter Schools

Ohio’s Senate Bill 298, Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni’s proposed law to ensure that the state is paying online charter schools for real students, not merely phantom students, will have a fourth hearing this week. Ohio pays on-line charter schools nearly $7,000 per pupil. According to Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, e-schools are draining approximately $250 million in public dollars to the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), the Ohio Virtual Academy—a K12 Inc. affiliate, and other e-schools.

Earlier this spring ECOT, Ohio’s largest online charter school, proposed that the legislature allow the state to reimburse the online academies when students sign up instead of paying the schools only for the students who participate actively on a daily basis.  Senator Schiavoni’s proposed law to prevent such a practice is pretty basic—require e-schools to keep accurate records of the number of hours students spend doing coursework—require the online school to notify the Ohio Department of Education if a student fails to log-in for ten consecutive days—require that a qualified teacher check in with each student once a month to monitor active participation.  The bill has been shunted to the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, however, by Republican leaders because the chair of the education committee has seemed overly sympathetic to its provisions. It is known that sponsors of the virtual academies are also key political contributors to Ohio Republicans, and it is feared that the bill will never make it out of committee.  (This blog covered ECOT’s effort to soften attendance regulations for the virtual academies and Senator Schiavoni’s bill to increase oversight here and here.)

Even though some of the charter management companies have affiliates across many states, charters are established and regulated in state law. A very serious problem across the states is the lack of uniform charter school regulations.  Jessica Calefati of the Bay Area News Grouppublished a scathing report in mid-April of some of the California affiliates of K12 Inc., the same national company that runs the Ohio Virtual Academy: “The TV ads pitch a new kind of school where the power of the Internet allows gifted and struggling students alike to ‘work at the level that’s just right for them’ and thrive with one-on-one attention from teachers connecting through cyberspace… but the Silicon Valley-influenced endeavor behind the lofty claims is leading a dubious revolution.  The growing network of online academies, operated by a Virginia company traded on Wall Street called K12 Inc., is failing key tests used to measure educational success. Fewer than half of the students who enroll in the online high schools earn diplomas, and almost none of them are qualified to attend the state’s public universities.”  The Bay Area News Group blames the problem on “a systemic breakdown in oversight by local school districts and state bureaucrats.”

Calefati’s investigation tracks the research from Mathematica Policy Research, Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, and the National Education Policy Center demonstrating that students at the online schools nationwide are far behind their peers in brick and mortar schools in reading and math. Why? The Bay Area News Groupreport attributes low achievement in many cases to the fact that despite that the state is paying the online schools for students who are registered, too few actually attend school and participate: “A handbook distributed to teachers at the start of the school year says attendance credit may be given even if ‘very few lessons are completed daily,’ so long as the student is ‘actively engaged in completing assigned schoolwork.'” Teachers continue to complain about a state rule that students are attending school if they log in for one minute each day.  Mike Kraft, a spokesperson for K12, denies that students remain formally enrolled if they are merely Phantom Students—One Part of a Much Bigger Problem of Unregulated Charter Schools | janresseger:

Hundreds rally in Trenton against school aid cuts and charter schools |

Hundreds rally in Trenton against school aid cuts and charter schools |:

Hundreds rally in Trenton against school aid cuts and charter schools

Jitu Brown–Sabotaging public schools to help charters is “evil.”

More than 500 teachers, parents, public officials, and community activists rallied in front of the Statehouse in Trenton Sunday–and listened to blistering attacks on the failure of New Jersey’s leaders to fund public education and  prevent the draining of public funds from traditional schools by privately-operated charter schools.

The denunciations of the Christie administration and legislators of both parties who support his school policies often became heated–and the angriest attacks drew the loudest cheers.

“We know how to create successful schools,” said Jitu Brown, a Chicago community organizer who has spoken frequently in New Jersey. “They just don’t want to do it for black and brown children.”

Denouncing the “illusion of school choice,” he accused Christie and other supporters of charter schools of “deliberately sabotaging” public schools so they would fail and then replacing them with privatized charter schools.

“The return on our investment has been the sabotaging of the education of our children,” said Brown, who led a hunger strike in Chicago in support of traditional neighborhood schools. “What could be more evil than that?”

He said such policies proved that, “White people in America…have never been able to reconcile their hatred of black people.”

Keith Howell and parents from Camden–the public schools are “set up” to fail. (Bob Braun photo)

A delegation of speakers from the Camden schools–where Christie and Democratic political boss George Norcross have promoted extensive use of charter schools to replace traditional public schools–also denounced charters. So did the leadership of a police union in Trenton.

The rally, initially organized by leaders of the Trenton Education Association (TEA), demonstrated widespread community opposition to the spread of charter schools and other reforms, including use of Teach for America (TFA) graduates who have replaced veteran teachers in many urban districts, including Camden.

Keith Howell, a social science teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, said the state-controlled district was using a new teacher tenure law to drive out Hundreds rally in Trenton against school aid cuts and charter schools |:

Detroit Schools plagued by mismanagement, student losses

Detroit Schools plagued by mismanagement, student losses:

Detroit Schools plagued by mismanagement, student losses

Members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers march down Grand Blvd., during a rally in front of the Detroit Public Schools offices in Detroit, Monday, May 2, 2016. The district's state-appointed transition manager Steven Rhodes says 45,628 of approximately 46,000 students were forced to miss classes Monday as 1,562 teachers called in sick. Detroit's schools are expected to be out of cash starting July 1. (Daniel Mears/The Detroit News via AP)

DETROIT (AP) — Michigan lawmakers trying to glue together a plan to fix Detroit Public Schools using taxpayer money are staring down more than a decade of failure with what was once among the largest public education systems in the nation.

It's a story that stretches back to the 1990s, when poor academics, abhorrent graduation rates and low test scores opened the door for the state to wrest control from an elected school board. The district was set free in 2005, but budget missteps, corruption, financial mismanagement and enrollment losses ushered in the current state oversight — yet debt and deficits continue to rise.

"It hasn't worked. It clearly hasn't worked," Juan Jose Martinez, a Detroit school board member in the late 1990s, said of state oversight. "It's a shame things are in the condition they are in. ... I'm a man of faith and I have to keep praying that it's going to get back on solid footing."

The latest of five state-appointed financial managers has said the district can't continue unless legislators pitch in to pay off the debt and include funding to allow resources to be directed back to classrooms.

With encouragement from Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, the state Senate has approved a plan to pay off the district's estimated $467 million debt and provide $200 million in transition funds for a new, separate district that would educate students and have its finances overseen by a commission of state appointees. The plan effectively commits Michigan to a decade of new spending until the old DPS debt is retired. The House version would pay off the debt and provide $33 million for transition costs.

"We recognize that the future of Detroit's schoolchildren is on the line," said Republican Rep. Al Pscholka, House budget committee chairman. "There's never been an indication ... that we would not help the children of Detroit. It doesn't matter to me today who's to blame. Assigning blame doesn't solve it."

In the late 1990s, then-Gov. John Engler, a Republican, wanted to intervene in districts where more than 80 percent of students failed the state proficiency test or the dropout rate was higher than 25 percent. The state said the graduation rate of the 180,000-student Detroit district was about 30 percent; district officials said it was closer to 52 percent. Its school board eventually was replaced by a reform board.

Detroit was "not performing to levels they needed to do justice to kids in those schools ... parents felt completely abandoned by the system," said Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, who was then a state senator. "It was an absurd outcome that no elected member of government who represents human beings would ever ignore."

But parents began sending their children to public charter schools or suburban schools — something that contributed to current financial problems.

"We lost 11,000 students almost immediately as a direct result of the takeover," said LaMar Lemmons, a current school board member and Democratic state representative in 1999 who opposed state control. "Many middle-class parents weren't going to be in a district that was so bad that the state had to come in."

By 2003, enrollment was down to 150,000 students. Five years later, it dipped to 91,000. There are now 46,000 students, and millions of dollars in state per-pupil funding has been lost.

The state returned control to an elected board in 2005, even though Detroit students still ranked among Michigan's worst on standardized tests, the district was $48 million in debt and had a $150 million budget shortfall.

"There was never anything pointing to this financial crisis" before the takeover, said Martinez, who with other school board members were forced from office in 1999. "When we left office, I remember them saying we had a $90 million surplus."

By 2007, the FBI had opened a corruption probe. Later, it came to light that some vendors billed the district for unperformed work and services. One long-time vendor, Norman Shy, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to receiving $2.7 million as part of a kickback scheme in which some principals and an administrator issued bogus orders for supplies.

District officials, including the school board, also had problems keeping track of how much money was coming in and what was owed. The state determined in 2009 that finances were so poor that a state-appointed emergency manager was needed to bring things in line.

Academics are improving as some test scores have inched up and 4-year graduation rates moved over the past decade from 58 percent to 77 percent. Fiscally, things couldn't be worse: The state hired retired bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes in February to complete the job that four other emergency managers couldn't. If the Legislature's plan is approved, a locally elected board could regain control by next year, though a financial review commission still would oversee finances.

But state control over Detroit's schools has failed, said Craig Thiel, of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonprofit policy research group.

"The model is focused almost exclusively on the finances and has very little to do with the academics," he said. "If you don't give time for academic reforms to work, the revenue comes down too quickly."

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Associated Press writer David Eggert in Lansing contributed to this story.Detroit Schools plagued by mismanagement, student losses: