RSS

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Jan Resseger: How the Federal Charter School Program Defunds Public Schools and Cheats Taxpayers

02 May

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Jan Resseger has another brilliant article about the charter school strategy of privatization paid for by federal funding. 

Betsy DeVos wants to cut most of the programs in the Department of Education but has asked for an increase of charter school funding, from $440 million to $500 million a year. This year she used that funding to give $82 million to KIPP and $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, which is known for high attrition rates.

She cites an article by Jeff Bryant, a co-author of the NPE study of the federal Charter School Program, which concluded that about one of three charter schools funded by the federal government never opens or closes soon after opening. In some states, the failed charters were even more than 1/3.

In Michigan, 42 percent of the federal dollars granted by CSP were wasted on schools that never opened or subsequently closed. The…

View original post 558 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 2, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

A Message for Hoppy Kercheval in West Virginia

30 Apr

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Hi, Hoppy,

A friend sent me the column you wrote about the stalemate in West Virginia over school choice. 

I would like to help you out.

The first thing you should know is that charter schools are NOT public schools. They call themselves public schools to get public money, but that doesn’t make them public schools. Might as well call Princeton University a public college or Boeing a public utility just because they get public money. Charter schools are private contractors with private boards of trustees that do not hold public meetings. Public schools have an elected school board or a board composed of people appointed by an elected official.

As this study shows, when charter schools open, the money to pay for them is deducted from public schools. The public schools lose not only the tuition for each student, but are left with “stranded costs.” If 10% of…

View original post 432 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 30, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

Bernie Sanders Has a Better Statement on Education than Before

23 Apr

Finally, a presidential candidate speaking up for the schools and teachers of the nation instead of demonizing them. Is this a first?

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Bernie Sanders’ website has a better statement on the importance of investing public education and teachers than any other Democratic candidate so far:

Today, more than 60 years after the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision ending legal segregation in our public schools, and 50 years after President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law, poor and minority students are still not afforded the same education as their wealthier, and often whiter counterparts. This is not only unjust and immoral, it endangers our democracy.

I’m running for president to restore the promise that every child, regardless of his or her background, has a right to a high-quality public education.

Growing inequality is both the cause and the effect of our nation’s desperately underfunded public school system. Many public schools are severely racially segregated—in some parts of the country, worse than before the Brown decision. With funding…

View original post 412 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 23, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

Donald Trump is Defined by Joseph Goebbels Playbook

20 Apr

Lloyd Lofthouse's avatarLloyd's Anything Blog

It is obvious to me why MAGA Man Donald Trump, Moscow’s Agent Governing America, and his pet minion AG Barr released the Muller report the way they did.  It was to give them the advantage in a dangerous game of manipulation and subversion.

Most if not all professional K-12 teachers will tell us that it is important for the teacher to be the first contact with parents/guardians after their child gets in trouble at school.  If the child reaches them first with his/her version of what happened, then the odds tend to favor the parent/guardian will believe the child or at least lean their support toward the child instead of the teacher no matter what the facts were.

This is what AG Barr did when he alleged (and deliberately misled): “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the Special Counsel confirmed…

View original post 441 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

Jan Resseger: Time to Close Down the Federal Charter Schools Program

20 Apr

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been awarded to schools that never opened or that were shut down: “We found that it is likely that as many as one third of all charter schools receiving CSP grants never opened, or opened and shut down.”

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Jan Resseger is a voice of moral clarity in a time of moral turpitude.she reflected on the NPE report “Asleep At the Wheel,” about the slipshod, failed federal program to pump money into the charter industry and concluded the program should be terminated, with the money transferred to high-needs schools. 

She writes:

“The Network for Public Education published its scathing report on the federal Charter Schools Program three weeks ago, but as time passes, I continue to reflect on its conclusions. The report, Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride, is packed with details about failed or closed or never-opened charter schools.  The Network for Public Education depicts a program driven by neoliberal politicians hoping to spark innovation in a marketplace of unregulated startups underwritten by the federal government. The record of this 25 year federal program is…

View original post 474 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

California: East L.A. Community Defeats “Mega-KIPP” Plan, Plus the Identity of the Culprit Who Weaponized State Law

13 Apr

Discover what it takes to defeat the seven-headed Hydra corporate charter school industry and Reed Hastings one of its leading vampires.

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Bill Raden of the California progressive website Capital & Main is one of the state’s best education writers.

In the latest issue, he brings good news about the victory of David over Goliath, plus an important insight into the rigging of the state law by Netflix billionaire Reed Hastings.

First, the good news:

“In a David vs. Goliath win, a coalition of East L.A. families, teachers and community groups announced last week that the City of L.A. has pulled the plug on a new “mega-KIPP” charter school development. The project was part of a $1 billion joint venture between former tennis star-turned charter school landlord Andre Agassi and money manager Bobby Turner to develop up to 130 charter properties across the country. The Boyle Heights community had been battling the 625-student facility since it was unveiled in the fall of 2017 and had filed suit against the…

View original post 306 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 13, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

California: How Did Charters Gain Control Of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force to Reform Charter Law?

02 Apr

In Californa, corporate charter schools are parasites, a terminal cancer killing public education, and Governor Newsom is allegedly helping the corporate charter industry cover up its own crimes.

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Bill Raden of Capital & Main presents us with this puzzle: how did it happen that seven of the 11 members of Gavin Newsom’s Task Force in charter school reform are part of the charter industry? 

The Fox is in charge of the henhouse.

Since the Task Force is supposed to examine the fiscal impact of charters on public schools, why is the industry judging itself?

Shouldn’t the Task Force have been composed of public finance experts and others who are not tied to the industry?

Or, if the Task Force was supposed to be representative, shouldn’t the majority represent the almost 90% of families whose children attend public schools, not the 10% in charters?

Why are two members drawn directly from the lobby for the charter industry?

This Task Force is a blatant example of “capture” by the industry. It is akin to the tobacco industry taking control of…

View original post 235 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 2, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

Charter Schools: A Very Horrible, Terrible, Awful Week

30 Mar

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

This has been possibly the very worst week in the history of charter schools, which have existed for almost 30 years. It is fitting that this week coincided with Public Schools Week, reminding us of the importance of public schools, which are democratically governed, open to all who apply, and accountable, financially and academically, to the public.

Consider the trajectory of the charter idea.

What began as in idealistic proposal–experimental schools-within-schools, created and operated by teachers with the approval of their colleagues and local school board, intended to reach out and help the struggling and turned-off students—has turned into a libertarian’s dream of deregulated, even unregulated industry replete with corporate chains, entrepreneurs, billionaire backers, highly segregated schools, and a battering ram against collective bargaining.

Charter schools in the initial version were supposed to collaborate with public schools to make them better or to learn from failed experiments. That was charter…

View original post 278 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 30, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

The Greatest Generation

29 Mar

Lloyd Lofthouse's avatarLloyd's Anything Blog

My parents were teenagers during Greed’s Great Depression

They were 14

Forced to drop out of high school to find jobs with unemployment at twenty-five percent

Working long days for pennies

There was never enough
food
safe water
clothing
shelter

Malnutrition was a widespread problem

Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor killing 2,403 Americans and wounding 1,143

It was murder, and the gods of greed rejoiced

And for America’s young adults, it was an opportunity not to be ignored

The Greatest Generation left unemployment, homelessness, and hunger behind to join the chaos of war

When the war ended, 416,800 U.S. troops had been killed and another 671,801 were wounded

To mold the survivors of the Great Depression and World War II into America’s Greatest Generation only cost the world the lives of 70-to-85 million civilians and military

Is Making America Great Again worth that price?

© 2019 Lloyd Lofthouse

_______________________

Lloyd…

View original post 63 more words

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 29, 2019 in Uncategorized

 

California: An Alert for Supporters of Public Schools!

24 Mar

Help save California’s public schools from the corrupt corporate charter school vampires.

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

A reader in California asks for help to fix one of the charter reform bill that has a big loophole.

He writes:

“Thank you for all you do for public education. In California right now are 4 assembly Bills – AB-1505 – AB-1508.

“AB-1508 in particular is intended to enable local school districts to consider the financial, program and facilities impacts when approving/denying new charter petitions. This leaves a huge gap for districts to have a say in renewing charters that were imposed on the districts by the California State Board of Education despite denial at the local and county levels.

“Would you be able to alert your readers in California to contact the bill’s authors before it goes to the floor for a vote to add language to AB-1508 to apply to charter renewals as well as new petitions?

“If enough Californians can respond, we may be able to…

View original post 39 more words

 
2 Comments

Posted by on March 24, 2019 in Uncategorized

 
← Older posts
Newer posts →