Charter school mythology -- Part II, The myth of charter superiority

By Mike Klonsky

This is the second part of a two-part series of posts on Charter school mythology.

The transformation of charter schools from in-district experiments in the early 1990s, to competitive, highly-privatized alternative networks a decade later, has had a major impact on the way we think about public education as well as on how learning outcomes are reported. Networks of charter operators, cyber-schoolers, and  their allied web of charter school associations and authorizers, as well as conservative think tanks, have produced their own "studies" and have engaged in a media/advertising blitz aimed at demonstrating the superiority of charters over traditional public schools. Charters and their associations are allowed to use millions in public dollars to make such unsubstantiated claims while traditional public schools are not allowed to advertise.

Heavily financed pro-charter propaganda films like Waiting for Superman, are also passed off as research. Jeffrey Henig, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College argues that WFS "oversells charter schools."

"The film notes that only 1 in 5 charter schools are highly successful. But “it implies there’s some philosophy that unifies charters and we just need to replicate that,”

 A recent study by the pro-charter Progressive Policy Institute even earned an NEPC Bunkum Award for citing exponential growth organizations, such as Starbucks and Apple, as well as the rapid growth of molds, viruses and cancers, in order to advocate similar growth models for charter schools.

The political pressures put on charter schools and their operators to compete with outperform nearby schools have pushed charters operators to make astounding claims, such as 100% success rates. These pressures have also driven widespread cheating. The latest scandal involved the charter operators of  the Crescendo Charter chain in southern California. The cheating scandal caused one former Crescendo teacher to reflect:

"Here I had been going around bragging about how awesome our school is, and now I wonder: Are we cheaters?"

After some charter schools in New York showed higher test score results than their neighborhood counterparts, Mayor Bloomberg exclaimed,  “I think they demonstrate again and again and again that that model gives superior results.” 

“What we’re seeing, and what we’ve seen all along,” James Merriman, chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, told the New York Times, “is that the longer school day and longer school year that characterizes charter schools, as well as simply a focus on instruction and the sense of having a schoolwide culture that everyone buys into, results in these kinds of achievement scores.”

But a preponderance of currently available research belies the myth of charter school superiority. Regardless of the metric being used, charter schools continue to have more or less the same variance in measurable learning outcomes as the regular public schools they aim at replacing. And in cases where charters did outscore or outpace their public school competition, it appears to have less to do with them being charters as much as it did with their smaller size, selective enrollment/attrition policies (fewer students with special needs or English Language Learners), or greater political cache and access to outside funding. These same factors however, could also account for higher measurable outcomes in public sector schools, especially in wealthy suburban schools and public selective enrollment schools.

If the difference in outcomes have more to do with who schools enroll rather than any particular "model" of schooling, the whole argument for superiority becomes invalid. Rather than being a force for public school improvement, the differential in outcomes can be seen as contributing to, rather than helping to close,  the widening so-called "achievement gap" and the growing social inequity that comes from having and reproducing  a two-tier public school system.

In fact, the very notion of charter school superiority implies a two-tier system. It implies that charters are all one thing, or at least that they have more in common with each other than they do with other public sector schools. But the original concept of charters would seem to work against that notion. Charters were first imagined as individual public centers of innovation. It was their uniqueness -- not their sameness -- that made them such. It was only with the rise of the private and for-profit  charter-management networks and their competition for the public dollar that charters began being considered as a group with common interests opposed to and competing with their public school counterparts.

The emergence of heavily financed charter networks in the 1990s also drove a certain type of academic research, based entirely or mainly on test score comparisons aimed at proving charter superiority. But so far, the effort has failed. In fact a preponderance of the research, even when carried out by pro-charter research organizations and think tanks, has shown charters, taken as a whole, to be no better, and in many cases worse than the public-sector schools they were being compared with.

The most often cited of  this pile of studies was performed by Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) in 2009. The CREDO Study compared public charter schools and traditional public schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia. The Stanford researchers tried to match up real charter school students with fictional groups of statistically similar students in the same area (“virtual twins”), and compared charter school students’ test score gains) to those of their “twins.”

The study found, among other things, that only 17% of the charters or one in six of the charters studied, had students who did better on the whole than their public school twins, and that 37% actually did worse. In the remaining 46 % there was no statistical difference.

Of course there are big problems in making such comparisons and in drawing big conclusions from these kind of statistical studies. For one thing, they don't tell us anything about what is going on in the schools that  may have led to better or worse outcomes. Secondly, the differences in measured reading and math scores may not have been very great or even statistically significant.

CREDO's finding were essentially replicated in a  study by the pro-charter Mathematica Policy Research, of Princeton, N.J.. The federally commissioned study, involving 2,330 students who applied to 36 charter middle schools in 15 states, represents the first large-scale randomized trial of the effectiveness of charter schools across several states and rural, suburban, and urban locales. The charter schools in the sample conducted random lotteries for admissions, so that only chance determined who attended. The study, also concludes that the lottery winners did no better, on average, than the lottery losers on non-academic outcomes such as behavior and attendance.

As for networks of charters, run by charter management organizations or CMOs, current studies once again find little or no measurable difference in how students do, between them and other public schools. A recent Single Study Review by the What Works Clearinghouse, of the Report “Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts, confirms many earlier findings.

The study found that, on average, CMOs did not have a statistically significant impact on middle school student performance on state assessments in math, reading, science, or social studies. Similarly, there was not a statistically significant impact of CMOs on graduation rates and rates of post-secondary enrollment for high school students.

In Chicago, the Sun-Times reports that  charter school franchises produced wildly uneven results — even among different campuses of the same chain — on state achievement test data.

Only one of nine Chicago multi-site charter operators — Noble Street — beat the districtwide average of all Chicago public schools for the percent of students passing state tests last spring on every campus it oversees. The overall passing rate at two city charter franchises — Aspira and North Lawndale — was below the city average at every campus those two groups operate. Four other chains — Betty Shabazz, Perspectives, North Lawndale and Chicago International — saw the majority of their campuses with over-all pass rates that were below the citywide average. In fact, one Shabazz high school campus — DuSable — had a passing rate that put it among the bottom 30 high schools in the entire state. One of its elementary campuses placed among the bottom 40.

Following this first-time release of Chicago charter network scores, David Berliner, education professor at Arizona State University, told the Chicago Sun-Times the results should signal to parents that not all charters are equally replicated, like a McDonalds or Holiday Inn.’

One of the major problems facing charter schools is the instability caused by the rapid turnover of faculty and staff. The  L.A. Times reports that about half of all  teachers in charter middle and high schools left their jobs each year over a six-year period studied by UC Berkeley researchers, who released their findings in July, 2011. Why such an incredibly high rate of attrition? According to the study:

• They hire heavily from Teach For America, a cadre of recent college graduates who commit to teach for two years.
• Some young teachers find the intense, demanding charter experience more than they bargained for, suggested Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller, a study co-author.
• Leaving for better pay and benefits at traditional school districts.
• Lack of promised input into school decisions, an unceasing workload and few job protections.
• "Teachers feel so beleaguered because everything is presented to us as a problem we have to solve. But we can't fix all those problems, like when a kid misses 60 days in a semester."

One of the tactics used by charter operators to artificially drive up test scores has been exclusionary enrollment and push-out tactics. This will be the topic of  Part 3 in this series.

Philly plan to "reform" collective bargaining

The Boston Consulting Group is pushing Philadelphia's school district to "undertake comprehensive collective bargaining reform” with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and, simultaneously, “pursue legislative changes” in the school code.

According to The Notebook writer Ron Whitehorne, the “reforms” advocated in this document would roll back important protections that are afforded teachers under the school code and union contract.

Writes Whitehorne:

The attack on tenure and the call for laying off teachers based on performance rather than seniority is another familiar theme that has profound implications. “Performance” is mainly about standardized test scores, always a dubious metric, but even more so after the revelations about pervasive tampering and cheating. But putting this aside, in the context of budget austerity, administrators would be looking for way to get rid of costly senior teachers, as well as those pesky activists who might challenge their authority.

McKinsey guy picked as new deputy supt. for Philly schools

Paul Kihn, now a consultant with the firm McKinsey & Co.'s education practice, will begin work in the district by Oct. 1, when new Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. starts. Hite confirmed the appointment Thursday night. Kihn will be paid $210,000. With McKinsey, he has worked with clients including "federal, state, and local public education systems in the U.S. and abroad, as well as charter management organizations and private foundations supporting educational reform efforts," according to the company's website.  -- Philly.Com

The right-wing school privatization movement tries to change its image

In June 1995, the economist Milton Friedman wrote an article for the Washington Post promoting the use of public education funds for private schools as a way to transfer the nation’s public school systems to the private sector. "Vouchers," he wrote, "are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a market system." 

Rachel Tabachnick, a researcher and writer on issues pertaining to the Religious Right, has put together a comprehensive analysis of the current school privatization movement, "The Right's "School Choice" Scheme" on Publiceye.org.  It begins with Milton Friedman's 1995 treatise, "Public Schools: Make Them Private," and continues with the right's attempt to re-frame it's attack on public education as a civil-rights reform.

According to Tabachnick, voucher supporters recognized the need to reinvent the movement by obscuring its white, conservative support base and cultivating the support of Latino and African-American leaders as the face of the movement.

These leaders have valid complaints about inequality in public education and the failure of public schools to provide quality education to low income Black and Latino children. Having their parents support vouchers--and charters--in the name of improving education is a potent political force.

The most prominent among these leaders is Howard Fuller, the former Black Nationalist who brought vouchers to the Milwaukee school system when he led it in the early 1990s. In August 2000, he launched the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).  Its major funders included John Walton and the Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, which also funded Fuller’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University, founded in 1995.

These funders, as People for the American Way commented in an extensive report on the group, are "better known for supporting education privatization and affirmative action rollbacks than empowerment of the African-American community or low-income families."   

The conservatives had found their standard bearer.

"I'm the evil billionaire Koch brother," he quipped. "You're not afraid of me?" [Updated]

David Koch 

"He wore a navy suit, red-and-blue checkered tie, and a couple of fancy-looking convention passes sure to open doors that we reporters couldn't dream of entering." -- Mother Jones reporter 

Mr. Koch spent a few minutes taking questions from reporters. “We’re in this for the long haul,” Mr. Koch said, regardless of whether Mitt Romney wins or loses in November. Asked whether there was too much money in politics, Mr. Koch, who with his brother donates almost exclusively to political organizations that do not disclose their donors, would have none of it.

“It’s a free society,” Mr. Koch said. “People can invest what they want.” -- NYT

Duncan's darling Rhee shows up at GOP convention

Duncan campaigned for Rhee and Fenty in 2010.

Arne Duncan has long been one of Michelle Rhee's ardent fans. Violating all DOE protocols, Duncan went out on the stump for her and former D.C. mayor Fenty two years ago even at the risk of offending the district's African-American voters (they can't vote in the presidential election).

So what did Obama and the Dems get in return for their unflagging support of Rhee? Her first stop after getting booted out of the district was Florida, where she became Tea Party guv Rick Scott's top ed advisor.

Now the new darling of ALEC and the right-wing union union busters has shown up at the GOP Convention in Tampa to tout “Won’t Back Down,” a film produced by gay-hating conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz. Rhee's job is to connect the film with the corporate reform fraud know as the parent trigger.

The film was shown at the convention at an event sponsored by Rhee’s advocacy organization, StudentsFirst, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Referring to the film's negative portrayal of teacher unions, Rhee's fellow panelist Bush commented: 

"What I love about the film is it puts a human face on nerdy policy," said Bush, the former governor of Florida.“This is the one little Switzerland where the left and the right can agree.”

As NYT's Michael Winerip reported back in February, Duncan continues to pal around with Rhee even while his own Office of the Inspector General  has been investigating whether Washington school officials cheated to raise test scores during Ms. Rhee’s tenure.

I'm not sure who Bush means by "the left" unless it's faux-Democrat Duncan who is now being mentioned along with Rhee as possible Romney choices for a cabinet post. 

In a close November race, Arne Duncan could well become a major obstacle to Obama's re-election because of negative impact on the nation's 5 million teachers, many of whom see current administration education policies as being no different or even worse than the Republican's.

Obama would do well to dump him now or at least announce his post-election replacement.

"The creep of the marketplace"

Larry Cuban was superintendent in Arlington schools for seven years, a former high school social studies teacher for 14 years and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. Here his take on changes in market influences since his days in VA schools.

My experiences in Arlington with businesses, while revealing tensions and occasional conflict, have been bland compared to current back-and-forth criticism among policymakers and practitioners about “corporate reformers” and “privatization of public schools.” What is more disturbing, however, as I look back at my experiences as a teacher, administrator, and professor, is the gradual creep of marketplace values into schooling that go far deeper than charter schools, Teach for America, KIPP, and use of student test scores as the bottom line of schooling. --  Read Cuban's entire post on Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet.

Charter school mythology -- Part I, The myth of authentic choice

By Mike Klonsky

This is the first part of a two-part series of posts on Charter school mythology.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France

Current conceptions of school choice were originally conceived by free-market, neo-liberal ideologues like the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman. In his 1955 article "The Role of Government in Education" Friedman first proposed a system of publicly operated schools with privately run but publicly funded schools, using payment vouchers issued to parents/consumers.

Corporate school reformers have taken up Friedman's choice banner and succeeded in framing their charter school narrative as a matter of choice vs. containment. Some  go so far as to equate public education with slavery, posing "choice", i.e.,  meaning charters and vouchers, as "the underground railway" carrying students to the "freedom" of privately-run schools. Charter school management companies are offered as modern-day Harriet Tubmans. Supporters of privately-run charters, like Joel Klein, Newt Gingrich and Arne Duncan, also frame the issue of choice as the "civil rights issue of our generation."

The notion of government and public education as being an non-competitive "monopoly," put forth by business groups like the Chicago Civic Committee, is a false and misleading one.  Competition and consumer choice have their place. Already derfunded urban public schools have to compete with private, parochial and wealthy suburban districts for students, teachers and funding. But a democratic solution to the problems and challenges confronting public education is not offered by another layer of market-driven choice.

More recently, choice advocates have drummed up the so-called parent trigger, a plan that gives 50 percent of parents in a school during any one school year the power to turn that school over to a private operator. This divisive plan is being pushed hard by conservative, anti-union groups like ALEC as well as by some more liberal-leaning groups like the  U.S. Conference of Mayors as a victory for school choice. In fact, the parent trigger is just another market-driven maneuver to dis-empower teachers and bust their unions, which are portrayed as enemies of choice. In no case have parent trigger initiatives led to any measurable improvement in schools.

This framing has been rendered skillfully, and promoted through the use of major studio films including Waiting For Superman and We Won't Back Down, both bankrolled by right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Authentic individual and family choice is an important component of good and fair public education, especially when it implies an enriched curriculum filled with varied options based on students interests, potential career pathways, and different routes to successful learning. But there are different kinds of choice, just as there are different kinds of reform. The one posed by charter and voucher proponents is generally a limited kind of consumer choice, viewing public education sinply as a personal shopping mall offering parents and students options like smooth and chunky. Authentic models of  choice have more to do with democratic social ownership, participation and decision making.

In that sense, privately-run charters aren't really public schools at all, but rather, private entities run with public funds. Teachers and other public employees can be fired at will, without due process,  and have no voice or choice, except to try and find jobs elsewhere. Teachers have little say over curriculum, assessment, work environment, or other essential matters.They have no collective bargaining rights and serve only at the whim or will of appointed charter boards and the administrator. Experienced teachers are being forced out of their jobs by austerity measures as charter schools are flooded with Teach for America (TFA) recruits. With the loss of over 300,000 public school teaching positions in the last two years, the competitive pressure upon teachers to find new jobs is severe.

Students have few if any real choices since the school generally chooses them,  rather than them choosing the school. Privately-run charters have become notorious for excluding students with disabilities and special needs, English-language learners and students with behavioral problems. KIPP charters,  for example, have become notorious for their extremely hig student attrition rates. Parents in charters are often forced to contribute funds for textbooks, after-school activities, and even to pay fines for petty rules violations. At one Chicago charter network, these fines amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars taken  from needy families.

Originally, charter schools were envisioned by their founders and supportera as agents of real democratic choice. Rather than competing with traditional schools for funding and high-scoring students, the early charters, many founded and led by teachers, were seen as a small but critical force within the public school system -- an incubator for experimentation, innovation, and new options for students. Rather than being market-driven and anti-union, early charters were staffed with union teachers and backed by many union leaders, including AFT President Albert Shanker. But Shanker's charter school vision included the maxim that they “would not be a school where all the advantaged kids or all the white kids or any other group is segregated.”

A 2010 study by researchers at University of Colorado-Boulder and Western Michigan University found that most charter schools were “divided into either very segregative high-income schools or very segregative low-income schools” compared to their sending districts, and that the pattern had changed little between 2000-01 and 2006-07. They also tended to enroll a lower proportion of special education students and English-language learners. Again we see this distorted version of school choice.

The charter school ethos calls for more autonomy in exchange for higher levels of accountability. But the only way to exercise that accountability is to close a charter school, an action that even further destabilizes the lives of children. Hundreds of charter schools have been closed for being low performers, financial losers or poor recruiters. Many have been closed because of mismanagement or scandal. Nationwide, 15 percent of the 6,700 charter schools that have opened over the past two decades have closed for one reason or another. The largest proportion of those closures, nearly 42 percent, were the result of financial woes, usually related to low enrollment or lack of funding. Twenty-four percent closed for reasons of mismanagement, and a smaller share, 19 percent, were shut down for academic reasons.

What is also at play here is the consolidation of power by the big charter school operating companies and the forced closing of small, resourced-starved, teacher or community-operated charter. When that happens, any notion of student or parent choice is tossed aside and students are shuffled around to whatever school will accept them. Closing charter schools often forces students to choose from other academically struggling or otherwise unsound schools.

Next comes the question of who can choose and how. I'm reminded of that old saw about rich and poor alike having the choice to drive a Mercedes or a Chevy. Participatory community engagement and even consumer choice requires a well-informed public with access to the necessary levers of power.

Because charter school enrollment is capped, keeping schools small enough in some cases, to offer the illusion of a specialized boutique, opportunities are generally marketed only to a targeted consumer base. If a family is not in the information pipeline or a parent doesn't have the knowledge or capacity to apply, or if the child is homeless or a ward of the court, charter enrollment is only available through the bounce of a lottery ball. This kind of exclusivity is not generally available to regular public schools, who must accept any and every child who is brought to their doors. Charters can also expel students who don't achieve at high enough standards or who fit their social or cultural mold, at will. These students are then placed (without choice) back into overcrowded neighborhood schools.

Finally comes the question of whether or not this type of market-driven choice has been a force for systemic school improvement. In Chicago, where an ever expanding system of charter-school choice has been in operation for the past two decades, test scores in reading and math have remained flat. School dropout rates continue to hover around the 50% mark and the so-called achievement gap between white students and students of color continues to widen.

Under a top-down governance system where the schools are controlled by the mayor and his hand-picked school board and  maintained under the leadership of  high-profile CEOs like Paul Vallas and current Secretary of Education  Arne Duncan-- and under corporate-driven initiatives like Renaissance 2010, the number of charter schools has steadily expanded. But according to a Sun-Times report, only one of nine Chicago multi-site charter operators — Noble Street — beat the districtwide average of all Chicago public schools for the percent of students passing state tests on every campus it oversees. This, even with the benefit of added funding, both from public and private sources as well as benefit of positive media spin, political connections and social capital unavailable to neighborhood schools.

To summarize, what is being touted by charter, parent-trigger, and voucher advocates as choice, offers teachers, parents and students only the narrowest of consumer options rather than real decision-making power. This type of market driven choice is only available to the few who have access to the necessary levers to assert themselves. And most importantly, decades of choice hasn't led to measurable improvement for public schools nationwide and in fact, it has been a drain on their resources and a force for downward pressure on student achievement.

Tim Bartik, senior economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research says "there's no evidence to suggest that choice works very well." The reasons for that, Bartik said, have to do with the fact that unlike judging the quality of a consumer good such as an apple, it turns out that school quality is more difficult to evaluate

As a result, school choice has become another rationale for re-segregation with those with the most power and access using the system to isolate or unfairly benefit themselves at the expense of others.

After decades of experimenting with market-based, competitive education initiatives with little in the way of measurable statewide education improvement, it’s necessary for Chicago and other urban school districts to shift their emphasis away from privatization and towards systems of support for helping improve and transform community public schools. Times call for making the proper investment in proper education offering real choices for students, parents and teachers within a framework of public ownership and public decision-making.

In the words of John Dewey from his work, The School and Society:   

"What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy."

Part 2 will deal with the myth of charter school superiority.

A great Parent-Trigger Fact Sheet

Re-posted from Parents Across America's Blog

Researched by Caroline Grannan, San Francisco Parents Across America founding member

1. There have been no successful parent triggers anywhere. Only two parent triggers have been attempted, both in Southern California. [i]

2. The organization that created the parent trigger, Parent Revolution, organized both of those campaigns.[ii]

3. Parent Revolution has been inaccurately described as “grassroots” and as founded by concerned mothers. Actually, Parent Revolution was created by charter school operator Steve Barr, who founded the Green Dot charter school chain.[iii] Parent Revolution has a $1 million annual budget and 10 full-time staff members. Its funders include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and more.[iv]

4. In both of those two parent trigger campaigns, many parents at the targeted schools said they did not want their schools to become charter schools, and a number attempted to rescind their signatures from the petitions. [v] In both, conflict and controversy exploded among the parents at the schools.[vi]

5. In the first of those parent triggers (McKinley Elementary School in Compton, CA, December 2010), the charter school operator that had been poised to take over the school didn’t do so; instead, it opened a new charter school a few minutes away. Only a fraction of the McKinley families (apparently between 12% and 20%) moved their children to the charter school.[vii] With the charter school having opened nearby instead of taking over the school, the McKinley Elementary School parent trigger appears to have failed.[viii]

6. In the second parent trigger (Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, CA, January 2012), a July 2012 court ruling has been reported as a victory for parents. But actually, what the court ruled was that parents who wanted to rescind their signatures from the parent trigger petition could not do so.[ix]

7. The current status of the parent trigger at Desert Trails in Adelanto is that Parent Revolution is seeking a charter operator to take over the school, although many parents have said that they don’t want the school to become a charter.[x]


ENDNOTES

[i] There have been two attempted parent triggers, with petitions signed and turned in to officials. The first was at McKinley Elementary School in Compton, CA, in 2010. It has failed, with the school remaining under the same governance as before. The second is at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, CA, in 2012. It is still being fought out among factions of parents and school and district administrators. The ultimate outcome is unknown at this point.

[ii] This is borne out by ample news coverage and other sources. Here’s what the Los Angeles Weekly reported about the Compton parent trigger (Dec. 9, 2010): Parent Revolution decided to focus on McKinley Elementary School and approach parents there after researching the worst school districts in California. … (Parent Revolution’s paid) field organizers have canvassed a large chunk of the 10-square-mile city of Compton, knocking on hundreds of doors, walking its sidewalks and driving its streets, asking people if their children attend McKinley. … [Organizing director Pat DeTemple] set up a computer program to track trends in the progress of his staff’s work. The Los Angeles Times reported (Jan. 13, 2012) on Parent Revolution’s involvement in the Adelanto parent trigger (this version of the Times article posted on the Parent Revolution website): In Adelanto, the process has been transparent and fair, said Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles educational reform group that helped train and organize parents in both cities.

[iii] This Los Angeles Times article (May 11, 2009) describes how Steve Barr, founder of the Green Dot charter school chain, created Parent Revolution in 2009.

[iv] The Los Angeles Weekly (Dec. 9, 2010) described Parent Revolution’s funding: Parent Revolution, with 10 full-time staff members and a $1 million annual operating budget, is funded by blue-chip philanthropic endeavors, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

[v] Los Angeles Times: Some parents are rescinding their signatures to convert McKinley Elementary into a charter school. Dec. 11, 2010) See also: San Bernardino County Sentinel (April 7, 2012): [A]t least 97 parents rescinded their signatures [in the Adelanto parent trigger].

[vi] The Los Angeles Weekly live blogging, Dec. 14, 2010: “We’re reporting live from the [Compton Unified School District] board meeting, packed with press and hundreds of angry parents — many of whom say they were tricked into signing the Parent Trigger petition without understanding its gravity. Above all, the air is buzzing with confusion. … More and more, the crowd reveals itself as anti-Parent Trigger.” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 2012: “Some parents say the Desert Trails campaign has divided the campus, destroyed friendships and given rise to charges on both sides of harassment and deceit.”

[vii] The Los Angeles Times reported on Nov. 14, 2011, that 1/5 of the families at McKinley Elementary had transferred their children to the new Celerity Sirius charter – amounting to 1/3 of the families who had signed the petition. But actually, California Department of Education data show a drop of considerably less: McKinley enrollment dropped 12.9% when the charter opened – from 426 students to 371.

[viii] The Los Angeles Times (Nov. 14, 2011) described the outcome of the Compton parent trigger as “legal defeat when the petition was found lacking on largely technical grounds.” The Times editorial added: “Ultimately, the charter operator, Celerity Educational Group, decided to open a school a few blocks away instead, to predictions that this would wipe out McKinley by drawing away most of its students. But that’s not what happened.”

[ix] Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2012: Ruling supports Adelanto charter school effort: Judge rules that California’s ‘parent trigger’ law does not allow signatures to be revoked, meaning Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto could become a charter.

[x] KABC Los Angeles, July 23, 2012: Superior Court Judge Steve Malone ordered the Adelanto School District to accept the petition filed by the Desert Trails Parents Union within 30 days and to immediately seek proposals from charter school operators to take over Desert Trails Elementary School. Natasha Lindstrom, the local reporter who has been covering the Adelanto parent trigger issue, July 23, 2012. Many (parents) told me they didn’t want a charter. Both sides of Parent Trigger like the current principal, who only took (the) helm in October.

This fact sheet is also available as a downloadable pdf.

Indy is Vallas' latest privatization target

Legendary Ownership Society hustler Paul Vallas is at it again. His high-profile, high-profit target this time is Indianapolis. Here's a re-post of Diane Ravitch's August 13th post: "Saving School Districts Is Not a Full-time Job."

Paul Vallas is superintendent of schools in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is paid more than $200,000 a year. He also runs a private consulting business that just landed an $18 million contract to reorganize the Indianapolis school district even as he remains full-time superintendent in Bridgeport. The board that appointed Vallas has been declared illegal by a court in Connecticut, but they extended Vallas’ contract so he will be superintendent even if a new school board with a different majority wins.

I know that Vallas saved Chicago, and saved Philadelphia, and saved New Orleans, but it is astonishing that he is able to work full-time in Bridgeport and save Indianapolis at the same time.

Klein back to pimping Murdoch's Amplify program

Murdoch & Klein

"What we're trying to do is really become a hub for serious thinking and trying to make sure that technology is a positive force," Klein said in an interview. "Because I've long said that just giving a kid a computer isn't going to change the game."

Now that Rupert Murdoch has hired the best criminal defense lawyer money can buy, former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein is freed up to do what he does best -- hustling Murdoch's products back to the public school system.

While the criminal investigation into the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal continues, Klein is back in New York to launch Amplify, News Corp.'s digital learning program. Amplify and AT&T will fund a pilot project that will put tablet computers in students' hands in order to "track student progress."

Klein said he has been working full-time at Murdoch's Amplify since mid-June after News Corp. hired general counsel Gerson Zweifach to focus on continuing fallout from the hacking scandal, which broke about six months after Klein started working at Amplify.

Given the ongoing investigation, we're not exactly sure what tracking their progress means. NYC would do well to track Murdoch's progress with a digital ankle bracelet.

Hedge-fund vultures circling public ed

"This is a new frontier. The private equity guys and the hedge fund guys are circling public education." -- Diane Ravitch 

Stephanie Simon at Reuters reveals profiteers waiting in the wings to cash in on Common Core Standards. About 100 of gathered in a meeting last week at the University Club in Manhattan, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies." 

If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it. 

"You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up," said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a BostoThe conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies," drew a full house of about 100.n consulting firm. "It could get really, really big."

In the venture capital world, transactions in the K-12 education sector soared to a record $389 million last year, up from $13 million in 2005. That includes major investments from some of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, according to GSV Advisors, an investment firm in Chicago that specializes in education.

Education entrepreneur John Katzman urged investors to look for companies developing software that can replace teachers for segments of the school day, driving down labor costs.

"How do we use technology so that we require fewer highly qualified teachers?" asked Katzman, who founded the Princeton Review test-prep company and now focuses on online learning.

Another anti-teacher film backed by Anschutz

Anschutz

Major studio films with celebrity stars have become the latest weapon of choice in the war against teachers and public education. It all began with Waiting for Superman and will be followed-up with the September screening of  Won't Back Down, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as a parent and Viola Davis as a teacher who work together to organize support for a petition to overhaul the school and resuscitate it academically. The more than obvious parallel here is with the so-called Parent Trigger scheme which enables a small group of petition-signing parents to turn a public school over to private operating companies.

Both films are bankrolled by borderline fascist billionaire Philip Anschutz, an anti-union fanatic whose homophobic views would make Chick-Fil-A owner Don Cathy blush.

Anschutz' ownership of The Washington Examiner, a daily tabloid, and The Weekly Standard, probably the nation’s most influential conservative magazine, provide the outlet for his extremist views on taxes, national security and President Barack Obama that the 130 or so companies he owns don't.

Anschutz' propaganda films are slick and sophisticated. But we did a decent job of debunking WFS. I look forward to even stronger critiques of WBD.

Media Matters nails WSJ and ALEC on "Parent Trigger"

According to Media Matters:

The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools."

WSJ's parent company, New Corp. is owned by international publishing criminal Rupert Murdoch whose chief henchman is Joel Klein. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, is recognized as one of the godfathers of corporate school reform and school privatization.

The MM piece quotes Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, who calls the parent trigger "an underhanded trick by the charter lobby to manipulate parents into letting them privatize more public schools."

Weekly Reader goes belly-up after being bought by Scholastic, Inc.

Scholastic Inc., which bought the Weekly Reader from Readers Digest only last February, has announced that it is ending publication of the 110-year-old student magazine. Subscriptions to WR have fallen steadily since it was reported to have 7 million in 2002. At that time, many of its writers were former teachers. Much of this drop can be attributed to decreased school budgets and to the swing away from printed matter to online reading in schools. By folding WR into Scholastic, the company hopes to increase its profitability by firing 55 of 60 Weekly Reader employees. 

My only question is, without the WR, will Scholastic still be able to disseminate coal industry propaganda to influence young minds, as it did back in May?

New video exposes ALEC's ed task force

 Here's a great tool you can use in meetings and classrooms to educate about ALEC's role in privatizing public schools, curriculum and testing. The video has a good critique of cyber-schools, the Virtual Schools Act currently being pushed in several states by ALEC,  and companies like, K12 Inc. which are making millions in profits even while being currently under federal investigation.

Cyber schooling could be one the great scams of our time

New study shows cyber kids falling behind

"Children who enroll in a K12 Inc.cyberschool, who receive full-time instruction in front of a computer instead of in a classroom with a live teacher and other students, are more likely to fall behind in reading and math." -- Gary Miron, NEPC fellow

Two stories on cyber-learning caught my eye this past week. The first had to do with the closing of a privately-run cyber charter school in Pennsylvania, due to financial mismanagement. According to the July 10th Edweek story, the state then issued charters to 4 other new cyber-charters.

The second story was about last week's FBI raid on  the office of Pennsylvania Charter Cyber School founder Nick Trombetta, who is suspected of misusing Pennsylvania tax dollars to fund his out-of-state ventures. The FBI raided the administrative offices of PA Cyber and other ventures founded by Trombetta, including the Avanti Management Group -- a for-profit consultant firm based in Ohio.


But the topper is the release this morning of a new report by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado which shows that students at K12 Inc., the nation’s largest virtual school company, are falling further behind in reading and math scores than students in brick-and mortar schools. These virtual schools students are also less likely to remain at their schools for the full year, and the schools have low graduation rates.

“Our in-depth look into K12 Inc. raises enormous red flags,” said NEPC Director Kevin Welner.

Duncan and K12 founder Bennett

K12 was started by Republican operative and former Sec. of Education William Bennett but the company was forced to remove Bennett as chairman of its directors following a series of racist remarks and gambling scandals which threatened the company's marketability. K12 Inc. has been under investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, which has been looking into K12's involvement in a project that received an improper multimillion-dollar grant from the Department of Education during Bennett's tenure at the firm.

I posted twice last December about K12's financial problems, it's plummeting stock prices and the company's huge executive salaries. About the same time came a New York Times story by Stephanie Saul, "Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools", which called out K-12, not on its stock prices, but on how badly its "portfolio schools" like Agora Cyber Charter School are doing.

Back in 2010, I posted on my SmallTalk blog about the connections between K12 founder William Bennett and Ed Sec. Arne Duncan. 

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Now, thanks to the NEPC report, we can see the connection between all this dirty cyber dealing and its negative impact of student learning.

Romney's version of corporate socialism

Anthony Gardner, writing for Bloomberg, reports that Mitt Romney's specialty during his years at Bain Capital, was privatizing gains and socializing investment losses. 

What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.

The report describes Romney's style of "casino capitalism" that produced quick profits for big investors but led to the destruction and bankruptcy of companies like Accuride, Ampad and Dade with thousands of workers losing their jobs and whole communities, including schools and public services being destroyed. When Bain's investment's went south, which they did about 40% of the time, the big losers were often public pensions, including teachers pension funds, whose boards, according to another Bloomberg report, had  "political ties and sensitivities."

According to Gardner:

While Bain Capital wasn’t alone in using financial engineering to turbo-charge its returns, it was among the most aggressive under Romney’s leadership. Enriching investors by taking leveraged bets isn’t a qualification for a job requiring long-term vision and concern for public welfare. It is appropriate to point that out to voters.

New Michigan dictatorship privatizes entire school district

Now that Michigan's T-Party Gov. Rick Snyder has been given the power of a fascist dictator over the state's impoverished cities and towns, one of the first things he's going after is public education. First stop -- struggling Muskegon Heights, where Snyder has already replaced the elected city government with a hand picked business czar. The czar, Don Weatherspoon, has now decided to turn the entire public school system over to a for-profit company, Mosaica Education, Inc.

NPR reports:

So far, the details of the contract with Mosaica are still secret. Though the document was approved in an open meeting, it wasn't available to the public, and attorneys refused to share the information with reporters; basic information like how much money the district will pay Mosaica.

I have been following Mosaica, which operates more than 90 schools across the country and in India, since they ran into trouble for mismanaging a school near New Orleans. The Louisiana dispute led to arbitration. In the end, Mosaica was forced to pay $350,000 in damages. Then there was this cheating scandal in D.C. and that mess with the management of King High School in Philly.

The company already operates six Michigan charter schools, five of which fall below the 20th percentile on the state's ranking of schools. One school is at the 26th percentile.

Best yet on Boston Consulting Group

I hadn't seen this amazing post by B-Town Errant, from May 18th, until Diane Ravitch passed it around today. It's an solid piece of power-structure research on the favorite consulting group of the Ownership Society, BCG. I have written about them at length and so has Diane, Daniel Denvir, Philly Notebook and others. But if you take a deep breath and work your way through this one, you can put it all together.

By it, I mean the grand conspiracy against public schools. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But you don't have to be one to see one.