What the "Free" Means in Free (Charter) School

I am beginning to think "free" school is a better descriptor than charter school.  For Brits looking at the American model for inspiration, "free" most often means

free to collect public dollars without public oversight, 

free from democratic governance, 

free to not admit special ed or ELL children, 

free to push out low scorers or those who challenge the totalitarian regimen, 

free to not offer children libraries or gyms or lunch rooms or school nurses or art facilities, 

free to hire and fire at will with no due process rights for teachers, 

free to pay CEO principals 4 to 5 times as much as public school principals, 

free to set up penal pedagogy systems that middle class parents would never allow for their children, 

free to offer the lowest cognitive levels of test prep curriculum, 

free to hire teachers who aren't certified or qualified, 

free to ignore accounting rules that public schools must abide by, 

free to engage in open nepotism and preferential treatment of employees, and 

free to thumb their noses at citizen requests for openness and transparency.

Here's proof that the Brits have learned something from the American and Swedish experiences with "free:"

Posted by Mehdi Hasan - 03 November 2010 13:01

Don't buy the hype from Michael Gove - or Arne Duncan. 

Arne Duncan, Obama's education secretary and the man who invited the US military to run local schools during his controversial tenure as chief executive of the Chicago state school system, is in London visiting our very own Michael Gove. The latter, of course, has been ultra-keen to push his agenda of academies and "free schools" since taking office in May, and has become fond of citing the Obama administration's support for so-called charter schools. (Interestingly, on a side note, Gove and the Tories have very little to say about Obama's position on deficit reduction, which is closer to the Labour Party's view than the coalition's).
From the Guardian:

Gove said: "America is a bigger country and there are differences between us, but I have been impressed by what Race to the Top has done, and impressed by many of the things that President Obama and Arne Duncan have been fighting for."

It's worth noting the cynicism, however, of Gove's approach. At first, the Education Secretary championed free schools by pointing to the supposed successes of the Swedish version, which is said to have been the original inspiration for the Tories' education reforms. But, as emprical evidence emerged over the summer that challenged the Swedish model, Gove and his outriders began pointing instead to America's experiment with charter schools. Hence today's visit by Duncan to the UK.

As the Americans reject the Obama administration, the coalition embraces one of its worst ideas. Peer-reviewed academic research suggests charter schools ain't as good as their well-funded and high-profile advocates make them out to be. Here's what the CREDO National Charter Schools Study at Stanford University discovered last year:

While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter schools demonstrating no significant difference.

Hmm.

It's also worth bearing in mind the view of Diane Ravitch, a leading historian of the US education system, former assistant secretary of education in the administration of George H.W. Bush and one-time supporter of "school choice". Writing for the Wall St Journal in March, in a piece entitled "Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform", Ravitch observed:

Charter evaluations frequently note that as compared to neighboring public schools, charters enroll smaller proportions of students whose English is limited and students with disabilities. The students who are hardest to educate are left to regular public schools, which makes comparisons between the two sectors unfair. The higher graduation rate posted by charters often reflects the fact that they are able to "counsel out" the lowest performing students; many charters have very high attrition rates (in some, 50%-60% of those who start fall away). Those who survive do well, but this is not a model for public education, which must educate all children.

So please don't buy the hype about charter schools - not from our Education Secretary or, for that matter, Obama's.

UPDATE:
If you're looking for more information on US charter schools then I highly recommend the website, Charter School Scandals. My favourite story from that site is the Denver charter school which "broke a new state law by offering families $400 worth of gift cards if they brought new students to the school before the day the state takes a student census" because "state money follows students into the classroom -- an average of about $6,600 per pupil across Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Education."

Book reading: No decline over the last 65 years.

Book reading: No decline over the last 65 years.

Sent to the Washington Post, Nov 1

It is quite true that "Teens haven't shelved reading for pleasure," (Oct. 31). In fact, there's been no decline in book reading over the last 65 years. The Kaiser study described in the Post article reported that 15-18 year olds averaged 21 minutes a day of book reading. Back in 1946, Link and Hopf, in their book People and Books, reported that those ages 15 to 19 averaged 22 minutes a day of book reading.

Book reading is doing very well, despite increased school pressure today and so much competition from various new kinds of electronic entertainment.

Stephen Krashen

Original article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103103673.html?nav=emailpage

Update: KIPP Fresno Principal in Brooklyn

From the NY Post:

School big 'bullies' kids
By LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT and YOAV GONEN
Last Updated: 11:25 AM, November 1, 2010
Posted: 1:29 AM, November 1, 2010 

A Brooklyn charter school administrator who gave up his old gig in California amid charges that he had been physically and emotionally abusive to students is at it again, fed-up parents told The Post.

Just over a year into Chi Tschang's role as assistant superintendent of middle schools for the Achievement First charter school network in Brooklyn, a student’s mother said he aggressively grabbed an 11-year-old boy he was kicking out of class last month.

READ THE CALIFORNIA REPORT

"[Tschang’s] not supposed to do that," said the AF Crown Heights mom, who asked to be identified only as Lorna. "He’s supposed to speak with his mouth, not grab him."

Several other parents at the Crown Heights school questioned Achievement First’s judgment in hiring an educator who resigned as head of KIPP Fresno, part of the Knowledge Is Power Program charter network, in February 2009 after an investigation into his disciplinary practices.

Achievement First officials, who have fielded complaints about their strict discipline in the past, stood by Tschang, despite the ruckus raised earlier this year when he took a misbehaving Crown Heights student home in his car.

That incident prompted the network’s co-CEO, Doug McCurry, to write parents a six-page letter in May that qualified Tschang’s move as a misunderstanding of school policy.

The letter also said Achievement First’s review of Fresno’s investigation found it to be factually inaccurate, "bogus" and conducted by a district that was biased against charter schools.

"During his entire tenure in Fresno, Mr. Tschang never hurt a single child," Dacia Toll, co-CEO of the Achievement First network, told The Post. "In fact, he was beloved by the students and parents at his school, so much so that hundreds of them took to the streets to protest his resignation."

[Continued here]

More on the KIPP Fresno story here.

DC Parents and Teachers: Today Is the Last Day (of Rhee) for the Rest of Your Life

The poster girl for militant corporatism in education is clocking out for the last time this afternoon at DC Schools.  It signifies the playing out of the most healthy repudiation of bare-knuckled, anti-public management by those whose confidence and cluelessness are equally matched and whose patronizing and condescending attitudes toward parents and teachers have finally been justly rewarded by the public. 

A clip from Bill Turque, whose negative assessment of the Rhee Reign  comes near the end of his piece in WaPo:

. . . . But there is a fragility to the changes Rhee has wrought. Elementary reading and math scores dipped in 2010 after two years of gains. Testing data also show that efforts to narrow the achievement gap separating white and African American students stalled this year. Many schools remain deeply troubled; 12 percent of sophomores at Spingarn High School in Northeast Washington are proficient in math, 17 percent in reading. At Johnson Middle School in Southeast, 14 percent of the students are proficient in reading and 14 percent in math.

Enrollment, another success story, also comes with questions. It's not clear whether the gains, mostly at the preschool and pre-kindergarten levels, mean that the system is actually capturing a larger proportion of school-age children or merely benefiting from mini-baby booms in some D.C. neighborhoods.

Miguel Rosario, who is a parent at Watkins Elementary on Capitol Hill but lives in Ward 8, said schools in his neighborhood have felt the churn of Rhee's changes but received little benefit. "Principal after principal, security company after security company, a little touch-up paint, but the bathrooms are still the same. The children are not being educated," he said.

The changes also came, as Rhee now acknowledges, without a successful attempt to build a base of support that gave residents ownership of the changes.

"We made a ton of mistakes," she said Thursday. "I thought, very naively, that if we just put our heads down and we worked hard and produced the results, people would be so happy that they would want to continue the work. We were absolutely incorrect about that."

Other stakeholders said they appreciated Rhee's attempts at reaching out. "I think she tried to engage the parents," said Lisa Barton, former PTA president at Ballou Senior High School, from which her daughter graduated last spring. "I would have liked her to stay. I felt like she was doing something good."

Rhee's difficulties were compounded by questionable management and maladroit sense of public relations, embodied most notoriously in her broom-wielding Time magazine cover of December 2008.

A week after a triumphal announcement of a breakthrough contract last April, she touched off a furor that nearly scuttled the deal, first by disclosing that she discovered a $34 million surplus in the school system budget earlier in the year - just four months after laying off 266 teachers for budgetary reasons. That led to a lengthy public scuffle over how to pay for the pact with D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, who said no such surplus existed.. . .

Indiana SBOE: Pushing the Privatization Fast Track

From the Journal Gazette:

School takeover outline

In a breathtaking assault on local school control, the GOP-controlled State Board of Education is set to adopt rules the day after Election Day that could hand operation of struggling schools to for-profit companies. Local taxpayers who footed the bill could find their investments handed over to charter operators with none of the accountability required of locally elected school boards.

...

The proposed rules formalize procedures, with a clear emphasis on turning operation of the struggling schools to an “outside manager.” The individual or organization selected by the State Board of Education would have the same authority and exemptions as a charter school. Indiana charter schools, however, are exempt from the consequences of the state accountability law. The outside manager has no deadline for improving school performance and seemingly could operate it permanently.

“There is no data supporting improvement or gains that outpace public schools when turned over to for-profit entities,” said Steve Brace, executive director of the Fort Wayne Education Association, the union representing FWCS teachers. “One only has to look at local charters to observe the evidence. The agenda set out by the state superintendent is clear. I pray the public truly understands the consequences when local control is taken from them.”

...

Voters unhappy with decisions made by their local school board can throw out board members when they stand for re-election. They won’t have the same recourse with a charter school operator empowered by a State Board of Education and Department of Education seemingly intent on privatizing schools.

Responses to Bonnie Reiss, Calif Sec of Education

Bonnie Reiss, California Secretary of Education, published a commentary in the Sacramento Bee, reproduced below.

Here are two letters published in the Sacramento Bee on Oct. 29, responding to Ms. Reiss' commentary:

Re: ("To fix our schools …," Oct 27)

It is offensive that people continue to attack teachers (and unions… aka... teachers collectively) for the issues in education. In addition to being a teacher, I am actively involved in my teachers’ union. Let me share some information with those who don’t seem to “get it.”

Unions are made up of teachers. We are the ones that are in the classrooms doing the work everyday. Teachers are not wealthy business people that have a stake in seeing education fail. In fact, we care about children and choose to work with them to help them succeed.

Teacher effectiveness is hotly debated. Value-added is the cry for some. However, studies show that value-added ratings are unstable. The ratings based on one year are weak predictors of value-added ratings the next year.

Reforming education requires asking help from teachers. Ask us how we know when students are learning. Ask us how we know when they don’t and what we do to support them.

You want to know how to evaluate effective teachers? Ask us how we evaluate ourselves.

Shannon Brown

Sacramento

Bonnie Reiss ("To fix our schools …," Oct 27) thinks that American schools have fallen behind schools in other countries.

The basis for this statement is our low scores on international tests when compared to other countries. Our scores, however, are only low because we have such a high percentage of children in poverty, compared to other countries that participate in international tests. When we consider only middle-class children who attend well-funded schools, our math scores are near the top of the world.

Our overall scores look low because the US has the highest percentage of children in poverty of all industrialized countries (well over 20%, compared to Denmark's 3%).

Our educational system is not "broken," as Ms. Reiss claims. The problem is poverty.

Stephen Krashen

Viewpoints: To fix our schools, unions must let go of status quo

Special to The Bee, OCT. 27, 2010

Bonnie Reiss (California Secretary of Education)

The New York City Department of Education's stunning announcement that it intends to release teacher ratings based on student test scores and academic achievement is the latest example of a growing national movement to fix our country's broken public education system.

Despite legal action from the teachers union, these school leaders in New York are standing strong in their commitment to release this crucial information.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and an inspiring group of reform-driven superintendents representing more than 1 million students here in California pushed this movement forward with our state's Race to the Top proposal and legislation to make student academic growth a factor in teacher evaluations. This work continues, mainly through the courage and determination of these districts.

Parents, business leaders, civil rights groups and many teachers have reached their breaking point in hearing the continued excuses of national and state teacher unions that use their power to fight for the status quo and block significant reforms to our broken system.

Our public education system is flawed today. It does not hold the adults who care for our children accountable; it does not allow teacher evaluations based on whether students are being given the tools to succeed; it does not allow for differential pay for teachers serving in our most challenging schools, and it gives lifetime tenure usually after two to three years – making it nearly impossible to lay off ineffective teachers.

The superb documentary "Waiting for 'Superman' " shows how remarkably difficult it is for school districts to dismiss ineffective teachers. We see how one in 67 doctors lose their medical license, one in 37 lawyers lose their accreditation and one in 2,500 teachers lose their position. In California, a teacher can receive tenure after two years – no other profession provides that kind of job security. "Waiting for 'Superman' " reminds us of two truths – most teachers are good and many are great, even heroic, but the teachers unions are the enemy of reform and work to protect the status quo at every turn.

Fixing K-12 public education in America and in California is the civil rights issue of our day. As our country has doubled the amount we spend per pupil in the last few decades, our students' achievement in English, math and science has remained flat, and our poor and minority children continue to lag behind. As a result, our country has fallen behind every other major country on our planet.

Funding our schools is important; however, we must make sure to keep our focus on fixing our broken system so that funding goes to the classroom and supports a system that is based on the accountability and effectiveness of the adults in this system – the teachers, principals and administrators who serve our students.

The publishing of teacher ratings by the Los Angeles Times, and now soon the New York City Department of Education, will hopefully mark a historic turning point for our state and our nation in our quest to fix our public school system.

In California, let us continue to choose the courageous reforms that are best for our students over the status quo of the system.

Note from SK: Secretary Reiss' background (sources: Huffpost, Miliken Institute)

* Operating advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors, a private equity firm committed to investing in and developing scarce resources, commodities and sustainable companies.

* Secretary Reiss experience includes careers as an entertainment lawyer, accountant, producer and writer from 1981 to 1988.

* … was president of the Earth Communications Office, promoting environmental causes, and practiced entertainment and public policy law. She serves on the boards of the after-school program Arnold's All-Stars, The California Dream Team and Maria Shriver's California Conference on Women and Family. Reiss received a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Miami and a law degree from Antioch Law School.

Lancet Critiques Gates Foundation Again

The Lancet, a UK medical journal, recently released a series of papers on malaria elimination.  The Gates Foundation has been very active in the field, and The Lancet has questioned and criticized the foundation in the past.  Here's their most recent dig at the foundation:

The danger of the Gates call for a new era of elimination is that their immense funding power and influence (witness WHO's instant support) could cause damaging swings in funding and political priorities. As Robert Snow and colleagues have reported, funding for malaria control is falling well behind what it needs to be. Good intentions could cause adverse and unanticipated harms.

 Similar concerns could be raised regarding the foundation's role in K-12 public education.

The Corporate School to Corporate Prison Pipeline

Arizona is second only to California in the number of corporate charter schools and first in per capita enrollment.  Now with help from the private prison industry lawyers and lobbyists in passing Arizona's "show me your papers" law,  the state is vying to become #1 in corporate prison population. No, this is not a joke.

A brief clip from an in-depth investigative piece from NPR:

. . . . The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.

When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.

Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry. . . .

Legacy Admissions to Manhattan Preschools

That's right--preferential admissions is not just for the Ivy Leagues, anymore.  Those trying to get 4 year-old Winthrop and Emily into exclusive Upper East Side preschools that do business with the Eugenics Records Office Educational Records Bureau sometimes get second chances, even though ERB offers a one-time-only intelligence test (most of the time).  It depends upon, well, certain connections with and commitments to the school, you understand. 

From the NYTimes:

Parents of preschoolers who are applying to New York’s top private schools are now coming face to face with the test universally known as the E.R.B., a nerve-racking intelligence exam made more so because there is no do-over if the child has a bad day.

But for a select few students who do not score well, there is something of a second chance. Admissions consultants, preschools and some private schools acknowledge that a small number of children every year are permitted to undergo another round of intelligence testing to supplement their results on the E.R.B., which stands for the Educational Records Bureau, the organization that administers the test.

The practice is not publicized on schools’ Web sites, and the psychologists who offer the service do not openly advertise it. Nor is it entirely clear what qualifies a child for another test, although those who are children of alumni or have a sibling already at a school are most frequently granted the option, according to consultants and schools.

“It is a suggestion that we sometimes make to those whom are part of our community and are looking for advice,” said Margaret Metz, the director of admissions at the Nightingale-Bamford School on the Upper East Side. Those families are not getting preferential treatment, she said, but simply have access to the school staff that other families do not.

“We would be out of line to extend that kind of advice to a family we don’t know,” she said. . . . .

Do read on!

Boston's Charterizers on the Prowl, Pushing for Closure of Public Schools

Boston's corporate education deform movement has been a study in contrasts to the fuming, snarling Michelle Rhee of DC fame and others of the public education bombardier wing.  The bombers of Boston act with the restraint of Harvard dons in contrast to Rhee and, let's say, the super-sized governor of New Jersey.  Maybe it's because there are, indeed, Harvard dons among them, like master chef of voucher research, Paul Peterson, who is apparently training a new generation of ideologues like himself who can abuse the reputation of a great university to push for the demolition of all things public.  Of course, Peterson is not the only academic turned corporate pawn among the edupreneurs and corporate welfare ditto heads who take orders from the big time oligarchs running the Billionaire Boys' Club.

For Boston's"creative destruction" disruptors, the game is subterfuge, influence peddling, and stealth bombing of the public schools and the teaching profession, when compared to open warfare that has been waged in Chicago and Detroit and New York.  So it must come as a rude and embarrassing shock to see hundreds of parents and teachers and students openly and loudly trying to save their public schools, none of which are on the state's Worst list, from being turned into segregated charter properties to benefit the Eli Broads of the Commonwealth.

From WBUR:

BOSTON — Hundreds of parents and teachers turned out Tuesday night to protest a Boston Public Schools plan to close or merge eight schools.

The district says the cuts are necessary because of an expected $50 million shortfall next year. There are also as many as 5,000 unfilled school seats because so many kids have transferred to charter schools.

WBUR’s Monica Brady-Myerov joined Morning Edition Wednesday to break down the meeting.

Bob Oakes: What was the mood like at the meeting?
Monica Brady-Myerov: It was loud and angry. Before the meeting started, a crowd was chanting, “Save our schools.” This chanting went on for about 20 minutes. Several hundred parents — some with their children — and teachers came with signs and T-shirts. When the meeting started, they charged the stage as school committee members started to take their seats. Boston school police had to get in front of the stage to keep them away.
This shows how hard it is for any district to close a school because every single one of the schools had a representative there Tuesday night, and they’re fighting this.

What has the school committee told these parents about why their schools need to close or merge?
Tuesday night was a hearing, so the committee members didn’t speak, but in previous communications they’ve told parents their top priority is giving students access to stronger programs. And the schools they want to close just aren’t good enough. So the district is citing MCAS scores or the high-school dropout rate to explain why each school should close, but I should note that none of the schools selected by the district are on the state’s “under-performing” list; they’re not in turnaround status. So there are many schools that are doing much worse in the district and they’ll stay open.

What did the teachers, parents and students tell the school committee?
They each had very personal stories, but the message was the same — these schools are being misrepresented by the district as under-performing as an excuse to be shut down. Kenny Jervis, a parent at Roger Clap Elementary School, says he was taken by surprise when he learned his child’s school would close:

Never before have us as parents, our administrators or those children been told they were an under-performing school. We find we had a bad year. Many people, many things, many teams have bad years. The answer is not closing.

Parents also said they learned about these closures through a notice sent home in their kids’ backpacks in early October, and the note said there’d be a meeting that night. They say it’s just all happening too quickly and it’s not fair.

So, what are they asking for now? And are the committee and officials listening?
The parents want the process to start over. The school committee is scheduled to vote on this plan next week and they say the schools would close by the end of this year. And Tuesday night they didn’t say anything about it, so they say they’re listening, but they’re voting in a week. So it’s unclear how much they heard is going to affect their vote.
Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, spoke for teachers:

To close these schools primarily because they are small, or because they want to reuse their buildings or give them to a charter school, is a disservice to all of us who care about good schools, and it will only drive more people away from our schools, especially those schools that work.

Superintendent Carol Johnson shows she is listening to some people because she changed one of the plans Tuesday night: She said the district would not close the Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH School) in the Hyde Park complex. They didn’t give a reason why, but the school officials believe it’s because they refuted the district’s numbers and showed that they do have high MCAS scores. So they’ve shown a willingness to change their minds, but the vote is next week.

So there’s no indication at this moment that they’re not going to ram this thing through?
That’s right.