Tainted Paint in the PISA Picture?

If you thought that Bloomberg was the favorite to win the latest Totalitarian Capitalist Award for test score engineering, you would be wrong.  This year it must go to China, whose preposterously amazing first year test scores on PISA demonstrates, hands down, that the Chinese government's totalitarian capitalists are light years ahead in test cheating:

. . . .The scores are based on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of the students score between 400 and 600. In math, for example, students from Shanghai scored an average of 600. . . .

Hmm.  Of course, China has an insurmountable advantage based on a 1,200 year history of perfecting cheating on civil service exams, which guaranteed throughout history as PISA scores do now whether your family would/will thrive or dive.

We have a long way to go to catch up with the precocious Chinese government/business, whose entrepreneurial spirit has led to innovations in toxic tooth paste with anti-freeze (yum), drywall ingeniously chocked with poisonous dirt, powdered milk fortified with melamine for an extra protein boost, cheap counterfeits of every high-end consumer item, and of course those brightly-painted (with lead) toys and most recently those popular children's drinking glasses used in luring customers into fast food franchises.

The Chinese test scores have led President Obama to have a Sputnik Moment and Arne Duncan to drop everything to schedule face time for his pasty visage on every news channel to announce this new disaster and new tests, along with new strangulation methods for teachers and their unions.

And so we must bring forth Dr. Bracey once more to remind all of us of how the fear factory is as American as apple pie (are those Chinese apples?)

From Huffington Post:

On the evening of October 4, 1957, at a party at the Soviet Embassy, Russian and American scientists celebrated "the greatest scientific research program ever undertaken," the International Geophysical Year. As part of the IGY, both Russia and the U. S. were expected to orbit space vehicles. Everyone anticipated the U. S. would do it first and its Vanguard program called for orbital liftoff in November, 1957. About 6 p.m. word came that a Soviet R-7 rocket had pushed a satellite, Sputnik, into orbit.

According to journalist, Paul Dickson, "The scientists and engineers assembled at the embassy party were thrilled. Cheers rang out. Within minutes, one of the most impenetrable buildings in Washington was putting out the welcome mat to reporters...Vodka flowed."

President Eisenhower was pleased. He wanted a system of spy satellites to monitor soviet military activity and forewarn of a surprise attack. But overflights of a sovereign nation were forbidden and no precedent existed that declared deep space to be international. Sputnik established that precedent. "We were certain," Eisenhower wrote later, "that we could get a great deal more information of all kinds out of the free use of space than they could."

Not everyone was happy. Comparisons to Pearl Harbor abounded. "Soon they'll be dropping bombs on us the way school boys drop rocks from freeway overpasses" said Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson. "Control of the very heavens was at stake" was the way writer Tom Wolfe put it.

Ex-Nazi rocket genius, Wernher von Braun, now the lead scientist of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, was furious. At the time of Sputnik's launch, Defense Secretary designate, Neil McElroy, was touring von Braun's operation in Huntsville, Alabama. Von Braun, usually cool and politically savvy, lost it: "We knew they were going to do it!" he yelled at McElroy. "Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the shelf. For God's sake, turn us loose and let us do something!

Von Braun did have the hardware on the shelf. On September 20, 1956, over a year before Sputnik, his group had launched a 4-stage Jupiter-C rocket from Cape Canaveral. The first three stages attained a speed of 13,000 miles an hour, a height of 862 miles and a distance down range of 3550 miles. The fourth stage could have easily slipped a satellite into orbit. But the fourth stage was filled with sand.
As the means to establish deep space as open, the Jupiter-C carried extra baggage: it was developed from and looked a lot like von Braun's infamous V-2, the supersonic explosives-carrying rocket that had terrified England in the late stages of World War II. The Jupiter-C, part of the Army's intercontinental ballistic missile program, was obviously first and foremost a weapon. Vanguard's smaller rockets and smaller payloads would be seen as instruments of research and hence had the green light to orbit first. But Vanguard would not see success until spring 1958 and its post-Sputnik failures generated headlines like "Dudnik," Flopnik" and "Kaputnik."

How could a technologically backward country like Russia beat the acknowledged world leader into space? Did they have spies? Maybe. Some speculated that our hyper-materialism had left us more interested in developing color television and the princess phone than space-conquering vehicles. Such theories quickly disappeared in favor of another: The Russians beat us into space because they had better schools.

In late 1956, U. S. News & World Report ran an interview with historian Arthur Bestor, author of Educational Wastelands: The Retreat From Learning in Public Schools, under the headline, "We Are Less Educated now than 50 Years Ago?" Shortly after Sputnik, the magazine brought him back to explain "What Went Wrong With U.S. Schools." Mostly the fault rested with the misguided spin-off from progressive education known as "life-adjustment education." "In the light of Sputnik," said Bestor, "'life adjustment education' turns out to have been perilously close to 'death adjustment' for our nation and our children." Life-adjustment education wastes time on trivialities. "That's why the first satellite bears the label, 'Made in Russia.'"

This was absurd. Life adjustment education was invented in 1945. A 9th-grader in 1945 would have been at most two years out of engineering school in 1957, hardly of an age to lead rocket development. Von Braun, a unique prodigy involved in rocketry since he was 17, was 45.

Still, pictorial proof of Russian student supremacy arrived in March, 1958 in the form of a five-part series in Life. The cover of the first installment read "Crisis in Education" in red letters on a black background. In photos, stern-faced Alexei Kutzkov looked at the reader from Moscow while easy-smiling Stephen Lapekas gazed out from Chicago. Inside photos showed Alexei doing complicated experiments in physics and chemistry and reading aloud from Sister Carrie.

Stephen, by contrast, retreated from a geometry problem on the blackboard and the caption advised, "Stephen amused class with wisecracks about his ineptitude." Seated at a typewriter in typing class, Stephen tells us "I type about one word a minute."

The schools never recovered from Sputnik. Sputnik wounded their reputation and as the scab formed, something else always came along to re-open the lesion: In the 1960s schools were blamed for the urban riots (but not credited for putting a man on the moon). In the 1980s, " A Nation At Risk" blamed them for allowing the Germans, South Koreans, and Japanese to race ahead of us competitively (but not credited for the longest sustained economic expansion in the nation's history which followed)
And today? Tough Choices or Tough Times warns of oncoming economic disaster. Leaders and Laggards, ditto. Eli Broad and Bill Gates have ponied up $60 million to "wake up the American people" (Broad is 73 years old. Has he been asleep all this time?). So far, billionaire hedge fund investors are taking the heat for today's sub-prime mortgage debacle. But if by the time you read this, two months after it was written, the catastrophe has rippled through the economy and produced a true recession, don't be surprised to see it being laid at the feet of Horace Mann and John Dewey.

Please sir, more tests!

Arne Duncan's speech at the Foreign Language Summit confirms his commitment to more testing. His idea of improving US attainment in foreign languages is to "allow" them to be tested along with other subjects:

"One of my top priorities for next year is to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I want to underscore that our proposal goes much further than the existing law in supporting a well-rounded curriculum. It will allow states to incorporate assessments of subjects beyond English language arts and math in accountability systems."

From: "Education and the Language Gap: Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks at the Foreign Language Summit," Dec 8.

http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/education-and-language-gap-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-foreign-language-summit

Poverty has a huge impact on American PISA scores

Poverty has a huge impact on American PISA scores

“Two countries with similar levels of prosperity can produce very different results,” Ángel Gurría, the O.E.C.D. secretary general, said in a statement on Tuesday. “This shows that an image of a world divided neatly into rich and well-educated countries and poor and badly educated countries is now out of date.” (New York Times, "Western Nations React to Poor Education Results," Dec. 8).

I have not yet seen an analysis of the impact of poverty on overall PISA scores (I have sent for the full set of data; they tell me it will come in ten days or so). But data available now tells us that poverty, as usual, had a huge impact on PISA reading test scores for American students. American students in schools with less than 10% of students on free and reduced lunch averaged 551, higher than the overall average of any OECD country. Those in schools with 10 to 25% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch averaged 527, which was behind only Korea and Finland.

In contrast, American students in schools with 75% of more of children in poverty averaged 446, second to last among the 34 OECD countries.

This makes sense. Among other things, high poverty means less access to books at school, at home and in the community (e.g Krashen, 2004, The Power of Reading). Less access means less reading, and less reading means lower performance on tests such as the PISA.

The PISA data can be found on page 15 (table 6) of Highlights From PISA 2009, available on the internet.

Thumbs Up to a Gates Grant*

I would normally scoff at such a headline, but I'd wager that this small grant - $250,000 - has more promise than anything else the Gates Foundation is currently funding.

From WSU Today:

Gates grant helps WSU promote student success
Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010

By Judith Van Dongen
WSU Spokane

SPOKANE - A $250,000 grant awarded to WSU by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will help elementary schools in eastern Washington deal with students affected by trauma, improving their chances of academic success.

The grant, which is part of the foundation’s Pacific Northwest Community Grants program, will fund a project led by the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) of eastern Washington, a unit of WSU Extension. The project will implement a school-based intervention model for students who have experienced multiple stressful disruptions, also referred to as complex trauma.

Adverse events that contribute to complex trauma include homelessness, parents’ divorce or separation, substance abuse by a family member, and witnessing or being exposed to violence, among others.

“Based on results from a survey we conducted among school professionals, we estimate that one in four children in Spokane elementary schools has experienced two or more traumas,” said Christopher Blodgett, director of AHEC and the principal investigator on the project. “We also know that these children are much more likely to fail academically, or experience attendance or other school behavior problems.”

Nationwide, complex trauma affects an estimated 25 to 30 percent of all children, a number that by far exceeds the capacity of the formal social and health services delivery system.

[Continued here]

As someone with experience working with children in a variety of settings, and ample time around children who have experienced a traumatic event, I do believe we can better equip schools to deal with the diverse needs of our kids.  As this article states (although I can't confirm it), 25-30% of children experience complex trauma.  That is a serious number of our children that are dealing with heavy issues at a very young age, and you better believe it impacts the classroom and learning environment.

* - As long as the program isn't evaluated primarily based on test scores.  The inclusion of some quantitative measures is certainly acceptable, of course.

Parent Revolution in California Led by Steve Barr, Gates and Broad's Rottweiler

Back before the reputation of Green Dot Public School, Inc. began to crumble and before parents and students began to see the corporate writing on the walls of their schools and to feel the pepper spray on their skin, Steve Barr was CEO of Green Dot Public Schools, Inc.  There he developed his skills in exploiting poor immigrant parents by shuttling them into noisy astroturf groups for Green Dot, with bankrolling supplied by his patrons, Eli Broad ($10.5 million) and Bill Gates ($7.8 million). 

Now Barr is Chairman of the Board for another astroturf group and oligarch-funded outfit called Parent Revolution, and as you see by the website, it has the same feel as the Waiting for Superman "Get Involved" pages and the same layout as Michelle Rhee's corporate money-laundering outfit recently set up to provide tax breaks for oligarchs buying politicians who will vote to shut down public schools.  Small world.

All of this is significant because Parent Revolution represents a new attempt to undermine the democratic process by oligarchs whose patience has been exhausted by examples of real democratic outbreaks as in DC that threaten corporate ed reform's house of card.  If the morally bankrupt corporate welfare scammers cannot win the public's confidence with their hard-fisted Michelle Rhee tactics, then they will just buy the public--or so it would seem. 

As reported by the NYTimes, the new Gates-Broad strategy is at work in the first public demonstration of a new California "trigger law" to make it possible for 51 percent of parents to pull the plug on an urban public school via a petition.  With Barr pulling the strings of Parent Revolution, we are likely to see more of this kind money-managed mob action to take over public schools in California. 

At least one of the ironies in this sad, though predictable, development among the corporate ed thugsters, is that the parents' choices among the four school turnaround alternatives in Compton, or elsewhere, were derived from a select committee of insiders at Gates's U. S. Dept. of Ed., and none of these turnaround alternatives has ever been voted on by publicly-elected officials, and all of them have zero empirical evidence to support them as better alternatives to the malignantly-neglected public schools.  And thus, a fake democratic action to offer a non-public choice for purchased parents.  From NYTimes:

Organizers of the petition took dozens of parents to other schools run by Celerity, the group that will open the charter school to replace McKinley. Vielka McFarlane, Celerity’s executive director, said it was impossible to know how many of the teachers currently at the school she would hire, though “all of them would, of course, be welcome to apply.”[Note to reporter, J. Medina: your link is to the wrong Celerity.]

And who, pray tell, is Vielka McFarlane?  Well, she has an established history as a charter CEO, and she has earned the oligarchs' trust to culturally sterilize the poor children of L.A., while teaching them to work hard, be nice.  In 2007, she earned her corporate stripes during Black History Month with this racist insult and idiotic rationale for it:

Administrators [Exec. Dir. Vielka McFarlane] at a Los Angeles charter school forbade students from reciting a poem about civil rights icon Emmett Till during a Black History Month program recently, saying his story was unsuitable for an assembly of young children.

. . . .

Teachers and students said the administration suggested that the Till case — in which the teenager was beaten to death in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman — was not fitting for a program intended to be celebratory, and that Till's actions could be viewed as sexual harassment.

"Our whole goal is how do we get these kids to not look at all of the bad things that could happen to them and instead focus on the process of how do we become the next surgeon or the next politician," said Celerity co-founder and Executive Director Vielka McFarlane. "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success, walk proud and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made."

Mr. Obama: "thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NEPC Report on Teacher Quality

Here is a summary of a recent report on teacher assessment from the National Education Policy Center:

Given the experience to date with an overwhelming focus on student achievement scores as a basis for high-stakes decisions, policymakers would do well to pause and carefully examine the issues that make teacher assessment so complex before implementing an assessment plan. To facilitate such examination, this brief reviews credible research exploring: the feasibility of combining formative assessment (a basis for professional growth) and summative assessment (a basis for high-stakes decisions like dismissal); the various tools that might be used to gather evidence of teacher effectiveness; and the various stakeholders who might play a role in a teacher assessment system. It also offers a brief overview of successful exemplars.

The full report is available here.

As you can see in the post below, Krashen takes a different stance on teacher quality and brings up some excellent points.  Poverty is a very real problem in this country (and the world), and the impacts of poverty on learning, health, and happiness are extremely significant.  We should make every attempt to ensure that no child is forced to grow up in poverty, but I don't think that means we should ignore teacher quality entirely.

I find this report to be significant for two reasons.  Firstly, those promoting VAM will often accuse opponents of failing to suggest any alternatives.  This report outlines some very real options, and I think many teachers would actually welcome feedback from peers and principals.  Secondly, I think putting our heads in the sand about teacher quality is a bad move politically, and one of the only ways of avoiding the VAM onslaught is to promote evaluation systems that are actually fair to teachers, provide avenues for growth, and present a legitimate way to strengthen the profession.  As a bonus, the notes and references section at the end of the report provides a great list of resources for further exploration.

Please note: I'm a CERTAINLY NOT jumping on the teacher-bashing bandwagon, donating to Rhee's new outfit, or advocating for the use of VAM in high-stakes decisions.

Think of it this way: teachers use assessments in order to tailor their future practice.  In some cases this is an informal process.  Teachers observe students, have one-on-one conversations, evaluate artifacts from the classroom, and use a number of other tools to collect information about students.  A more formal assessment might include a short quiz or test.  And - for better or worse - we collect information on students through the widespread use of high-stakes standardized tests.  I think we all know the latter is almost entirely useless to teachers (and downright damaging to the profession and learning, in general), but the earlier examples are actually quite valuable.  In my opinion, this report supports evaluation systems more like the former, and urges great caution in utilizing the latter.

Unfortunately, the current trend these days is to use value-added as a serious component of any teacher evaluation system.  In a number of states, value-added could make up 50% of a teacher's evaluation.  Based on my understanding of the research, I can't see how anyone seriously considers that even remotely acceptable.  (I needn't delve into the philosophical reasons to oppose using VAM as such a serious component of any evaluation system)  There is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of those pushing VAM to be used so extensively in evaluations: they have no concept of 1) the accuracy and technical issues of various VAM models and 2) they fail to see how, even in a statistically reliable, valid, and defensible value-added model, the use of high-stakes testing in teacher evaluations is almost certain to lead to some pretty predictable (negative) consequences.

Teacher evaluations are not the cure-all of public education.  They are only one tool that should be used to improve our public schools (which are already better than many believe, but the inequity remains downright appalling).  If I could waive a magic wand and either institute fair, high-quality teacher assessments or eliminate poverty, there's no doubt I'd choose the latter.  Ideally, however, we'd be active on both fronts.  Much to our disappointment, the Obama administration has pushed evaluation systems that are absurd, and done little - if anything - to address poverty.

I'll conclude by conceding that Krashen's take is extremely relevant: poverty matters greatly, and the current focus on teacher quality likely distracts us from much bigger problems.  We should absolutely pursue policies that eliminate poverty (tax breaks for the wealthiest, Mr. President?), but we must also speak up when absurd teacher assessment proposals (ie 50% tied to VAM) are pushed by various advocacy groups, think tank wonks, and ignorant politicians.  I see this report as urging policymakers to be careful and thoughtful in developing teacher assessment systems, particularly given the current reform climate.  For that reason and the others mentioned above, I find this report highly relevant and a useful resource for advocates, policymakers, and researchers.

The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation

The Misguided and Wasteful Obsession with Teacher Evaluation:

Comment posted on The Answer Sheet, Washington Post, Dec 7

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/assessing-teachers-without-fet.html

We are always wise to "embrace teacher quality as a goal" in general, but the current obsession with teacher quality is misguided. The intensive focus on teacher quality, teacher evaluation, and teacher education confirms the false assumption that there is something seriously wrong with teachers in the US today. There is no evidence this is so. In fact, there is strong evidence suggesting that our teachers are doing a very good job: When we control for poverty, our students score at the top of the world on international tests.

The claim that teacher quality is the main determinant of student success is based on extrapolations from Hanushek's data, not from real teachers in real classrooms. In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that poverty IS the problem. Our major financial efforts now should go toward protecting children from the effects of poverty.

The empirical evidence on the huge impact of poverty on achievement is very real and strong. If we spend as much on protecting children from poverty as we are willing to spend on testing children and evaluating teachers, we can reduce the problem considerably. (The NY Times recently promoted the Gates-inspired idea of video-taping teachers for evaluation. If schools do this, the expense, I estimate, would be between 6 to 10 billion per year. Spending this much on nutrition, health care, and school libraries makes more sense than spending it on video-taping teachers.)

The DOE and Bill Gates have managed to convince everybody that teacher evaluation is the most serious issue today. This is a red herring that diverts our money and time from the real issue.

Stephen Krashen

12/ 7/2010

Assessing teachers without fetishizing test-based reforms

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by Kevin Welner, a professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of the National Education Policy Center. He can be reached at welner@colorado.edu.

By Kevin G. Welner
Remember how “the soft bigotry of low expectations” beautifully encapsulated a serious equity issue and then led to a destructive No Child Left Behind law that has narrowed the curriculum and forced educators to over-test students and teach to tests?

We are, I fear, now at the same point with teacher quality.

Lost within the ongoing craziness of leaders using teacher and principal dismissal as a primary strategy to fix public schools (along with the echo chamber of irresponsible punditry and filmmaking) are some important truths about teacher quality.

Teachers are indeed the most important element of formal schooling, and the current system does disproportionately burden low-income communities of color with teachers who are less experienced, less supported, less prepared, and less credentialed. This is an important equity issue, and it should be addressed in a serious way.

The problem, of course, is that it’s being addressed in a foolish way. The New York City data dispute is only the latest example, joining the Los Angeles Times’ decision to misuse and publicly release teacher performance data; the Klein, Rhee, et al. “Manifesto”; the Race to the Top push for the disproportionate use of student data in teacher evaluations; and various state-level measures that will likely in fact require student test data to be used for half of teacher evaluations.

After almost a decade of NCLB, our policymakers are still fetishizing student scores on standardized tests, using them as a crutch instead of turning to balanced, sensible solutions. But there is an alternative.

A new policy brief released today by the National Education Policy Center describes authoritative research documenting a wide range of useful criteria for assessing teacher quality and effectiveness.

The brief, prepared by Penn State professor of education Patricia Hinchey, concludes that there’s a role to be played by value-added models based on student standardized test scores but stresses that this role must be de-emphasized and balanced with other policy and management tools to support and sustain high-quality teaching.

These include classroom observations and evaluations by administrators and others, as well as portfolios prepared by teachers that document a range of teaching behaviors and responsibilities, and other sources of information.

The brief, called "Getting Teacher Assessment Right: What Policymakers Can Learn from Research," is one of a series of briefs supported in part by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, and it suggests that policymakers carefully think through the purposes and available methods of teacher assessment before settling on one particular solution to the exclusion of others.

As Hinchey observes, “Since any teacher assessment system must address multiple goals, it should rely on multiple sources of information.”

Fostering high-quality teaching is a central goal of education reform. Yet the overuse and misuse of test-score data, much in vogue now among government policymakers and district leaders, is not supported by the research. We are wise to embrace teacher quality as a goal; we are also wise to demand research-based policies that will accomplish that goal.

Toast: Republicans Offer Obama Cover for Capitulation

It was quite a scene, the Republican senators lined up one after the other at the microphone, each giving full support for the President's decision to cave in on their demands.  Then to the microphone comes the President, himself, now looking tough in the face of reporters and his one-time base of supporters.  But he has never had trouble talking tough to progressives or to the "professional left" as his mouthpieces call Dems with principles.

The President's "hostage" metaphor was apt, as he noted that he decided to negotiate when it was clear that we, the hostages, were going to get hurt if he didn't.  What he did not say, and what he seems incapable of accepting, is that he left the door unlocked with us hostages bound and gagged on the bed to await our assailants.  Nor will he admit he has had the bag full of money waiting for the Republican hostage takers for a long time, just waiting for them to make their move.  And he left them a message telling them as much.

This was the Johnson moment for Obama.  The corruption and complicity is writ large, and no one with a brain doubts it.  He must now depend upon the Oligarchs to get him reelected without a base of support.  And will we vote for Ralph Nader or Pee-Wee Herman in 2012?  I can only speak for myself, and I've already said it.

Imagine in New Orleans: Will They Ever Learn?

Below are some snippets from a review of an Imagine Schools application for a charter school in New Orleans.  The independent review board recommended denying the application, and for very good reasons.  In case you weren't aware, Imagine's track record is less than stellar, and the company has come under fire multiple times for issues of money and control.

Here is a summary of the Evaluation Teams' recommendations (my bolds).  You can read the full document here (Imagine's review starts on page 123):

The Evaluation Team recommends that the application be denied.

Although many aspects of the application were sound, the board did not demonstrate the capacity to effectively iplement and govern a charter school. There are potential conflicts of interest with three of five board members who are employed directly by the proposed education service provider (ESP), Imagine Schools. During the interview board members did not recognize the potential conflict of interest. The board demonstrated no due diligence in the selection process of the ESP. In the interview, it became clear that the board members did not understand the delineation between the ESP and the governing board. The board also lacked basic knowledge regarding charter school operations and the role of a governing body. Members were not able to answer questions independently instead demonstrating a heavy reliance on representatives of the management company.

The Evaluation Team had the following concerns about other aspects of the application:
- The board does not have a written policy regarding recruitment and selection.
- The application did not demonstrate knowledge of the Orleans Parish target student population or how that population might inform the educational programming.
- The budget for facility lease seemed extraordinarily high and was not supported by evidence of the basis on which it was calculated or neglected.
- The proposal lacks adequate detail regarding student data collection and procedures.
- The proposal lacks rigorous goals for annual student growth.

I don't know if Louisiana defines an education service provider the same way Florida does, but recall that the Sunshine State recently raised questions about whether or not Imagine is, in fact, an education service provider.

Continuing on:

The application provided few specifics on how the school will identify and serve students with exceptionalities. Nor did the plan adequately address services for LEP/ELL students. The services described for homeless students were more appropriate for special education students with behavioral problems.

There was no evidence of parental involvement in development of the School Improvement Plan.

And:

The governance structure and capacity is both inadequate and concerning. Three of five proposed board members are related to employees of Imagine Schools, the proposed service provider. Thus a majority of the board has fundamental conflicts of interest with their fiduciary duty to oversee the management agreement and hold Imagine Schools accountable for performance. There was no evidence regarding the criteria that the board hasd used in selecting Imagine Schools as a service provider or that it had conducted due diligence. During the capacity interview, the proposed Board President stated, "Imagine represents us and we represent Imagine." This statement illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the governing board-service provider relationship.

The board lacked basic knowledge regarding charter school operations, and the plan was ambiguous about basic lines of authority.

More:

The startup budget was included within the narrative section of the proposal on page 84 but only included expenses, not revenues, for $250,000. The funds for startup will be advanced by Imagine Schools for all startup activities. The applicants did not provide evidence to support the assumptions that the projected average salary of $35,000 for teachers would be competitive. (Reference Line 22 and 25)

The estimated lease amount for the proposed facility seemed to be very high when compared with current charter school facilities in New Orleans. The applicant did not provide evidence to suport their cost assumptions. The facility or building site has not yet been identified. (Reference Line 197)

The $5,000 limit for dual check signers seemed high. When asked about this in the interview, the ESP representative referenced stringent financial controls. (Reference Line 197)

The budget includes "loss mitigation" costs to Imagine of $43,776 to $93,550 per year for advanced funds plus interest that should not be necessary if the service provider provides effective support to the school in creating sound budgets and cash flow plans. In other words, in the event that Imagine fails to manage cash flow effectively, it stands to profit by providing the school an open line of credit. (Reference p.73, Line 197)

Unbelievable.  Truly unbelievable.