What is a charter school?

In 2009 when I began the original Seattle Education blog, the first words that I typed were “What is a Charter School?”. With those words I began to write an account of what I had learned from reading everything that I could find on the subject. And why an interest in charter schools? Because at the time, several of us had discovered that our Seattle Public School superintendent was a Broad graduate. We had learned that the Broad Foundation was all about charter schools and that was on the agenda for Seattle and the state of Washington as far as Eli Broad and other reformers were concerned.

Now it’s almost 2012 and the ed reform forces have begun to gather and descend upon our state in an attempt to privatize our public school system.

I have received many questions about charter schools recently and decided to do a series of posts on the subject. First I’ll start with the words that I began writing over two years ago:

What Is a Charter School?

The basic difference between a traditional public school and a privately run charter school is that with a charter school there is complete control of the school by a private enterprise within a public school district. Although taxpayer-funded, charters operate without the same degree of public and district oversight of a standard public school. Most charter schools do not hire union teachers which means that they can demand the teacher work longer hours including weekends at the school site and pay less than union wages. Charter schools take the school district’s allotment of money provided for each student within the public schools system and use it to develop their programs. In many systems, they receive that allotment without having to pay for other costs such as transportation for students to and from the school. Some states, such as Minnesota, actually allocate more than what is granted to public school students.

A charter school can expel any student that it doesn’t believe fits within its standards or meets its level of expectation in terms of test scores. If the student is dropped off the rolls of the charter school, the money that was allotted for that student may or may not be returned to the district at the beginning of the next year. That is dependent upon the contract that is established by each district.

Also, according to a recent (June 15, 2009) study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), charter schools do not necessarily perform any better than public schools. In fact, 37 percent performed worse. Forty-six percent demonstrated “no significant difference” from public schools. Only 17 percent of charter schools performed better than public schools.

Well, not much has changed since then except for the fact that we have accrued more studies and articles showing that merit pay, high stakes testing, online learning, school closings and turnarounds as well as charter schools has been a tremendous waste of time, money and energy.

We are fortunate in the state of Washington because we can benefit from the accumulation of knowledge that has been developed on these subjects and not make the same mistakes that other states and school districts have made in buying into the notion of privatizing our school system.

Let’s start with the studies and reports:

The Stanford Center for Research in Education Outcomes (CREDO), Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States issued in 2009:

The finding was that 17 percent of the charter schools had students who did better on the whole than their public school twins, 37 percent of the charter schools the students did worse, and in 46 percent there was no statistical difference.

The Stanford CREDO Report, Charter School Performance in Pennsylvania:

Overall, charter school performance in Pennsylvania lagged in growth compared to traditional public schools.

Performance at cyber charter school was substantially lower than the performance at brick and mortar charters with 100% of cyber charters performing significantly worse than their traditional public school counterparts in both reading and math.

Hispanic students enrolled in charter schools perform significantly worse than their peers in traditional public schools in both reading and math, while Black students in charter schools perform significantly worse in math that Black students in traditional public schools but similarly in reading growth.

The Mathematica Study of Charter School Management Organizations as described by Jim Horn in the Schools Matter article posted on November 6, 2011, New Charter Study by Mathematica With More Bad News for Corporate Ed Reform:

This new study released in Friday’s news dump, entitled “Charter-School Management Organization: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts,” has more bad news for school privatizers who prefer the charter route.  Even though a swarm of urban school colonizers from Gates, Walton, and the New Schools Venture Fund helped set up the parameters for this study in order to get the most favorable outcome, and even though the Gates “research” hothouse, the Center for Reinventing Public Education co-authored the study,  there’s enough bad news for charter proponents that mirrors years of previous research on charters that this study, too, has been ignored by the corporate media.  Ed Week had a piece on the new study entitled “Academic Gains Vary Widely for Charter Networks,” and Time had a pre-release gloss by corporate spinner extraordinaire, Andy Rotherham.  That was it for coverage, except for a misleading and dissembling press release by Jim Peyser at the New Schools Venture Fund.  And only one of the national charter school associations offered a press release on this big event.  And most telling, the Gates “research” hothouse that co-authored the study, the Center for Reinventing Public Education, does not even mention it anywhere on its website.  Shhhh.

The National Education Policy Center study: Schools Without Diversity:

The analysis found that, as compared with the public school district in which the charter school resided, the charter schools were substantially more segregated by race, wealth, disabling condition, and language. While charter schools have rapidly grown, the strong segregative pattern found in 2001 is virtually unchanged through 2007.

A UCLA Civil Rights Project report issued in 2010, Choice Without Equity as described in a USC Annenberg news report UCLA Report Says Charters are Causing the Resegregation of American Schools:

UCLA Professor Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, said in a telephone press conference Thursday that the disproportionate representation of racial groups in the charter school system should be a red flag in the steady march of public education toward free-market mechanics–a march that has swept up Los Angeles Unified School District, which is just now reviewing creative management bids for 30 of its public schools.

“The charter movement has flourished in a period of retreat on civil rights,” Orfield said. “The vision of a successfully integrated society – one that carries real opportunities for historically excluded groups of students to enter the mainstream – ought to be a defining characteristic of charter schools. Federal policy should make this a condition for charter school support and should support other choice programs which pursue this goal.”

Regarding the Vanderbilt study on Instructional Conditions in Charter Schools and Students’ Mathematics Achievement Gains completed in 2010, an article in Vanderbilt News titled No Significant Difference in Math Achievement Gains Between Charter Schools, Traditional Public Schools .

New research based on preliminary data in a pilot study has found no significant difference in achievement gains on standardized math tests between students in charter schools and those in traditional public schools.

Vanderbilt University, The National Center on School Choice: Teacher Turnover in Charter Schools.

Researchers from Vanderbilt University found that charter school teacher turnover was almost double that of traditional public schools: 25 percent vs. 14 percent, respectively.

The study and the research brief.

That is the research that has been done over the last two years regarding charter schools.

What we need to do is to listen to principals and teachers, they will be able to tell us what works and what doesn’t work, what they need for their schools and students to succeed, not to billionaires who are not in touch with what goes on in a public school or in the surrounding communities. If you don’t believe me, go ask your principal what they believe their students need that they don’t have in terms of resources. I have a feeling it would be  a real eye-opener for many. Or, ask a teacher what they need in their school or classroom to enhance the learning experience for their students.

Of course the corporate reformers have demonized teachers and think that principals need to be little CEO’s rather than educators therefore the reformers have had no conversations with these professionals. The conversation has been among themselves and they have decided what’s best for the rest of us even if some of the studies that they have financed tells them differently.

Yesterday the TV was on and someone directed me to a segment on the Ellen Degeneres show. There was an interview with a principal at a school in Las Vegas that had a large population of homeless students. She was just about in tears when she explained how she stays up at night trying to figure out how to get her students to the point where they can learn. She spoke of hunger, lack of books and clean clothing as well as children who were sick and didn’t have the medicine they needed. It got my attention.

There was a generous donation, no strings attached, given by Target and a matching donation of $100,000 by Justin Biber. When the principal was asked what she would do with the first donation, she again almost broke down in tears and said it would be for a new library. She said that the shelves were too small for a standard book and that even though the “new curriculum” was now in place in her state that the teachers had to teach to, there were no books for the students that  was part of the new curriculum!!! There were no books that matched the new curriculum so exactly how were the teachers going to be successful on all of those standardized tests that would be coming next to determine their “effectiveness”?

The reformers have developed a Catch 22. If your school cannot succeed, and how can they when they have no funds, then it gets closed and turned into a charter school. That’s how our schools are becoming privatized. At least this small school in Las Vegas was given a fighting chance with outside help from people who asked for nothing in return.

“Just say no” to charter schools and “yes” to supporting, financially and otherwise, public education.

Dora

What to expect in January from the corporate privatizers in the state of Washington

Remember: There is nothing “public” about charter schools except the funding of these franchises by our tax dollars.

This began as a memorandum to a group of political and education activists in the state of Washington but as I started writing this, I realized that everyone in the state of Washington needs to be aware of what is coming down the pipe in Olympia in terms of the effort to privatize our public schools.

Cashing in on ed reform

Many companies and individuals have jumped onto the band wagon of “ed reform” because of the dollars involved with everything from testing to “online learning”. See the right hand column of this page under the heading of “Cashing in on Ed Reform” to get an idea of the money involved in these business endeavors.

What these folks want to do in our state is take over the tax dollars that are used to fund education and make a profit off of our children with ideas and programs that are untested at best or have proven to be detrimental to our children at the very worst.

To follow is the strategy that the folks who are basically paid for by Bill Gates are planning to do in  January to take over our public school system. The organizations that will represent the 1% are the League of Education Voters(LEV) led by Chris Korsmo and Kelly Munn, Stand for Children (SFC), the Excellent Schools Now Coalition (a brand new astro turf organization) and unfortunately, the Washington State PTA that has lost its’ way under the tutelage of LEV and SFC and with loads of money from Bill Gates and Boeing.

Boeing and Microsoft have been funding LEV and working with them on two “megabills” as they are termed by Korsmo of LEV. When I say “working with them”, I mean that Microsoft and Boeing are lending them their “corporate lobbying power” (LEV’s term, not mine) for the bills that will be put forth by certain legislative representatives. Keep in mind that the two school board members who were able to hold onto their positions in the last school board election in Seattle, Harium and Carr, both are employees of Boeing. I am not implying that they will consciously go with what their employer is spending major cash and “man hours” on, but it can be a psychological influence, so I would watch for that and remind them that they are to be representing the rest of us and not the 1%.

LEV and SFC are hoping to receive “bipartisan support” on these bills so again, I would suggest that everyone remind their representatives that we are the 99% who will be voting in the next election. It is still one person, one vote, no matter how much money the 1% might have so they need to be mindful of that. It would also behoove all of us to educate our representatives on what charter schools are and what has happened so far in other states. We are fortunate in the sense that we can see what has been happening in many other states and can understand that charter schools are not the way for our students particularly since we have many successful programs such as the alternative schools in Seattle, the Montessori programs, APP, the International Schools and Aviation High School in Shoreline.

One response that the privatizers have when you ask why they are even suggesting the pressure of high stakes testing on our children or teachers’ salaries and professional lives being based on test scores, they will flippantly answer you with “Well, we’re just starting a conversation!” Forget the conversation. There is no conversation at that point. They have had the process rigged and the votes sold. They will call their bills “platforms for discussion” with the “discussion” being manipulated so that if you don’t agree with them, you are ignorant or an insensitive cow who cares nothing about “the children”. Watch for that. Their well-paid marketeers such as Strategies 360 have a smooth roll-out in terms of strategy and phrasing. What we have is our earnestness, our honesty, the fact that we are voters and that we have skin in the game in terms of our children. All the folks at Strategies 360, Boeing and Microsoft are paid and couldn’t care less who is in office or who isn’t.

Also know that there will more than likely be the strategy this year as there was last year where several bills will be proposed with the hopes that one bill gets through. They will all be the same but the language will be different. It is also a way to distract, divide and conquer in terms of the reformers’ strategy. See How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools.

The first of the “megabills” is about principal and teacher evaluations. Couched, or rather buried in the language, will be the proposed evaluation of teachers and principals based on student test scores. This is called “high stakes testing” or “value added testing” and not something that you would want your child subjected to. Can you imagine your child thinking that their test score might be the cause of the district firing a beloved teacher or principal?

Now, why are test scores so important with this crowd? Because charter schools live and die by test scores, or theoretically they are to. Most states have set up criteria for charter schools where they are to meet an established standard in terms of test scores to remain open. If they do not meet the criteria, they are to close. Unfortunately today, many of these charter franchises remain open basically because of the money that exchanges hands between the charter school operators and the state representatives. Remember, this is all about the money. It is not about our children.

The projected cost of this proposed bill as noted by LEV is $10-12M per year. That’s their projected cost. In reality, it could be far greater.

Now for the charter school bill that we might see different reiterations of. First, they want to have language in a state law that says basically that the state or a district can “interdict” on the behalf of a “failing school”. That is the same thing as what Race to the Top (RTTT) termed a “school turnaround” whenever a school was closed and then turned into a charter school. That’s why these “school report cards” were developed by our last Broad trained superintendent. If a school is “failing”, if there is a substantial “achievement gap”, then the school can be a “turnaround school”, meaning closed and turned into a charter school. That’s “Part One” with these folks. And by the way, they’ll say that there are just a few of those schools that are failing but trust me, once they get their foot in the door, there will be a proliferation of charter schools that will not be stopped as seen in New Orleans and Florida. They will refer to them as “struggling schools”. My argument is that these “struggling schools” are actually schools that have students struggling in their schools and that has more to do with a lack of resources and poverty than anything else. The issue of poverty is something that the 1% willfully ignores otherwise they would have to own  up to the fact that they should pay their fair share of taxes to support our educational system. See Where  Do We Go From Here?

The 1% will propose in this “megabill” that “outside agencies” be hired to intercede on the behalf of these “failing schools”. What does that mean? That means paying some company to come in to “manage” the “turnaround” of these schools into charter schools. More profit to be made on the backs of our students. These people truly should be ashamed of themselves but they are not. Now, not only would you have charter school profiteers, then there would be folks who would “manage” the turnovers or “turnarounds”, not the district people themselves who we pay to do this kind of work but private “outside agencies”. If there was no money in public school funding before, there will be nothing left after these folks suck us dry.

Another “outside agency” that was being bandied about is the University of Washington (UW). What is striking about this is that the Dean of the School of Education, Tom Stritikus, is a former TFAer and was instrumental in getting his school to manage the five weeks of training that the TFA recruits are to receive before going into our “struggling schools”. Odd isn’t it? He leads a college where students study and train to be teachers which takes at least a few years and yet he championed providing training for college grads to receive barely enough training to find the front door to their new school.

The euphemism for these “failing schools” will be “Transformation Zones”. The language that these people come up with who are paid millions to do this is quite good and deceiving in the sense that the language deflects the true meaning of these words just like the term “Innovation School” which was part of a bill last year is a charter school in sheep’s clothing.

Part 2 of this charter school bill with its’ “Transformation Zones”, will have eight points:

1. There would be a cap on the number of charter schools in the state. Now, don’t let that fool you. There is a push by Arne Duncan and Obama right now for states to remove the cap on charter schools to receive more federal money. Also, the state can increase the cap yearly. Once these privatizers get their foot in the door, it’s all over, they won’t stop, not when it comes to money. It gets down to a matter of greed and that cannot be legislated out of a person’s soul.

2. Charter schools will be targeted to the “poor areas”, meaning the schools with the greatest minority populations. That has been the target in other states also. What parent in a tony neighborhood would allow their children to be taught by a poorly trained TFA temp? That means the urban areas such as Seattle and Tacoma will be the targets for these charter franchises, not the rural areas so again parents, don’t think that a charter school is going to pop up in a less populated community, the charter school franchises are not interested in quality, just volume. There is also Title 1 money involved with these “poor areas” which is icing on the cake for these poverty pimps.

3. The proposal will be for State Board of Education oversight. Now this is interesting because last year Governor Gregoire pushed for an appointed board of education as Schwarzenegger had in California which was populated with charter school operators and the likes of folks like Ben Austin. The bill in our state was fortunately voted down but don’t be surprised if we see that bill come up again. When Jerry Brown became governor of California he cleaned house and got rid of all of the corporate interest folks who had populated the State School Board in California.

4. Collective bargaining would be “building specific” which is what SEA leadership was, unwittingly I hope, negotiating for with the MOU on Innovative/Creative Approach Schools, aka, charter schools that came up recently. Fortunately that brain child got put on hold for another vote next year. There will be language in the proposed “megabill” about longer school days which of course will cost money that we don’t have. The governor is talking about cutting the school week to four days in response to our state budget shortfall so I don’t see this flying at all. I have nothing against longer school days but over the years we have been cutting days and hours off of the school week because of budget cuts, not because parents and teachers want a shorter school day or less school days in a year it’s because we haven’t been able to afford it.  Of course, if you staff the Innovative/Creative Approach charter schools with cheap TFA temps the problem of costs might be solved as it has been in other states where charter school are populated with TFA recruits or non-union teaching staff.

5. “Open enrollment” which begs the question of the cost of bus transportation. If they are referring to anyone being able to attend, think again. Special Ed and ELL students need not apply.

6. “Lottery”. Oh yes, the famous lottery scene in Waiting for Superman. The lottery is hype, a hoax of sorts. It creates a desire and excitement, a sense that this school is so important that you have to be part of a lottery to be selected. Exactly what part of that is democratic? In the successful alternative schools system within Seattle, it is first come, first served. If there is not enough room, and many times there isn’t, the student is placed on a waiting list and you start at the top of the waiting list. No lottery, no Hollywood hype, just a fair and reasonable process.

7. “Non profits as management companies”. Here the privatizers are referring to charter school management companies, referred to as CMO’s. It’s not enough that the cost per student covers their education; it also has to cover the cost of a management company that is to come in and “manage” the school. Why a management company? Why another layer of cost and profit? My guess is that most of the folks who own these franchises don’t understand the day-to-day process of running a school or any other public institution for that matter. It’s another layer of business management. And “non-profit” or not, a profit is made. It’s just another guise, another wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And the cost of this bill? Apparently Ross Hunter is working on that. What I find interesting about this push for charter schools is that it’s not coming from Seattle but from the outlying, well-off, basically bedroom communities just outside of Seattle. These folks will not see one TFA temp or KIPP school in their neighborhoods.

As I said at the beginning of this post, this ed reform movement has become a cash cow for a few profiteers. Let’s make sure that they don’t cash in on our children.

The LEV “Key Activists” as they are termed by Korsmo and Munn have been urged by the LEV Director of Government Relations, Frank Ordway, to “Go down (to Olympia) and drop off (a) note, talk to legislators, talk to senior staff to tell them ‘we want this.’ “

Let’s all do the same but with a different message. We want our legislators to meet the demand in our state constitution that it is the state’s paramount duty to adequately fund our schools so that all of our children receive the best education possible in the state of Washington. We don’t need charter schools, just a well-funded educational system for all.

See the NAACP’s resolution regarding charter schools that was created last summer during their annual convention. Their demand was the same.

In a follow-up post on charter schools we’ll look at the three charter franchises that are being bandied about by the corporate reformers in our state, KIPP, Greendot and the Rocketship online learning business enterprise.

Dora

Here is an e-mail list of members of our House of Representatives for the state of Washington. You can cut and paste all of the names or specific representatives into the To: box of your e-mail.

Washington State Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education

Chair

Rosemary.McAuliffe@leg.wa.gov

Vice Chair

Christine.Rolfes@leg.wa.gov

Committee Members

Steve.Litzow@leg.wa.gov

Tracey.Eide@leg.wa.gov

joe.fain@leg.wa.gov

Nick.Harper@leg.wa.gov

andy.hill@leg.wa.gov

Steve.Hobbs@leg.wa.gov

king.curtis@leg.wa.gov

sharon.nelson@leg.wa.gov

Rodney.Tom@leg.wa.gov

Addendum:

I received an e-mail from Ross Hunter who said the following:

“I’m not actually working on the cost of the charter bill you are talking about, nor have I seen a draft of it.”

My information came from an LEV conference call that Frank Ordway had with the LEV “Key Activists”. I guess Frank was wrong.

Help Parents Across America grow even stronger in 2012

Issued by Parents Across America:

Dear Friends:
It’s nearly impossible for parents to ignore what’s being done to our public schools these days. It’s become even harder for parents to have a say about decisions that affect our children’s lives on a daily basis. In fact, politicians and those running our school systems often seem to think that the only voices that matter in education are those that come with big dollar signs!

Fortunately, Parents Across America was formed nearly a year ago to give parents a powerful new voice in the national public education debate. PAA has already become a major player in the fight for a high quality education for every child in the U.S. In a few short months, we have gained prominence and established ourselves as a credible voice for parents through articles in Education Week, the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet, on radio and TV, and in the newspapers.

The 1% wants to control public education in this country – and they do not want parents to have a say in our own children’s education. That’s why we are coming to you today for support.

If you think it’s important that parents have a strong, informed and independent voice in our children’s education, please consider making a tax-deductible donation so that PAA can ramp up our efforts.  Some of our activities in the past year: 

·         We held our kickoff national educational forum in NYC on February 7, 2011, with keynote speaker Diane Ravitch.

·         Our electronic newsletter has more than 4,000 subscribers, and our Facebook page and group have more than 1,500 members.

·         We have 15 chapters and affiliates in 10 states, with more forming every week.

·         We played a prominent role in this summer’s Save Our Schools march on Washington DC, and PAA members spoke at the rally and provided workshops at the conference.

·         Our proposal to reform NCLB/ESEA was featured in the Washington Post and was endorsed by the SOS March.

·         Armed with our fact sheets and other information, our members helped beat back the forces of corporate reform in states from North Carolina to the state of Washington.

But we have still a long way to go to overcome the forces of big money that are intent on privatizing our public schools, and imposing policies, including school closings,  more high stakes testing, and the rapid expansion of online learning, that threaten to further damage our children and are unsupported by research.

If you care about public education and you think that an organization like PAA is needed to push for better public schools for every single child, and to give stakeholders a national voice in progressive education reform, please make a generous donation now.

You may use our Donate button or mail a tax-deductible check or money order to PAA/Class Size Matters at 124 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10011

Thank you and have a happy holiday season from  Parents Across America!

Weekly Update for the Week of December 18th : The Privatization and Commercialization of our Public Schools and Critical Thinking Skills

Beginning on Monday, December 26th, the focus of this blog will be on charter schools. Why charter schools? Because Stand for Children, the League of Education Voters, the Washington State PTA along with DFER will be descending upon our representatives in Olympia trying to convince them that the privatization of our public schools is what our state and children need.

I and others say “Au contraire!” and I will let you know why beginning on Monday. Also, watch for this same crowd to push for evaluations of teachers and principals based on test scores…again. They have their two “mega bills”, as they are calling them, lined up and ready to be presented in committee meetings starting in January. They will also, as last year, present several bills one after another in hopes that if one bill doesn’t get through, then with the changing of a few words and some tweaking of the language, it will get through another way. It also keeps the rest of us on our toes playing whack-a-mole with these maneuvers. Fortunately this time around we are all far more informed and organized. We are the 99%.

Before getting started on a few articles that came my way this week, I just want to wish everyone a nice holiday weekend. No matter how you celebrate the winter months I hope for all a moment of peace, tranquility and contentment in the coming days.

Now, let’s start off with one of my fave bloggers, Jim Horn, and his article, Three Kinds of Charter Schools:Largely Segregated, Intensely Segregated and Apartheid. A great read as always.

Next up is an article is from the Economic Policy Institute titled 11 telling charts from 2011. I bring it to your attention because what is happening economically affects our children and right now the economy is having an adverse effect on our children and our public schools.

The next is a report by the National Education Policy Center, The Educational Cost of Schoolhouse Commercialism. A thought-provoking paper on the corporatization of our schools, high stakes testing and a student’s critical thinking skills. With all things ed reform, helping children develop their critical thinking skills is an uphill battle for educators.

And locally, the search for a superintendent will officially be underway in January. Let’s stay on top of this, starting with the “search team” that is chosen, and ensure that we have the right person for the job. See the Seattle Public Schools Proposed Action Report for the details.

That’s it for this week.

See you on Monday. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Dora

What do we want in a superintendent?

The last four years have been a whirlwind with the hiring of the Broad-trained superintendent Dr. Goodloe-Johnson and all that came with her reign of tenure. School closings and re-openings, unnecessary rif’s, shutting down of programs that should have instead been supported, the MAP test three times each year even though only twice per year is required to get the appropriate results (we’ll get to that later), Teach for America, Inc., the student assignment plan debacle and the re-segregation of our schools (just in time to start the drumbeat of charters as a “choice” now that most options have been taken away from students on the southend of Seattle. And if the options have not been taken away then transportation to those options have) and the fear that was created in speaking up due to her “my way or the highway”, top-down rule.

Well folks, those days are over. It’s time to catch our breath and find our way back to where we started, just a little bit older and hopefully a lot wiser.

Now’s the time to ask ourselves and each other what we want in a superintendent. Do we want an exec who can twirl the budget numbers and data to read however we want them to or an educator who has come up the ranks, someone who is seasoned, knows what it’s like to be on the front lines as a teacher and a principal? Do we want someone who parachutes in, has a major learning curve about our schools, our school board, our students and our goals and then imposes their ideas on how our children should be educated or someone who we have known, respect and has been here for the long haul, proving to us that Seattle, our schools and our communities matter?

Unfortunately these days, many school boards seem to think that they have to go elsewhere to find a superintendent. Because of this type of thinking, the Broad Foundation has been able to place superintendents in districts around the country and therefore been able to take control of many school districts in terms of priming them for charter schools with all that goes with that including excess, high stakes testing and the breaking down of teachers’ unions to allow for a cheaper labor force to staff the charter franchises.

Seattle has a richness, variety and diversity that is unique and something that we are proud of as Seattleites. From that rich soil, many talented people have developed. These individuals know our children, our schools and our communities. They know the needs of the students and our resources. The ideal candidates also have developed over the years a vision for better schools and ideas on how to achieve those goals knowing what we have and don’t have, knowing what we want and what we are capable of.

It is my belief that the appropriate candidate should have come up through our school system as a teacher and developed over the years experience as an educator and an administrator. The candidate should be someone who we know and trust, someone who has proven themselves in terms of their intelligence, their creativity, their professionalism and their character.

This is an old idea but it works. Coming up in the Los Angeles School District, there were many successful superintendents who took on the role after being a part of the community for years.

Do I have anyone in mind? No, no one specifically. I will say that I haven’t been in Seattle long enough to know all of the likely candidates but off of the top of my head I can think of one or two.

It is time to start asking the question of who we want and letting the school board members know what is important to us in terms of the next superintendent. And don’t think that answering questions in a survey is sufficient, it’s not. Talk about it with other parents, teachers and students, discuss it with your board members or write your board directors and let them know what you’re thinking.

And if there is anyone out there who knows someone who they think would be a great candidate or if you think you would be the best match for our schools, speak up!

This should be a decision that is community based and not as it was before, predetermined by outside forces with hidden agendas.

Dora

Weekly Update: Online Learning and Charter School Failures, Successful Military Children and of Course, Much, Much More

This first article by Dave Sirota on how it still boils down to economics in education. See What Real Education Reform Looks Like. Below is an excerpt:

As 2011 draws to a close, we can confidently declare that one of the biggest debates over education is — mercifully — resolved. We may not have addressed all of the huge challenges facing our schools, but we finally have empirical data ruling out apocryphal theories and exposing the fundamental problems.

We’ve learned, for instance, that our entire education system is not “in crisis,” as so many executives in the for-profit education industry insist when pushing to privatize public schools. On the contrary, results from Program for International Student Assessment exams show that American students in low-poverty schools are among the highest-achieving students in the world.

We’ve also learned that no matter how much self-styled education “reformers” claim otherwise, the always-demonized teachers’ unions are not holding our education system back. As The New York Times recently noted: “If unions are the primary cause of bad schools, why isn’t labor’s pernicious effect” felt in the very unionized schools that so consistently graduate top students?

Now, at year’s end, we’ve learned from two studies just how powerful economics are in education outcomes — and how disadvantaged kids are being unduly punished by government policy.

To read the article in full, and it is well worth reading, go to What Real Education Reform Looks Like.

To see the above idea in action, see the article Military Children Outdo Public School Students in the New York Times. There is no RTTT or NCLB, just well fed children enjoying full health care benefits and smaller class sizes. Below is an excerpt:

It has become fashionable for American educators to fly off to Helsinki to investigate how schools there produce such high-achieving Finns. But for just $69.95 a night, they can stay at the Days Inn in Jacksonville, N.C., and investigate how the schools here on the Camp Lejeune Marine base produce such high-achieving Americans — both black and white.

They would find that the schools on base are not subject to former President George W. Bush’s signature education program, No Child Left Behind, or to President Obama’s Race to the Top. They would find that standardized tests do not dominate and are not used to rate teachers, principals or schools.

They would find Leigh Anne Kapiko, the principal at Tarawa Terrace Elementary, one of seven schools here.

Test preparation? “No,” Ms. Kapiko said. “That’s not done in Department of Defense schools. We don’t even have test prep materials.”

To read this article in full, go to the New York Times.

And to read what doesn’t work, see Florida charter schools: big money, little oversight. Below is an excerpt:

Preparing for her daughter’s graduation in the spring, Tuli Chediak received a blunt message from her daughter’s charter high school: Pay us $600 or your daughter won’t graduate.

She also received a harsh lesson about charter schools: Sometimes they play by their own rules.

See the full article at Cashing in on Kids.

In preparation for the Boeing/Microsoft/League of Education Voters/Stand for Children and PTA assault on our state beginning in January with their push for charter schools and online learning centers, see:

How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools

Just as a little heads up here. The LEV folks think that it’s very cool how one teacher can, with the use of a program like Rocketship,  teach 40 to 50 students at a time. Just give each student a little face time each week and the rest of the time facing a computer. Every parent’s dream, right? Well, at least for Bill Gates it is.

You’ll be hearing a lot more from the likes of LEV in the coming months about these cash cows. By the way, remember Don Nielson who brought the Broad Foundation to Seattle? Well, he’s waiting in the wings with his own virtual learning program.

While we’re on the subject of online learning, check out the New York Times article Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools.

Here is an excerpt below:

Kids mean money. Agora is expecting income of $72 million this school year, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total anticipated revenues of K12, the biggest player in the online-school business. The second-largest, Connections Education, with revenues estimated at $190 million, was bought this year by the education and publishing giant Pearson for $400 million.

The New York Times has spent several months examining this idea, focusing on K12 Inc. A look at the company’s operations, based on interviews and a review of school finances and performance records, raises serious questions about whether K12 schools — and full-time online schools in general — benefit children or taxpayers, particularly as state education budgets are being slashed.

Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.

To read the article in full and see what Gates, LEV and Stand have planned for us, see the Education section of the New York Times.

For something more positive, check out Jim Horn’s post at Schools Matter Join the Coalition on Teacher Quality:

While the corporate ed reformers give lip service to the importance of great teachers, they are working overtime to replace professionally-trained teachers with temporary missionaries armed with Doug Lemov’s bible who learn to teach on poor people’s children before moving on to their real careers.

Below are the Seven Principles of the Coalition on Teacher Quality, along with the list of 84 organizations that have endorsed these principals.  Click here to view a briefing sponsored by Senator Sanders and the 84 organizations of the Coalition on Teaching Quality.

To follow in his article are a list of teacher quality requirements and evaluation structures that make sense. Check it out at Schools Matter, then join the chorus and be heard.

And finally I will leave you with another searing essay by Chris Hedges,  A Movement Too Big to Fail. Below is an excerpt:

here is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups likeMoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

Resistance, real resistance, to the corporate state was displayed when a couple of thousand protesters, clutching mops and brooms, early Friday morning forced the owners of Zuccotti Park and the New York City police to back down from a proposed attempt to expel them in order to “clean” the premises. These protesters in that one glorious moment did what the traditional “liberal” establishment has steadily refused to do-fight back. And it was deeply moving to watch the corporate rats scamper back to their holes on Wall Street. It lent a whole new meaning to the phrase “too big to fail.”

Tinkering with the corporate state will not work. We will either be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe or we will wrest power from corporate hands. This radical message, one that demands a reversal of the corporate coup, is one the power elite, including the liberal class, is desperately trying to thwart. But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars. The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along. Groups such as MoveOn and organized labor will find themselves without a constituency unless they at least pay lip service to the protests. The Teamsters’ arrival Friday morning to help defend the park signaled an infusion of this new radicalism into moribund unions rather than a co-opting of the protest movement by the traditional liberal establishment. The union bosses, in short, had no choice.

To read Chris Hedges’ essay in full, go to live updates: Occupy

Dora

The Paramount Duty of the State of Washington: The Students Demand It in Seattle With a City Wide Walkout

“We’re the future of our nation, no more cuts to education!”

When a crime syndicate recently announced its intention to make another hit on the youth of Washington State, teachers began preparing to take up yet another unpaid task in their day to help enforce public safety.

This organized crime ring is made up of the state lawmakers from both parties who are set to convene a special legislative session on November 28th to cut $2 billion from the state budget, largely from education and healthcare—a clear violation a Washington State court ruling last February that found the State guilty of not fulfilling its Constitutional obligation to fund basic education.

As King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled in his February school-funding decision, “State funding is not ample, it is not stable, and it is not dependable.”

Washington’s constitution declares that education is the State’s “paramount duty”—making the proposed shortening of the K-12 school year by four days and cutting $152 million in levy-equalization payments to property-poor school districts in clear violation of the law.

Beyond breaking the State Constitution and Judge Erlick’s recent ruling, these budget cuts are literally a matter of life and death.  Should the cuts be ratified, it would result in the elimination of the State’s Basic Health plan, ending a program that subsidizes health care for some 35,000 people living in poverty. Denying healthcare to the state’s most vulnerable populations will undoubtedly lead to increased morbidity.

Written by Jesse Hagopian from the post Occupy Seattle-Shopping for Handcuffs on Black Friday.

Hundreds of high school students marched out of their classrooms yesterday in a city-wide walkout demanding that education be fully funded in the state of Washington.

When the students reached the University of Washington, there was a rally and Mr. Hagopian spoke about the paramount duty of the state of Washington.

Instead of me going on about the importance of a fully funded educational system in our country, something that I have not seen since I was in high school, I’ll let the students speak for themselves.

A senior at Roosevelt High School.

A Garfield High School student describing Students of Washington for Change, SWaC.

The Students of Washington for Change are planning more actions in the coming months to bring home to our representatives that our schools cannot take anymore cuts and that in fact, our public school system needs to be restored as promised in our state constitution.

 

 

 

 

The Truth Behind Stand for Children: A Video

The unholy trinity of Stand for Children (SFC), the League of Education Voters (LEV) and the Washington State PTA (WSPTA) will be lobbying for a charter school bill starting in January with the backing of Microsoft, Boeing and Bill Gates. They will be in the House and Senate halls in Olympia in front of our representatives saying that they stand for the rest of us when in actuality they are representing only a wealthy few.

After watching this video, please send it to your representatives in Olympia, your school PTA, your school board representatives and the staff members of the WSPTA as well as the Seattle Council PTSA. Everyone needs to be informed about who is backing charter school legislation in our state and exactly what organizations like LEV, SFC and the Alliance for Education have become, puppets of the 1%.

Thanks to Parents Across America, Portland for producing this video.

If anyone has a personal experience with Stand for Children that they would like to share, please contact me at dora.taylor@gmail.com. All sources remain anonymous unless written consent is provided.

Dora

Post Script:

These people want to hear from you and need to hear what you have to say.

Washington State House Committee on Education contact list.

Washington State House Committee on Education Appropriations and Oversight contact list.

Washington State Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education contact list.

Charter Schools and Constitutional Rights

Quiz time! Are charter schools allowed to violate students’ civil rights?

• A. Yes
• B. No
• C. Some
• D. We don’t know yet

The correct answer is “D – we don’t know yet.” Why? Because lawsuits over civil rights violations are being decided different ways. The key question is whether charter school management organizations count as “state agents” — that is, acting on behalf of a government body.

You might think it’s a straightforward question, but it’s not. Federal law is inconsistent. Some courts have decided that both for-profit and nonprofit management organizations, as private contractors, are not state agents and do not have to grant students and teachers the same constitutional rights.

Other courts have found that they are state agents.

Part of the reason for these different opinions is that charter school setups vary between states and even between school districts in the same state. Another part is that charter schools are seen as separate from charter school management organizations. Even when a school is considered public, the management organization is private.

It gets even trickier. In Caviness vs. Horizon Community Learning (filed in Jan 2010), the 9th Circuit Court found that charter schools are “state actors” in some respects but not in others — even if they are designated as “public schools” by state law. The decision pointed out that “a private entity may be designated a state actor for some purposes but still function as a private actor in other respects.” (p.75) So some constitutional protections apply and others don’t.

What’s at stake are the civil rights of our children, including:

the Due Process clause, which requires due process when expelling students or firing employees;

the Equal Protection Clause, which protects against discrimination based on race, gender, or other factors;

and the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, which together provide for the separation of church and state and the free exercise of religion.

And some charter school advocates are fighting a legal battle to make sure that charter school companies are exempted from lawsuits over violations of these rights. In an article written for the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, “Charter Schools: Are For Profit Companies Contracting for State Actor Status?”  Bradley T. French writes, “the essence of charter school success comes from privatization of their operation. . . While they may be given initial authority and some funding by the states, they are managed by private charter school management companies.”  French argues that because charter school management companies are private contractors, they are not state agents. This debate is ongoing.

We have to keep a close eye on this. There is a debate raging between people who are for and against charters. But beyond that simple yes-no question are complexities that could have serious consequences. When charter school legislation comes up in the state of Washington, we need to examine it closely, or else we risk the sacrifice of our children’s constitutional rights.

So let’s get informed.

More to explore:

Article about the Caviness vs. Horizon Community Learning Center decision

Full text of Caviness vs. Horizon Community Learning Center

Bradley T. French, “Charter Schools: Are For Profit Companies Contracting for State Actor Status?” University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, vol 83:251, 2006.

Maren Hulden, “Charting a Course to State Action: Charter Schools and § 1983,” Columbia Law Review, Vol. 111:1244, 2011.

Kristin

More Letters to the School Board Requesting a Search for a Superintendent

Apparently the League of Education Voters (LEV) has started a letter writing campaign to encourage the board to not have a search for the position of superintendent in the Seattle Public School system. I suppose they like Dr. Enfield because she championed Teach for America, Inc. coming to Seattle. For whatever reason, they want to circumvent the process of selecting the appropriate candidate for the job.

We do have an interim superintendent who was put into place hurriedly upon the firing of our former superintendent Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. It happened literally overnight. There has been no vetting of the interim superintendent and many parents and teachers want the opportunity to ensure that we have the right person in the critical role of determining how our children are educated.

I would suggest that if you as a parent, student, teacher or concerned citizen want to have a say in the process of selecting the right person for the role of superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, this is the time to contact the school board members and provide them with your thoughts and concerns.

To follow is a letter from a Parents Across America member and Seattle Public School teacher written to the school board:

Dear school board members:

I am writing to urge you to do your due diligence and move forward with a superintendent search. We need the best candidate for the job and the potential candidate pool should be as deep and wide as our teaching candidate pool. I do not think it an unnecessary expense to conduct a search. We are at a crucial junction in SPS with the state legislature threatening more cuts, potential charter school legislation, and a district that has made progress but still has many struggling students. If Dr. Enfield can make it through a competitive search then great, and if she is unwilling to go through that process then perhaps she is not as committed to our district as she says she is. I have heard and read comments that by having a search it is an insult to the work that Dr. Enfield has done, but I say that by conducting a search we are following the protocol that is in place for hiring within Seattle Public Schools. If you are hired as a long term substitute for a job that then comes open you must still apply for that job and go through the competitive hiring process. A job as important as the superintendent should not require any less of a process. I urge you to conduct a superintendent search to ensure that we have the best leader possible for Seattle Public Schools.

Respectfully,

India K.A. Carlson

parent and teacher for SPS

And now a letter from a representative of SEE:

On behalf of Social Equality Educators (SEE)we urge the School Board of Seattle Public Schools to initiate a search for a permanent Superintendent to lead our school district forward. The previous board promised that after a year of stabilization under an interim, a search would be initiated. To break that understanding would be wrong. We are aware of the tremendous pressure being directed at the Board by the small but monied business interests represented by the Alliance for Education, Stand for Children, the League of Education Voters, and, behind all of them, the Gates Foundation. We remind the Board that while these interests have the money to employ full-time operatives to pester the Board with emails, phone calls, and personal contacts, they are UNELECTED. They represent only a small constituency and the Board has other constituencies to whom it owes some small consideration: communities, parents, students, and teachers.

We also want the Board to understand that although you have heard one glowing opinion about the interim Superintendent from SEA leaders, this is only a personal opinion and does NOT represent the majority of SEA on this matter. Tomorrow, the SEA Representative Assembly will deliberate and vote on 3 different motions put forward by different teacher constituencies (not just us) to urge a search. Only then, we believe, will you get a decision that fairly represents the majority teacher opinion on this matter.

Eric Muhs

Contact information for your school board members:

schoolboard@seattleschools.org

sharon.peaslee@seattleschools.org

sherry.carr@seattleschools.org

harium.martin-morris@seattleschools.org

michael.debell@seattleschools.org

kay.smith-blum@seattleschools.org

martha.mclaren@seattleschools.org

betty.patu@seattleschools.org