Garfield teacher pepper-sprayed by Seattle police to receive $100,000 settlement | The Seattle Times

Garfield teacher pepper-sprayed by Seattle police to receive $100,000 settlement | The Seattle Times:

Garfield teacher pepper-sprayed by Seattle police to receive $100,000 settlement

 Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at Seattle’s Garfield High School, was walking on a sidewalk and talking to his mother on his cellphone when an officer pepper-sprayed him on Jan. 19, 2015, after he participated in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event.

The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a federal lawsuit brought by a Seattle high-school teacher who was pepper-sprayed by a police officer after giving a speech at the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally and march last year.

Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High School, said in his complaint that he was walking on a sidewalk and talking to his mother on his cellphone when a female officer pepper-sprayed him on Jan. 19, 2015.

The incident was recorded on video, which showed the officer waving a canister and screaming at passers-by to back up before spraying some of them.

The civil-rights complaint, which sought damages to be determined at trial, said Hagopian suffered difficulty breathing, anxiety and stress after being pepper-sprayed, and that he missed some of his 2-year-old son’s birthday party as he treated his injuries.

Earlier, Hagopian had filed a $500,000 claim against the city.

The case was dismissed in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday, after the settlement was reached last month with no admission of liability on the city’s part nor additional payment to Hagopian’s attorneys.

The Seattle Police Department’s handling of the incident sparked controversy when Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant and then-Councilmember Nick Licatajoined with Hagopian at a news conference in October to question why the officer who sprayed him had received a verbal reprimand rather than a stiffer penalty.

Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole issued the reprimand after the department’s Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) recommended a one-day suspension.

When the incident occurred, Hagopian was “escorting an unpermitted protest following a permitted march,” according to the OPA. An overhead view of the encounter also was caught on video.

The OPA determined the use of spray was not reasonable, necessary or proportional and it determined Hagopian posed no threat.

Hagopian’s attorney, James Bible, said Tuesday that he and his client are “at Garfield teacher pepper-sprayed by Seattle police to receive $100,000 settlement | The Seattle Times:

More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing: Jesse Hagopian, Diane Ravitch, Alfie Kohn: 9781608463923: Amazon.com: Books - https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Score-Uprising-High-Stakes/dp/1608463923?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

More on How Charter Schools Profit from Tax Dollars and Undermine Host School Districts | janresseger

More on How Charter Schools Profit from Tax Dollars and Undermine Host School Districts | janresseger:
More on How Charter Schools Profit from Tax Dollars and Undermine Host School Districts

Recent weeks have brought a lot of press about the way charter schools are undermining public school districts and diverting tax dollars allocated for education too often to for-profit companies.  Capital & Main in California just published a week-long expose explaining how rapid expansion of charters threatens the financial stability of the Los Angeles and Oakland school districts. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized against for-profit charters after that newspaper’s scathing investigation explained how, “A handful of private companies have banked more than $68 million from Utah taxpayers over the past three years.”  And in Ohio, after the legislature ended its spring 2016 session without considering an excellent law that would have required the notorious cyber charters to prove that the students the state is paying for are actually participating in the online program, the Columbus Dispatcheditorialized: “The idea was that if student outcomes improved in charter schools, then the schools would continue… But the straightforward experiment went off the rails when some clever operators figured out how to get rich by sponsoring charter schools.  And to keep the gravy flowing, they began making major political contributions to the lawmakers who control the gravy.”

This is the context in which the Center for Popular Democracy has just released its third annual report, Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: “Two years ago, the Center for Popular Democracy issued a report demonstrating that charter schools in 15 states—about one-third of the states with charter schools—had experienced over $100 million in reported fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement since 1994.  Last year, we released a new report that found millions of dollars of new alleged and confirmed financial fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in charter schools had come to light, bringing the new total to $203 million.  This report offers further evidence that the money we know has been misused is just the tip of the iceberg. With the new alleged and confirmed financial fraud reported here, the total fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in charter schools has reached over $216 million.”

The new report examines fraud and mismanagement across the states and explains that, “State oversight systems are currently reactive by design. While states do require that charter schools submit budgets, financial reports and independent financial audits, most do not proactively monitor for fraud, waste, mismanagement, or other financial abuses.”  The Center for Popular Democracy recommends that charter schools be required to institute internal More on How Charter Schools Profit from Tax Dollars and Undermine Host School Districts | janresseger:

New Civil Rights Data Shows Just How Misguided Attack on Tenure Is; Teacher Quality Problems Run Much Deeper Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

New Civil Rights Data Shows Just How Misguided Attack on Tenure Is; Teacher Quality Problems Run Much Deeper

 The Office for Civil Rights' new data collection shows vast disparities in regard to teachers.  Racial minorities were twice as likely to attend schools where one out of five teachers were brand new.  Racial minorities were also more likely to attend schools with unlicensed teachers.  Race aside, about 800,000 student attended a school where one out of five teachers lacked the required state licence.  

Teacher quality is inherently a difficult thing to measure with blunt qualification metrics, but studies have show that some blunt measures matter.  First, there is a learning curve to teaching.  While quality may flatten after about five years of teaching, teachers do tend to improve during the first five years or so.  Second, while "certified" teacher encompasses a broad range of teachers and teaching quality, uncertified is a relatively narrow group who have yet to demonstrate the basic requirements to enter a classroom.  As a result, studies do show that uncertified teachers have a negative impact on student achievement.

Interestingly, none of these teacher inequalities have anything to do with tenure.  As very rough measures, they tend to show just how wrong-headed the legal challenges to tenure are.  These numbers show that if ever teacher in the country lost tenure tomorrow and we fired everyone of them on Monday, there are not enough certified teachers to fill our nation's classrooms.  Moreover, this problem is most acute in predominantly minority schools.  Tenure may randomly operate as a burden or disincentive to removing some teachers, but it is not a significant cause of low quality teaching.  For a host of other flaws in the challenges to tenure, see here.  Education Law Prof Blog:

Big Education Ape: What Do Teaches Unions Say About Tenure - Due Process And A Little History from the CA Dept. of ED - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-do-teachers-unions-say-about.html

4 Reasons Why Charter Schools Should Not Do Special Education

4 Reasons Why Charter Schools Should Not Do Special Education:

4 Reasons Why Charter Schools Should Not Do Special Education

A common complaint about charter schools is that they don’t provide special education. This makes charter schools much different from traditional public schools which provide services to all children.

Charter schools should not get district special education funding for services they do not provide. But I don’t think charter schools should provide special education. Here’s why.

1. Charter Schools are Not Equipped to Serve Students with Serious Disabilities

Done right, good traditional public schools include a professional team who come together to consider the needs of the student with disabilities and/or gifted students.

The Individual Educational Plan (IEP) meeting includes a variety of specialists. A school psychologist, a district special education staffing specialist, school counselor, principal or school special ed. representative, a special education teacher, a general education teacher, possibly a social worker, and significant others come together and provide valuable feedback about the child.

Parental presence and involvement at this meeting is critical and is a feature that creates the best kind of public school accountability. It is why the idea of an IEP for all children is enticing.

If a student is interested and can participate in the meeting, they are invited to attend too.

Many of the professionals that attend this meeting are support staff coming from the school district, not the individual school. That’s the beauty of a school system when it 4 Reasons Why Charter Schools Should Not Do Special Education:

California and the End of Local Control | Diane Ravitch's blog

California and the End of Local Control | Diane Ravitch's blog:

California and the End of Local Control

Reader D.L. Paulson writes here about the charter industry’s sabotage of local control in education.

The overruling of local school boards is a terrible problem in California. Now that it’s hitting an upper-income community (actually, the Mt Diablo district is mixed in its demographics), middle class parents will see what poorer urban districts have had to contend with for years.

Stories abound of charter schools not only wanting the equivalent of what real public schools get, but feeling like they deserve even more. Their mode of operation is to achieve through political connections what they can’t obtain by deceptive marketing practices or bullying of local school boards.

At the bottom of this post are links to stories of a charter network called Caliber, which operates in the poor districts of Richmond and Vallejo, CA. It has another questionable educational program, especially for math, which consists of plopping kids in front of a computer for endless repetition and test prep, masquerading, of course, as “personalized learning”. All that Caliber really does is siphon badly needed funds from other schools for a relatively select group of students that it can profit from.

One particularly interesting thing about Caliber is the couple which founded it: Ron Beller and Jennifer Moses. Mr. Beller was famous for the collapse of his hedge fund and an odd story of a secretary embezzling millions of dollars. Both are part of a cabal of rich individuals that have torn apart the public education system in England, with Ms. Moses funding and pushing heavily for charter schools there. They left London a few years ago for unexplained reasons, but possibly because they smelled blood and opportunity in the charter-infested waters of Northern California.

Many people wonder, if charter schools like Caliber are non-profit, and they’re spending the same money as real community-run schools, how can anyone accuse founders of profiteering? The answer: land grabs and self-dealing. Many of the networks that run these schools, like Rocketship, buy their products (software, supplies and more) from the same companies they or their friends invest in. The properties they purchase are securitized by taxpayer dollars, allowing them to leverage an investment in the same manner as a Real-Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Since there is no public oversight over their purchasing, no bid requirements, no review of salaries or per-pupil spending, they can quite literally get away with anything.

The motives of investors like Ron Beller and Jennifer Moses are not philanthropic. That’s why they and so many other hedge-fund managers love the story of failing schools, so they can cover-up what they’re doing by pretending to serve poor minorities and other victims of some mythical failing system. No matter what jargon is used to describe their “personalized” or “no excuses” model, making poor minority students walk in straight lines, silently, and then plopping them in front of a brain-numbing computer program is not giving them the same educational opportunities as kids in, say, Lafayette, CA (right next door to Mt Diablo). It’s greed, pure and simple, as evidenced by Goldman Sachs seminars telling investors exactly how to make money through the privatization of schools. It is destroying public education in this country, and it’s going to worsen our problems of racism, community polarization, and income inequality.

We can only hope that Jerry Brown will “get it” soon. He understood similar issues with redevelopment agencies, and he ended them early in his first term. Perhaps ending the insidious invasion of charter schools will be his second term legacy.

****************

http://www.eastbaytimes.com/contra-costa-times/ci_23866222/county-school-board-overrules-rejection-caliber-charter-school

http://www.eastbaytimes.com/west-county-times/ci_26553653/richmond-district-saddled-cost-house-charter-school

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/general-news/20160511/richmond-proposed-sale-of-school-site-for-charter-campus-draws-fire/3

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/general-news/20160509/new-vallejo-charter-school-seeks-more-student-bathrooms

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/social-affairs/20160218/charter-school-in-vallejo-seeks-better-offer

 California and the End of Local Control | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Big Education Ape: California: The Charter Game is Rigged | Diane Ravitch's blog - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/05/california-charter-game-is-rigged-diane.html

Is Funding Transparency Enough to Prevent Billionaire Influence in Education Journalism? - Living in Dialogue

Is Funding Transparency Enough to Prevent Billionaire Influence in Education Journalism? - Living in Dialogue:

Is Funding Transparency Enough to Prevent Billionaire Influence in Education Journalism?

By Anthony Cody.

Here is where we stand with the revived controversy over the Los Angeles Times’ 2010 “investigation” into teacher effectiveness.

In 2009, Teachers College, which sponsors The Hechinger Report, received a grant from the Gates Foundation in the amount of $652,493 in order “to support the development of high quality education coverage in the nation’s leading newspapers and magazines.”

In 2010, The Hechinger Report paid a researcher by the name of Richard Buddin $15,000 to develop the VAM system that was used to rank thousands of teachers in Los Angeles according to their ability to raise test scores. It is not clear if this money was from the Gates Foundation grant, but it well could be.

Los Angeles Times reporters Jason Felch and Jason Song published a series of articles extensively quoting “experts” from the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching project as they justified the use of Value Added systems for purposes of determining teacher effectiveness.

The Education Writers Association, which also receives significant funding from the Gates Foundation,awarded Felch and Song a second prize in the Investigative Reporting category for the series.

In response to my latest writing on this subject, Greg Toppo, Vice President of the Education Writers Association, tweeted: “No. Journos, LAT included, go where evidence sends them, sometimes badly but always independently.

In the conversation that ensued, Caroline Grannan responded: “Always independently? With Broad now funding LAT education coverage?” and “*Appearance of conflict of interest* violates ethics, both LAT and EWA.”

To this, Toppo replied: “Lots of journalism outfits take foundation $. None of them independent?”

To which I replied: “Lots of politicians take lobbyist $. None of them independent?”

Toppo replied: “We’re getting off topic. If news orgs r transparent about $, they can totally be independent. Am I outlier on this??”

First of all, we do have an issue with transparency. While I can make a case that it is possible that Gates Is Funding Transparency Enough to Prevent Billionaire Influence in Education Journalism? - Living in Dialogue:

 

The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation's Schools | Southern Poverty Law Center

The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation's Schools | Southern Poverty Law Center:

The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation's Schools

Our report found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported.

If you would like a .pdf version of this report, please click here. If you would like to read the full comments from the survey, please click here.

Every four years, teachers in the United States use the presidential election to impart valuable lessons to students about the electoral process, democracy, government and the responsibilities of citizenship.

But, for students and teachers alike, this year’s primary season is starkly different from any in recent memory. The results of an online survey conducted by Teaching Tolerancesuggest that the campaign is having a profoundly negative effect on children and classrooms.

It’s producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported.

Other students have been emboldened by the divisive, often juvenile rhetoric in the campaign. Teachers have noted an increase in bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates on the campaign trail.

Educators are perplexed and conflicted about what to do. They report being stymied by the need to remain nonpartisan but disturbed by the anxiety in their classrooms and the lessons that children may be absorbing from this campaign.

Two responses from teachers illustrate their dilemma. A teacher in Arlington, Virginia, says, “I try to not bring it up since it is so stressful for my students.” Another, in Indianapolis, Indiana, says, “I am at a point where I’m going to take a stand even if it costs me my position.”

Our survey of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers was not scientific. Our email subscribers and those who visit our website are not a random sample of teachers nationally, and those who chose to respond to our survey are likely to be those who are most concerned about the impact of the presidential campaign on their students and schools.

But the data we collected is the richest source of information that we know of about the effect of the presidential campaign on education in our country. And there is nothing counterintuitive about the results. They show a disturbing nationwide problem, one that is particularly acute in schools with high concentrations of minority children.

Here are the highlights:

• More than two-thirds of the teachers reported that students—mainly immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims—have expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election.
• More than half have seen an increase in uncivil political discourse.
• More than one-third have observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.
• More than 40 percent are hesitant to teach about the election.

The comments are particularly revealing.

The survey did not identify any candidates. But out of 5,000 total comments, more than 1,000 mentioned Donald Trump. In contrast, a total of fewer than 200 contained the names Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. During the campaign, Trump has spoken of deporting millions of Latino immigrants, building a wall between the United States and Mexico, banning Muslim immigrants and even killing the families of Islamist terrorists. He has also called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and drug dealers.

“My students are terrified of Donald Trump,” says one teacher from a middle school The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation's Schools | Southern Poverty Law Center:

Teachers Define Personalized Learning! The Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Teachers Define Personalized Learning!

 The Badass Teachers Association

As we have seen over the last few years the corporate reform industry has hijacked the term "personalized learning" from education.  Corporate Reform Industrialists will sell off their version of personalized learning as fancy computer games that are fun for kids, or learning that is tailored to your child.  What they don't share is that this is the way your child will spend their day.....



To be clear, this is certainly NOT the way that teachers, parents, and students visualize "personalized learning."  Teachers on the Facebook page The Badass Teachers Association were asked how they would define personalized learning.  Here is what they said:

Personalized learning is about students choosing the topic of study, based on their individual interest, rather than the entire class studying the exact same subject.

Personalized learning comes from the heart of the teacher to the heart of the student ...it is filled with wonderment... human to human ...relationship of connecting to a student in way that you provide them with whatever it is they need to unlock their potential.. this usually starts with with getting them to believe in themselves... no technology can do that but a highly trained teacher a human being; no technology opens a child's mind! technology can help take kids on journey to other places virtually but technology does not provide that human touch the OMG you did it! High Five! Those are the moments true educators live for..

 It means conversations. Today I pointed out a student's strengths after he didn't listen. I explained how he will mature even more next year and people will think of him as responsible when he does listen. He really listened and smiled a lot. It was a great conversation. They are children. They are not robots.

It means you have KNOWLEDGE, personal knowledge, of who that individual is......not aBadass Teachers Association:

How 2U, Pearson, and Other Companies Are Profiting Off of Online Learning at Top Colleges - The Atlantic

How 2U, Pearson, and Other Companies Are Profiting Off of Online Learning at Top Colleges - The Atlantic:

How Companies Profit Off Education at Nonprofit Schools

Online program managers earn millions by designing and marketing virtual learning options at big-time colleges.

 Selling the dream of a college education is big, profitable business. In 2014, four companies that own and run for-profit colleges collected in excess of $1 billion each. To boost their enrollments and profits, many for-profit schools pioneered modern marketing tactics such as websites that collect information to generate marketing leads, text message follow-ups to inquiries, and phone banks with ambitious “career counselors” ready to help students complete financial-aid requirements and enroll. As a 2011 Senate report found, “[for-profit college] recruiting managers at some companies created a boiler-room atmosphere, in which hitting an enrollment quota was the recruiters’ highest priority … [and] recruiters’ salaries at many for-profit colleges were tightly tied to enrolling a certain number of new students.”

“We all have the impression that commission-paid sales people will say anything to make a sale, and that has certainly been true in higher ed,” Robert Shireman, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, told me. Shireman is a former Department of Education deputy undersecretary in the Obama administration and is known for organizing the federal response to emerging signs of predatory for-profit education and career training in 2009.

Even though Shireman and the department moved to block paying salaries or bonuses based on how many students are signed up, they could do little to stop for-profit companies from making money based on how many students they enroll. More students equals more profit, and as long as there are for-profit schools, the link between getting more students and earning more money will incentivize creative and assertive marketing and recruitment. That’s part of what you get with for-profit schools; it’s expected.

But the practice of aggressive recruiting of college students isn’t limited to for-profit colleges: Students who study online at many public and private non-profit schools are being recruited in similar ways and are handing over large percentages of their tuition—hundreds of millions of dollars total a year—to companies that profit based on the number of students who enroll. The result is a very lucrative but nearly invisible education market in which students pay, companies profit, costs escalate, and the prospect of scandal lingers.

“There are companies literally taking 80 percent or more of tuition.”

In this marketplace, various reports suggest that students studying online at public and non-profit colleges give an average of about half of their tuition to for-profit companies known as online program managers (OPMs)—companies that design, run, and market the virtual programs for colleges. Because an online bachelor’s degree can easily cost $60,000, those for-profit companies, by taking 50 percent of student tuition, can make as much as $30,000 per student per awarded degree. And it’s often more. According to John Katzman, who founded How 2U, Pearson, and Other Companies Are Profiting Off of Online Learning at Top Colleges - The Atlantic:

Gates' Common-Core Mea Culpa and the School Reform Divide - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week

Gates' Common-Core Mea Culpa and the School Reform Divide - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:
Gates' Common-Core Mea Culpa and the School Reform Divide

Over the past few weeks, the world of "school reform" has been consumed by a heated back-and-forth over whether the left-leaning majority is trying to shove right-leaning types out of the tent. The debate has swirled mostly around questions of race, but those can distract from more fundamental philosophical differences. After all, progressives tend to assume that ambitious programs and policies are the engine of social progress. Conservatives tend to be more concerned about the limits of social engineering, unanticipated consequences, and the unintended damage that well-intended efforts can do. Conservatives believe meaningful social progress tends to be incremental and gradual, the product of local communities, private associations, dynamic markets, and individual initiative. This is why folks on the right get irate when progressives launch a passionate crusade, sow conflict and division, trample on communities, expand bureaucracies, and then, when things don't work out, plead unforeseeable complications.

A nice illustration has been unfolding in real time. Just days before the left-right imbroglio blew up, Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann used her annual letter to issue a much-discussed mea culpa regarding the Foundation's efforts on behalf of the Common Core. Desmond-Hellmann explained that the Common Core's rocky path had been a surprise to the Gates team and "a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to heart." Kudos to Desmond-Hellmann for her honesty.

Missing, however, was an acknowledgment that some observers were not, in fact, blindsided. Conservatives expect these problems, look for them, and anticipate them. In fact, my AEI colleague Mike McShane and I were among those who publicly and repeatedly tried to call attention to these issues early on, only to be dismissed or ignored by Team Common Core. I'll offer a few examples of what I have in mind because the easiest way to demonstrate that something was foreseeable is to show that people foresaw it (recall that the Common Core standards were introduced in 2010 and most states started implementation in 2011). Some of the stumbles and miscalculations, Desmond-Hellmann writes, have included:

A lack of engagement. Desmond-Hellmann relates that the Foundation has learned that "deep and deliberate engagement is essential to success." In 2011, I observed, "[Common Core] success in all the miles ahead will depend crucially on the breadth, depth, and stability of public support." In 2012, I noted, "The early success of the Common Core was remarkable, but proponents failed to recognize that this quick success meant few voters or legislators really understood what was involved."

Failing to support teachers. Desmond-Hellmann explains that Gates has realized that "rigorous Gates' Common-Core Mea Culpa and the School Reform Divide - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:

School suspensions drop, but black students still disciplined at higher rate - CSMonitor.com

School suspensions drop, but black students still disciplined at higher rate - CSMonitor.com:

School suspensions drop, but black students still disciplined at higher rate

Student suspensions decreased 20 percent between 2014 and 2012, but many students lack access to advanced classes, early education, federal data released Tuesday shows.

 Public schools across the country suspended nearly 20 percent fewer students in 2014 than they did in 2012, according to new federal data released Tuesday, a positive sign amid a mixed picture on how the nation’s school serve students of color.

Some 2.8 million students were suspended from public schools nationwide during the 2013-14 school year, a sign that efforts by the Obama administration to curb the use of suspensions, which activists say are linked to higher dropout rates and a greater likelihood of entering the criminal justice system, are working.

But there are also significant racial disparities, both in the use of discipline and in students’ access to experienced teachers and advanced math and science classes, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection, released every two years by the US Education Department.

Recommended: 1912 eighth grade exam: Could you make it to high school in 1912?

Black students were nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white students, and twice as likely to be expelled. The same pattern was apparent in preschools, where black children represent 19 percent of all preschoolers, but 47 percent of pre-schoolers receiving an out of school suspension.School suspensions drop, but black students still disciplined at higher rate - CSMonitor.com:

Massive charter school theft sounds warning for Georgia’s charter schools | Get Schooled

Massive charter school theft sounds warning for Georgia’s charter schools | Get Schooled:

Massive charter school theft sounds warning for Georgia’s charter schools

By Molly Bloom

How do you not notice $600,000 is missing?

That’s what parents and staff at Atlanta’s Latin Academy Charter School asked as the extent of the theft from their school — the largest theft in Georgia charter school history — was revealed.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

A $12,000 charge at a strip club. Thousands of dollars spent at Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead. ATM withdrawals of hundreds of dollars at a time.

The charges to Atlanta’s Latin Academy Charter School should have raised eyebrows. For the top state education officials and corporate executives on the school’s board, they should have set off earsplitting sirens.

Instead, the charges continued for years, siphoning more than $600,000 in taxpayer dollars that should have been spent on students.

Christopher Clemons, the school’s founder, has been charged with fraud and theft in connection with the missing money.

Academically, Latin Academy was one of the top-performing middle schools in Atlanta. But the AJC found little evidence that the school’s all-star board scrutinized the school’s finances with the same attention they devoted to tracking its academic performance.

The result is “a cautionary tale for Georgia’s growing charter school movement:”

Latin Academy, with its all-star board and experienced leader, seemed on track to thrive. But behind that facade of apparent success, the school spent millions of tax dollars with little public scrutiny and 

Massive charter school theft sounds warning for Georgia’s charter schools | Get Schooled:

 

Gates Foundation: Bob Hughes Just Started the Toughest Job in K-12 Philanthropy. What's On His Plate? - Inside Philanthropy - Inside Philanthropy

Bob Hughes Just Started the Toughest Job in K-12 Philanthropy. What's On His Plate? - Inside Philanthropy - Inside Philanthropy:

Bob Hughes Just Started the Toughest Job in K-12 Philanthropy. What's On His Plate?

Robert "Bob" Hughes recently took the helm of the K-12 funding program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — at a time when the world's largest funder looks to be in some rough waters.

Costly missteps in the foundation's education reform agenda and a growing backlash against what some see as excessive influence by wealthy philanthropists over the nation's K-12 system will mean a series of challenges for Hughes, who comes to Gates from New Visions for Public Schools, the NYC-based nonprofit where he served as president. New Visions manages dozens of NYC schools, including seven charter schools. Here are some issues and subjects that are sure to keep Hughes busy as he begins his tenure at Gates.

Course Correction

Gates strives to be a "learning organization," one that course corrects and transforms itself in response to empirical evidence. As Hughes adapts to his work at Gates, it will be important for him to fully understand the funder's well-publicized missteps in the K-12 arena, what factors caused those failures, and how he can steer the work in a better direction.

In a recent annual letter, Gates CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann acknowledged some hard lessons learned from the implementation of the Common Core Standards, admitting that the foundation underestimated the level of resources that would be required for successful implementation of the standards. She further admitted that Gates did not do enough to engage educators, families, and communities to generate buy-in for the standards. This lack of engagement allowed critics to take Bob Hughes Just Started the Toughest Job in K-12 Philanthropy. What's On His Plate? - Inside Philanthropy - Inside Philanthropy:

Democratic Party Should Separate Itself from Likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kevin Johnson

Democratic Party Should Separate Itself from Likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kevin Johnson:

These Democrats Need to Stop Behaving Like Old School Republicans

Get with the program, people.

A couple of fairly prominent Democratic politicians have been hanging out in questionable company in recent days. Nothing too serious, I don't believe, but as Political Advisor Without Portfolio Or Perceptible Influence, I feel compelled to warn them that no good can come of these associations, and that both of them should run the next time they see these people coming.

First, at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami, according to TBOTP, the president threw his full-throated support behind Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the curiously still-employed chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, and very much requited legislative love interest of the payday loan industry.

"She's had my back, I want to make sure we have her back… [DWS is] somebody who I don't know how she does it, because she's everywhere all the time, non-stop, and she's a mom and a wife and has been just incredibly supportive of my agenda."

OK, she was his pick, and he's a loyal guy, and that's admirable. But if he can point to one concrete thing she's done to build the party, he's got better eyes than I have. In a political era in which the Democratic Party is energized by populist fervor, DWS is the tool of almost every special interest in Florida. She once took a dive to protect Republican congressional incumbents from challenges by decent Democratic candidates because the Republicans were her pals.

(It's also important to note that the GOP incumbents she refused to help defeat, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the two brothers Diaz-Balart, were all involved in enabling asylum for anti-Castro Cuban terrorists, including Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, a pair of murderous bombersimplicated in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet that killed 73 people, including the entire Cuban fencing team. As we've been saying, nice company.)

But that's nothing compared to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had herself a rally over the weekend. One of the guest speakers was embattled Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and some advance guy in the HRC camp should be fired for letting this cluck within 15 miles of the candidate. Johnson will not be running for re-election. This is because his political career is buried under so much slime and corruption that you'd need a diamond-tipped drill bit just to get through the first layer. 

The Baffler has a good rundown of the various scams, grifts, and rackets that old KJ used to line his pockets and those of his various cronies. It appears that Johnson found various neoliberal "public-private partnership" schemes to be a target-rich environment.

There's another striking difference between KJ's charitable network and the nonprofit funds that other mayors control. Whereas the LA mayor's fund is run by a board of prominent citizens, many with backgrounds in philanthropy, Johnson's nonprofits are run entirely by his friends and political consultants. The flagship nonprofit of KJ Inc. is, of course, St. Hope. As mayor, Johnson has been able to leverage, from real estate and other local interests, about $3 million in donations to support the family business. The biggest donors include Sacramento's biggest sprawl developer, Angelo Tsakopoulos; arena developer Mark Friedman and his family; and Kevin Nagle, part owner of the Sacramento Kings and majority owner of the Sacramento Republic soccer team. Nagle is also on the St. Hope board of directors. All these men have been big donors to Johnson's election campaigns and to his strong-mayor ballot measure. But while they are limited by strict political campaign contribution limits, they can give unlimited amounts to Johnson's nonprofits.

And that's not even to get into the various sexual harassment (and worse) charges lodged against Johnson that, among other outlets, Deadspin has been dogging for a couple of years now thanks Democratic Party Should Separate Itself from Likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kevin Johnson: