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A Nashville School Board Member Figures Out the Secret:  How Charter SchoolsGet Rich Off Public Tax Dollars

11/16/2015

 
The following was a public Facebook post by Amy Frogge, elected School Board Member for Metro Nashville Schools.  It explains a lot, including why charters are allowed to expand in TN despite dismal outcomes.  Legislators, the TDOE, and school districts need to know this:
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full text of her post:

Here’s how KIPP, a non-profit charter school, and its investors make money:

Last night at our board meeting, we discussed whether our district should oversee two new KIPP schools, which the appointed state Board of Education has forced upon on our district under the new state charter authorizer law. This was a test case for the new law that many believe is unconstitutional. The state authorizer law takes away local control of schools and requires our district to pay for the charter schools that they force us to open.

A few months ago, our school board denied the KIPP applications based primarily on fiscal impact and the lack of demand for more KIPP seats in Nashville. However, KIPP, showing zero respect for the decision of locally elected officials (all the while claiming it wants to "partner" with our district), appealed its applications to the state, which overturned us. Last night, we voted to allow the state to oversee the two KIPP schools which it has authorized.

During our meeting, I made the comment that the new state charter authorizer law was passed because there is a lot of money to be made off the backs of poor people. This irritated my board colleague, Elissa Kim (a Teach for America executive), who challenged me to explain how non-profit charter schools make money. I explained that there are many ways non-profit charters make money, including: (1) a 39% federal tax credit that allows investors to double their money in seven years; (2) all sorts of land deals, including using taxpayer money to fund land investments that profit the investor, not the taxpayers; (3) requiring students to purchase materials from board members at marked up prices or charging students high prices for lunches and other necessities; and (4) taking money from classrooms and driving it up to the top by, for example, hiring cheaper, inexperienced, uncertified teachers; by using computers instead of teachers for classroom instruction; or by using uncertified teachers for enrichment like art and music.

Ms. Kim continued to press me to cite examples of how KIPP makes money, specifically in Nashville, but our board chair cut off the discussion. Had we continued the discussion, I would have pointed out that all of the above examples apply to all charter schools, even those here in Nashville. However, to answer Ms. Kim’s questions, let's dig a little more deeply into this topic.

1. First of all, I am certain that local hedge funders and venture capitalists take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit program, mentioned above. Investors in the KIPP charter chain would be fools not to seek the greatest possible return on their investment.

2. Second, with regard to KIPP's local finances, it's important to note that KIPP Nashville is a private corporation that is part of a national corporate chain of KIPP charter schools. The KIPP Foundation has amassed net assets of over $31 million, KIPP in New York has amassed about $18 million in net assets, and KIPP in Texas has amassed net assets over $22 million. Much of this money comes from grants from the federal government, some comes from charitable donations, and of course, KIPP is also funded by our tax dollars.

KIPP spends this money lavishly. Over a six-year period, the KIPP Foundation spent $16 million on travel- to such places as the Opryland Hotel, Disney Swan and Dolphin Hotel, Rio Suite Hotel and Casino, and Red Rock Casino (in Vegas). A local teacher who formerly worked at a KIPP school sent me this message: "During my one year at KIPP, I was stunned at the lavish spending sending everyone across the country to a summit in Las Vegas: hotels, convention spaces, food, drinks, entertainment, the whole deal, before the year even started! Then once the year started, no money for paper, no money for subs, and certainly no interest in any teachers staying long enough to see salary increases. It struck me as bizarre--I knew what flights to Vegas and hotels there cost--what could each teacher have done with that money for supplies???"

There are many ways (described in the article below in the comments) that KIPP leaders can also double or triple their income through the school network. For example, the co-founder of KIPP Foundation is simultaneously paid a six-figure salary for his work at the foundation, another six figure salary for consulting with KIPP Foundation (doing work that he ordered), and a third six figure salary for acting as superintendent of KIPP schools in NYC. His total annual salary is over $468,000. Not a bad income for serving “the poor,” as KIPP would have us believe.

On its most recent 990 form, KIPP Academy Nashville (the only local KIPP school for which I could locate 990 forms) lists $7.7 million in total assets and $5.3 million in net assets.

KIPP Nashville and KIPP Memphis each got a million dollars through federal Race to the Top grants. Also, KIPP Nashville received $2 million in 2012 from the Charter School Growth Fund to help with expansion. KIPP Memphis received $3 million in 2011 from the Charter School Growth Fund, which allowed it to expand to ten times its size. The Charter School Growth Fund is a Denver-based venture capital fund. (Venture capital funds exist to make money; a venture capital fund would not invest in a charter school without the expectation of a clear financial return on its investment.) As more charter schools open, less funding is available for traditional schools. This cripples traditional schools, creating more "failing" schools and more opportunities to expand charter schools, which can select their students in both obvious and subtle ways. This is the process of dismantling public education.

And then there's the special treatment that charter schools like KIPP receive. Back in 2010, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean decided to set aside $10 million dollars of capital funding for *ONE* KIPP school. At that time, the district was suffering from the recession and sustained three years of no capital funds, placing us a billion dollars behind on capital needs. MNPS traditional schools were housed in buildings with holes in floors, exposed wiring, mold issues, and other major troubles, but KIPP received $10 million for just a few hundred students. (At that time, this particular school may have been serving less than one hundred students; I'm not certain.)

3. Third, Townes Duncan, a Belle Meade venture capitalist, is a founding member of KIPP Nashville’s board, and while he no longer serves on the board, he remains an active supporter of KIPP. Duncan owns a venture capital company called Solidus Company. Solidus has invested in a program called “LiveSchool,” which is now used by KIPP. This is how it works: Charter school board members can influence charter school purchases and programs and thus make a profit from the charter schools they manage.

4. KIPP, locally and nationally, is staffed almost exclusively by Teach for America teachers. These young, inexperienced teachers are paid low salaries while working extreme hours, often 60-90 hours per week. Most TFA teachers, who get school loans paid off by TFA and enter a lucrative network for future careers when they leave TFA, quit the teaching profession after only a couple of years of teaching. This helps keep charter school staffing costs down. With TFA to supply a new crop of inexpensive new college grads yearly, there is no need for KIPP to develop long-term employees (who cost more money) or manage their own recruiting. TFA and schools like KIPP develop a symbiotic relationship and cannot survive without one another. Why? TFA contracts are being cut nationwide (MNPS cut the ranks of TFA teachers in half this year for low performance), and they now need charter schools to hire their recruits. Charter schools need TFA because they tend to overwork and underpay their teachers, and most teachers who have been through traditional training and certification tracks are not interested in working for charter schools. They can make more money and accrue better benefits working for traditional school districts.

So there you have it.

I’m sure this is just scraping the surface. I don’t know all the details of how KIPP operates or how it cuts costs. I don’t know if our local KIPP schools are involved in land deals that make money for investors. But one thing is certain: We would not have a charter authorizer law that takes away local control of schools if there were not heaps of money to be made from charter schools.

(Here's the board meeting. My comments start at 1:06, and the dialogue between me and Ms. Kim takes place at 1:10.)

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9W2QyT3RE#t=4211

Links Amy Frogge included in comments to support her post:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/08/1290529/-Is-public-school-for-sale-the-cost-of-KIPP

http://archive.tennessean.com/article/20130925/BUSINESS04/309260015/Nashville-s-LiveSchool-finalist-national-Startup-Year
 
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/09/a-former-kipp-teacher-shares-her-story.html

https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/a-former-kipp-teacher-comments-on-her-experience/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/liveschool-behavior-tracking-app-raises-165-million-in-series-a-funding-189166151.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Markets_Tax_Credit_Program

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2013/12/with-2m-investment-kipp-nashville.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/10/nashville-mayor-karl-dean-to-use-10.html

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/will-karl-deans-push-charter-schools-finally-make-him-education-mayor

Nashville Prep Charter teaches smut to tweens and breaks the law

9/15/2015

 
Who would think this is appropriate for a 12 year old child to read and study???
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Or this???
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Ravi Gupta, Executive Director at Nashville Prep.
The young, inexperienced teachers at Nashville Prep.
And the UNELECTED school board at Nashville Prep.  
That's who.
Parents complained to Nashville Prep adminstration about their 12 year old tween children being forced to read this book aloud in class at Nashville Prep.  The response?  Nashville Prep said they had edited the profanity and removed the really bad parts out, so the parents are just overreacting.  

NOTE: Those images above are actual pages from a student's notebook from Nashville Prep Charter School.   

1). Nashville Prep used poor judgement in requiring students to read a book that was too mature and inappropriate for 12 year old children.
2). Nashville Prep admitted to illegally photocopying, editing, and distributing a copyrighted book.

Who will be held accountable for this?  Legislators need to realize that parents have NO voice with this charter school "choice".  Charters are not the answer to chronically underfunded public schools.
 

Experimenting on poor kids

4/1/2015

 
A "Petri Dish."  That is what Chris Barbic, Superintendent of the TN Achievement School District, compared the Achievement School District to during an interview with Nashville Public Radio where he pleaded for more time. He said,

"There's [sic] 22 bills that have been filed right now to either try to kill this thing or pull it apart, and this thing hasn't even gotten out of the Petri dish."
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Just last week, the YES Prep Charter Chain abandoned the TN ASDbecause things weren't looking as profitable as they'd planned.  YES Prep (which is a charter chain conceived and birthed by Chris Barbic himself in Texas), at the last minute, pulled out of the Memphis ASD, leaving the local school district scrambling to accommodate students.

YES Prep was quoted as saying to the Commercial Appeal,

“We are not going to experiment at the risk of Memphis students. That is not fair to them,” said Bill Durbin, superintendent of Yes Prep Memphis. After hiring staff for the coming year and spending the better part of two years laying groundwork in Memphis, Yes Prep is leaving. It has no intention of returning."

Even more interesting was Chris Barbic's response to YES Prep abandoning the ASD, 

 "ASD Supt. Chris Barbic minced few words in reaction to the charter firm’s decision, saying Yes Prep apparently was not serious about the difficulty of the work in Memphis and that it was a significant hardship to deal with a pullout this late in the game.  "This is the big leagues. If you want to play in the big leagues, the work is difficult, in the public and there is lots of scrutiny and pressure. Some organizations will hear that and say, ‘We want to step up to that challenge and make it happen.’ If you want to play single- and double-league ball, maybe Memphis is not for you,” he said.

So this is a GAME???  
The University of Memphis has plans to "experiment" and profit from poor kids, too.  Rich white philanthropists like Pitt Hyde gave a whole lot of money to start the RELAY program at the University of Memphis.  This will create a supply of fast-tracked, temporary teachers for the ASD and charter schools in the poorest areas of Memphis.  They claim it is to fill the teacher shortage, but the truth is there is no teacher shortage.  In fact, hundreds of excellent teachers last year were "excessed" in that district.  (Excessed means "not rehired.")  

The leaders and philanthropists naively think that these young, fast-tracked RELAY teachers will increase test scores of students.  In truth, these temps will lower costs of labor and replace experienced, lifelong educators like Meghan Vaziri, who was a level 5 teacher in a school that the ASD took over. (Level 5 is the top score you can get as a teacher in Tennessee). According to the former Memphis City Schools, level 5 is considered an "irreplaceable" teacher, yet Vaziri has been replaced by a temporary Teach For America teacher who only had 5 weeks of training over the summer.  Meghan Vaziri is now self-employed as a freelance artist and web developer, but she would love to teach in public schools again.  Since witnessing firsthand the ASD's failure with the students and the school she once worked in, she has been an advocate fighting against the ASD's future takeover of public schools.  She attends every public meeting she can, and she bravely speaks up.  She knows that the ASD is not working, that the average test scores of the ASD after 2 years are still not as high as they were when the schools were public schools.  About losing her job, she says she is okay, that "really the only people who were truly hurt were the children who already have too much chaos in their lives to have lost their long time teachers."  

When asked for proof that this new RELAY program would work, President Rudd of the University of Memphis could give no proof and honestly admitted in a public meeting this RELAY program is "an experiment."  The faculty at University of Memphis is outraged that this Relay program arrangement was brought to their public University in secret, and is proceeding despite their arguments and logic, despite the fact that the University of Memphis already has an outstanding teacher training college that this RELAY program will undoubtedly harm, and despite the fact that President Rudd keeps cancelling public meetings and rescheduling them at inconvenient times for people to attend.  President Rudd has now formed a "task force," to "study" the issue, but we've heard his wife has been appointed to serve on it.  Everyone knows what the "task force" is intended to do.  They are not dumb.  

Why don't these leaders and philanthropists "experiment" on their own children in private schools?  African American leaders and parents should be outraged, especially the pastors in their communities who one would think would be fighting for justice and equality for the children in their neighborhoods... but, oddly, many are not.  Why is this?  African American pastors are targeted by reformers and hailed as "visionaries" to promote vouchers for the children in their communities.  Don't be surprised when branches of private schools suddenly find building space in those African American pastor's churches and provide a lucrative rent income to their struggling congregations with your public tax dollars.  Money speaks. Like charter schools, the private schools are not equipped to handle students with special needs, disabilities, or handicaps.  They are not prepared to handle the needs of high-poverty students.  Schools will be segregated even more with vouchers.  This has happened in other states, and Tennessee will be no exception.
Tennessee Parents have an important message that needs to be heard:

Poor children are NOT an experiment.  
Poor children are NOT a game.
Poor children are NOT a petri dish.
They deserve quality public schools in their communities.  
Stop screwing around with their education!
Stop listening to overpriced consultants!
Stop listening to overpaid lobbyists!
Stop giving away our public education dollars to private entities to profit from!

Lest you think, "well, those schools deserve to be taken over by the state because they were in the bottom 5%,"  think about this: There will ALWAYS be a bottom 5%.  Even if every student in the state bubbles every single question on the TCAPs correctly this spring, there will still be a bottom 5% of schools.  Cut scores on high-stakes tests are intentionally set to have a failing percentage of students.  Middle and upper class students have a clear advantage when it comes to testing.  Tennessee Education Report rightly calls TCAP the "Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment of Poverty," for that is the data that TCAP truly shows.  This system is rigged!

Can public schools do better?  Absolutely, with support they need, they certainly can!  Have they been starved of funding and resources?  Yes!!!  The BEP has not been fully funded by the State in our children's lifetimes, so local school boards have struggled for yearswith inadequate funding to pay for never-ending mandates from the state such as expensive testing, computer requirements, and RTI2.  Across the state, and especially in poorer areas, class sizes have increased, extra-curricular programs have been slashed, and corners have been cut to make dollars stretch.  

Schools in the bottom 5% especially need additional support that they aren't getting.  They take children where they are, and they do their best to make them better.  Give them smaller class sizes and guidance counselors and watch the children flourish!  Make sure that every student's face and name is known and cherished by a staff member in their school building.  Don't let those children slip through the cracks!  Yes, this takes an investment of money.  But we can either pay for it now when the children are young and it will make a positive difference in their lives, or we will be forced to pay doubly for it in the future if those children enter the school to prison pipeline and taxpayers are forced to fund the high cost of incarceration.

Rich people and politicians often say that we "shouldn't keep throwing money at schools" and that "local districts need to better manage their money."  Ironically, their own children are in private schools with millions of dollars in endowments where they pay $30,000+ per year tuition without blinking.  Our districts in TN are educating children with a third of that or less, while PTAs and PTOs diligently try to fill in the difference through bake sales and car washes.  Before those rich people and politicians cast a stone and dismiss public education as wasteful, they should take a look at the boulder in their own eye.  What is good for their own precious upper class children is no less than what middle-class and poor children also need...  small class sizes, enrichment through the Arts and sports, safe school facilities, no common core, and no excessive standardized testing.

Show us a failing school in a middle or upper class neighborhood.  You can't.  They don't exist.  They are all in the poorest neighborhoods in the state.  Poverty is the common factor in failing schools.  Fix it, and the precious test scores will rise in Tennessee.  Treat children with respect, and not as a commodities.  Children need stability and real teachers, not charter vultures, not more testing, not common core, not temporary untrained teachers, and certainly not vouchers to mediocre private schools.  

Tennessee, we can do this!!!  

Open Your Eyes

3/31/2015

 
The article below was originally posted at DianeRavitch.net.  Even though it is another state, you will see there are striking similarities to people, organizations, departments, and politicians in Tennessee.  These ideas in Tennessee are not original, and they are not working in other states.  (Emphasis below added by TNParents)
MUST READ: Revelations of a Disillusioned Reformer
By Diane Ravitch - March 28, 2015
WOW.

This is a remarkable and candid story of Jorge Cabrera, who joined the reform movement as a believer. He wanted to help the children of Bridgeport, where he grew up. He wanted better schools. He was a community organizer for Excel Schools.

And then he learned the truth.  It’s an incredible story that confirms your darkest suspicions:
A Repentant Reformer's Reflections
For nearly three years, I had been involved in what has often been referred to by some as the “education reform movement” in Bridgeport.  In 2012, I was presented with a unique opportunity to work for a new local organization that would work “with the community” to reform the public schools.  The mission was to work towards helping Bridgeport students increase their academic performance and by extension, I thought, lower the dropout rate, increase the rate of college attendance and teach parents how to effectively advocate for the resources and supports their children needed to succeed in school.  As a Bridgeport public school graduate and the first person in my family to attend and graduate from an institution of higher learning, I knew, first hand, how the trajectory of one’s life could be dramatically changed with the attainment of that often coveted credential…a college degree.  Further, as a native Bridgeporter I was sold on the prospect of working with the community I grew up in and loved to help improve educational outcomes for thousands of Bridgeport students.  However, what I did not fully appreciate at the time, but soon found out, was that I was smack in the middle of a simmering firestorm that would divide the community I cared for so dearly and force me to question my own assumptions about “education reform” and the people in front and behind this “movement.”

Though I did not fully know it at the time, a series of manipulative and deceitful political moves were made before I began my work in the “movement” that would be revealed to me in over 200 conversations with many Bridgeport leaders and friends.  These “moves” would severely taint the work I would embark on and proved to be a major stumbling block to organizing the community.

Despite these challenges, I began my work full of hope and excited to put my skills and experience toward the noble goal of improving the Bridgeport school system. Unfortunately, what I learned in the coming years was the incredible lengths some people with access to great wealth and political power would go to in order to privatize an already overburdened and underfunded school district and the ideology that undergirded it.

This is my story. 
The Best and the Brightest
As I began my work in the “education reform movement” in Bridgeport, I noticed a plethora of ivy league educated “consultants” and “transformation leaders” that littered the often loose coalition of funders, new organizations and executive directors. From the beginning, it was clear that many of these new “leaders” that were emerging were well credentialed. They had graduated from prestigious universities and, it was presumed (though not by me), that alone qualified them to lead. Many were very young (recent graduates), energetic, unmarried with no children and little life experience. They often exhibited a cultish commitment to “the movement.” Their zeal for “education reform” and “saving the children” often resulted in a bizarre abdication of critical thinking that made a mockery of their high priced “education.” 

For instance, in many meetings I attended, many of these acolytes extolled the virtues of charter schools as the only solution to closing the achievement gap in Bridgeport but never once did anyone bother to discuss the ample research (i.e. “Teaching with Poverty in Mind”) available regarding the negative impact of poverty on academic achievement or that Bridgeport had several public magnet schools that outperformed (as measured by standardized test scores) many charter schools. These magnet schools had long track records (20 plus years) of success and I assumed we should advocate for what we know, firmly, works. Despite this evidence, there was never any serious discussion regarding expanding magnet school options or advocating for high quality, universal preschool programs (research shows the achievement gap begins at this level).

The entire approach to “education reform” lacked any serious understanding of the many variables (i.e., social-emotional issues, poverty, funding, English language learners) that clearly effect a child’s ability to learn. Anytime a more dynamic and multifaceted approach to closing the achievement gap was raised it was quickly dismissed as “making excuses.” The atmosphere vacillated between a callous indifference to the real challenges Bridgeport children faced and arrogant dismissiveness. Permeated throughout these various organizations that formed a loose network of power was a culture that prized blind dedication to the “mission” and socially affirmed and promoted those who obeyed and exhibited “urgency” in “reforming” the “failing schools.” 

The people in “the movement” made it clear that it was up to the “best and brightest” of minds to “transform” the “system” as “outside influencers.” By “best and brightest” they almost exclusively meant people who would do their bidding without question and certainly not anyone that would exhibit any degree of independent or critical thought. On more than one occasion, when the argument was made that the solutions to the multilayered challenge of public education needed to come from the people and required an authentic, engaging process with the Bridgeport community the response was often glib at best. I recall in one strategic planning meeting when I advocated for authentic engagement and patience to allow parents the time to become informed on the various issues and was told to, “just use language to convince” the parents and impress upon them a sense of “urgency.” Another person told me, “It’s all about how you say it…..”

“I began to sense that someone or something I was not fully aware of was calling the shots behind the scenes and many of these young ivy leaguers were the mercenaries on the front lines tasked with implementing the agenda. This whole enterprise was quickly becoming astroturfing and I was in the middle of it. Worse, I was starting to feel like I was hired to put lipstick on a pig and it was beginning to burn me on the inside. Nevertheless, through it all, I never gave up hope and tried to create spaces for honest, authentic and fact based discussions inside “the movement” with limited success.”
The Night in Shining Armor
My first meeting with Paul Vallas was like a whirlwind.  He barely came up for air! He spoke in a rapid fire cadence and despite my best efforts I could not engage him in any substantive conversations.  He rode into the city as the new superintendent of schools like a knight in shining armor.  Immediately and repeatedly, I was told by many in the “reform community” that Vallas was a “godsend,” a “transformational leader” with an international reputation of turning school systems around, increasing academic outcomes and changing the lives of, literally, thousands of students. The praise heaped on him was ubiquitous. He often spoke in soundbites and we were told that we were to be a “critical friend” to the new superintendent.  We would support him when he was right and criticize him when he was wrong.  Our main constituents, I was told, were the families and students.  Good enough, I thought at the time.  In reality, we were dispatched to drum up support in the community for virtually every policy change or initiative proposed by Vallas.  Any thoughtful questioning of the efficacy of his proposals was met with stone silence or the injection of the “urgency” argument which was intended to and had the effect of silencing any meaningful discussion.  If one pushed too hard to open up an authentic discussion regarding Vallas’s proposals “the movement” would send strong signals that the questioner was being disloyal and that such questioning was deemed heresy.  It was as if a “bunker mentality” had descended on many in “the movement.” You were either with them or against them.  Despite this hostile environment, on one occasion, I was able to engage Vallas in a rare moment of reflection and candor.  We were discussing different school models and supports for students and I casually asked Vallas if he thought traditional neighborhood public schools could succeed if they were given adequate funding and supports for students, teachers and families.  His response was very revealing. He stated, “Yes! Of course they can, but my charter (school) friends don’t like it when I say that.”  It was a rare, candid moment that spoke volumes and provided a rare glimpse into the mindset of the “reformers.”  The veil was starting to be lifted.  As I continued to have extensive conversations with many community leaders I began to appreciate the deceitful and manipulative manner in which Vallas was hired to lead the Bridgeport school system.  It was all unfolding before me and the truth was emerging.
Power to the People?
The crown jewel of the “education reform movement” in Bridgeport was the 2012 charter revision ballot question that would of given the Mayor the authority to appoint the entire board of education, among other powers.  The “movement” was in a frenzy to win this election.  We were told that “the people woud decide” and “they (the people) have the power.”  All of the work we were engaged in to build relationships, trust and educate parents regarding the school system and education policy was abruptly halted to focus on winning this ballot question election.  It was a pressure cooker!  When I tried to actually read the proposed language changes to the city’s charter and have discussions with parents so that both I and they were fully informed on what we were asking people to vote on, I was quickly pushed aside in favor of a group of highly compensated New York City media consultants who came in and began directing instead of facilitating the “discussions.”  Immediately, the focus was on marketing and sloganeering.  Worse, we were trying to build the plane while it was in the air! The whole thing was rushed and disorganized. We were told to make sure we communicated to the public that voting in favor of the city charter change was good for parents, students and would lead to better academic outcomes.  The insinuation was that anyone who was against the charter revision changes was anti-child or anti-education. When parents or community leaders asked questions that required more substantive, fact based responses we were coached to respond to everything in soundbites and with shallow arguments that lacked any grounding in reality.  It was the worse kind of insult to the community’s intelligence and pandered to the worse aspects of human natureand—it almost worked.
Revelation and the Shock Doctrine
My nearly three years in the “movement” in Bridgeport revealed to me the incredible lengths that private, often unseen and unaccountable power will go to in order to create and capitalize on a crisis.  In Bridgeport, that crisis in our public education system was created by powerful forces at the local and state level who systematically starved the school system by withholding necessary school funding (Shock #1) which then created a crisis that set the stage for a takeover (Shock #2) of the Bridgeport board of education on the eve of the fourth of July in 2011.  Essentially, these forces were engaged in a form of social engineering under the guise of “urgency” and “reform.” 

To be clear, in this “movement” there are people who have good intentions and sincerely want to improve the conditions of Bridgeport’s public schools but they do not sit at the tables of power when strategic decisions are made and their voices are often silenced. Their talents, skills and knowledge are often used to serve a larger, opaque agenda that is dictated by a radical ideology of deregulation and privatization.  Shot throughout most, if not all, of the education reform “movement” you will find the radical ideology of economist Milton Friedman.  Looking back, there were moments when this mindset (disaster capitalism) was revealed to me in meetings.  On one occasion, a very influential operator in the “education reform” community was discussing the “amazing opportunity” that revealed itself after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans decimated the population and led to the “charterization” of the public school system. He expounded that sometimes you have to, “…burn the village to save it…” and that what we (the “reform community”) are essentially involved in is, “creative destruction.”  Worse, he argued that we needed a “clean slate” in order for real “change” to happen in the school system in Bridgeport.  But this was my home.  This was the city I grew up in and where most of my family lived and worked.  You want to burn down their city!? You want to destroy it so you can be creative!?  For whom?  It was all surreal.  I was done.

In Naomi Klein’s book and, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” she outlines how powerful economic and political forces harness terrible shocks to implement radical policies to privatize and profit from public resources.  In Bridgeport, this ideology played itself out on our public school system and, for a season at least, seemed to be the dominant ideology on the verge of assuming complete power over the public school system.  We almost succeeded.  Thanks to the people of the City of Bridgeport—we did not and that’s a good thing.

Jorge Cabrera was employed by the “education reform” organization Excel Bridgeport from 2012-2015–the organization on the front lines of the “movement” in Bridgeport.
If this reminds you of someone, you might consider forwarding this blog to them.  Or leave a copy on their desk.  Or mail it to them.
Your eyes have been opened to the private money and corruption that shapes the politics of education in Tennessee and across the nation.  You agree that education should be about educating children, not about money and power.  Public education must be strengthened and sustained for future generations.  Don't believe the lies of the reformers.  Be smart.  When in doubt, follow the money and you'll inevitably find their true motive. 
Charters, Vouchers, Common Core, standardized testing = money for those at the top

KIPP's secrets

1/5/2015

 
A politician told one of the TN Parent writers how they toured a KIPP charter school in TN and were so impressed... how the students were well-behaved little angels, the teachers were young and energetic (and wore tight skirts), how the school was just perfect and he wanted those schools in his own district.

Well, now we know the secret...

The charter schools and ASD leaders certainly don't want you to know about this, and they spend a lot of energy and PR dollars trying to cover it up, but truth has a way of finding the light...

On the Schools Matter blog, Jim Horn of Cambridge College interviewed a former KIPP teacher.  He writes:

You have heard about KIPP's padded cells for kindergartners and KIPP school leaders putting garbage cans on children's heads and making them bark like dogs, and you've heard about children forced to sit on the floor for days until they have earned desks, but now comes, yet, another KIPP abuse strategy.  

On VIB (Visitor in Building) days, at least one KIPP school puts up to 30 problem students in the empty basement for hours until the visiting investors, dignitaries, or politicians have left the building.  Also during this time, no class changes occur, even though visits might last three hours.  Children are, in essence, in lockdown mode in their classrooms so that no infraction or non-compliant behavior during class change may be seen by outsiders. [emphasis added]

The teacher tells in detail about when visitors were in the school building:

We used to have a special schedule when we had visitors in the building. For instance, sometimes we’d have, you know, investors or big-wigs walking through the building. And so we would have a separate schedule where we would pick out all the behavior issue kids and take them down into the basement for the duration of the visitors’ visit, to kind of keep them out of the way. So you know, that’s one very, like, clear example of sweeping something under the rug.

So in the morning, we would receive an email or a special schedule that said VIB schedule, Visitor in Building schedule. And it would basically list all of the students that needed to be in the basement area, and it would tell us the specific times that they were supposed to be there. And we would also, for instance, we would not transition from class to class if there was a visitor, because the transitions from class to class would sometimes be, you know, kids are kids, and so they would sometimes not listen, or they would run, or whatever the case is. And our administration didn’t want the visitors to see anything less than perfection. And so we would hold students in the classroom when normally they’d be transitioning from class to class. So the visitors didn't get the impression that the school was anything less than very well managed. 

So, legislators and important people, hidden beneath your very feet and in classrooms out of your sight were the "problem students." 

Horn's interview of this former KIPP teacher is quite enlightening.  The teacher admits there was "a lot swept under the rug as far as things that also aren't so great."  The teacher tells of "cultural things like, I can only speak to what I experienced in my day-to-day, and so that was a lot of yelling, a lot of berating students, a lot of, you know, physically confronting students."

Also interesting is a comment below the article:

I am a former KIPP teacher. (I worked there before the internet was a big deal) I am glad that the public is now able to see the treatment that KIPP students and staff face at these schools. I can personally attest to the fact at the KIPP school where I worked that students did in fact "loose" their desks due to misbehavior and had to sit on the floor. Kids who misbehaved had to go "on bench" which means they had to turn their uniform shirt inside out for the day and no other students were allowed to speak to these kids. If regular public schools tried to pull this crap it would be all over the news.

Click HERE to read the rest of this insightful interview.  You can also read much more of Jim Horn's detailed research on KIPP schools, including how their grade retention rates are higher than public schools and how KIPP kicks out low-performing students to boost their stats, by clicking HERE. 
The bottom line is that the "miracle" of the KIPP charter school model is riddled with deception and questionable practices.  Smart leaders should question the well-oiled PR from KIPP.

Nashville's "Third Way" Plan = Wrong Way

11/19/2014

 
On Tuesday, September 9, 2014, Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Jesse Register stunned the community when he proposed turning East Nashville (a group of historic neighborhoods with a strong tradition of pubic education) into an "all choice" zone dominated by charter schools.  If approved by the Nashville School Board, Register's radical plan could end up being Tennessee's most extreme example of dismantling public education and moving toward an all-charter, New Orleans-style school system (which has been a disaster for students and communities in New Orleans, but a profitable business venture for unaccountable charter operators and private contractors. Click HERE, HERE, and HERE for proof).

What was most confusing about Register's announcement on September 9 was his branding it the "Third Way," harking back to former Governor Phil Bredesen's 2003 inaugural address calling for an end to partisan state politics.  Co-opting Bredesen's language from 11 years ago seems like a head-scratcher, particularly for a plan that has pitted entire neighborhoods against each other in East Nashville.  As it turns out, Register apparently has one of Bredesen's former staff members advising him.

Through an open-records request, East Nashville United (a group of parents and community leaders opposing Register's plan to destabilize public education in their neighborhoods) unearthed a series of emails about the so-called "Third Way" plan. One email in particular jumped out.

On August 28, some 11 days before the bombshell announcement, Register received an email from Nashville School Board member, Jill Speering, expressing concern about the apparent lack of turnaround strategy for the city's low-performing schools. About an hour later, Register forwarded Speering's email to Drew Kim, an education policy consultant, with the comment: "See below! Smile." An hour later, Kim responded by saying, "Great. The 9th will be your time!," obviously referring to the upcoming announcement on September 9.

So who is Drew Kim and why does this email exchange matter? 
Kim is the founder of P3 Consulting, one the many shadowy consulting firms that popped up after Tennessee's 2010 Race to the Top win of millions of dollars. Kim (no relation to Nashville School Board member Kim) also happens to be the former policy advisor for Bredesen. Hence, the Third Way connection.

Kim's client's list, proudly displayed on the home page of his firm's web site (www.p3tennessee.com), reads like a "who's who" of organizations that want to dismantle public education:
  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
  • Teach for America (Kim is an alumnus),
  • the Hyde Family Foundation (the Memphis arm of the charter school movement, and the lead proponent for the first charter laws in TN)
  • and SAS (the company that maintains the TVAAS data in Tennessee's controversial teacher evaluation system using William "Bill" Sanders' secret mathematical formula for agriculture growth).
Drew Kim was a registered lobbyist for Aspire (a chain of charter schools that operates in California and Memphis).  He was also a lobbyist for Tribal Education (the same UK company that MNPS contracted with for an assessment of their system). Should Drew Kim add Metro Nashville Schools' logo to the list of clients on his website??? 

So let's get this straight...
Jesse Register, who for most of his career was a defender of public education, apparently, has caved under political pressure.  He is now scheming with, and taking advice from, a former Bredesen aide and for-profit consultant who's loading him up with bad ideas on behalf of his anti-public education clients.

This, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with the radical reform movement and weak leaders like Register.  If the Nashville School Board votes to dismantle East Nashville's public schools based on Register's and Kim's radical plan, then school board members across Tennessee should be on the lookout for "all choice" proposals to destabilize their schools, too.
Third Way?  No way.

ASD in Ashes: ASD Achieves Revolts

10/29/2014

 
Tennessee's Achievement School District has achieved something alright... a flat out citizen's revolt and not even offers of free pizza from the ASD could calm the crowds.

This week, the ASD is holding a series of public meetings at schools targeted for takeover in Shelby County. They were not welcomed and faced strong community opposition. On the north side of town, parents and teachers protested the ASD takeover at Raleigh Egypt High School. At American Way Middle School in south Memphis, the audience shouted down ASD charter school representatives forcing them off the stage. Then last night at the Shelby County School Board meeting, so many people spoke against the ASD school takeovers that public comments were limited to 90 seconds. More opposition to ASD takeovers is expected at the upcoming meetings scheduled for later this week.

Parents Don't Trust the ASD

Parents have seen the ASD's dismal record on student achievement and they want better for their children. The new unified Shelby County School system has shown that is a stronger district and capable of raising student achievement. The citizens of Shelby County are insisting that their school system be given an opportunity to teach their children without the ASD's interference. 

ASD charter schools have WORSE test scores than Shelby County School

ASD schools are now scoring even LOWER than before the takeover 

ASD plays games in selecting schools for its priority list:  
  • Click HERE to see how the ASD manipulated its own numbers.  
  • See HERE how the ASD literally changed report card grades to a new scale to make failing students pass (*A=90-100, B=71-89, C=59-70, D=47-58, F=0-46).  
  • Click HERE to see how the TDOE "messed up" the lists of failing, priority, & focus schools and was called out by a district. 
  • Click HERE to see how the ASD cherry picked schools and manipulated data last year. Is the ASD targeting the "top of the bottom" schools to try and "cream" the best for their portfolio?
  • Click HERE to see why American Way Middle shouldn’t be on the ASD list at all.
  ASD contracts with problem charter chains:
  • Green Dot's failure in California
  • YES Prep's cronyism and connection to the ASD Superintendent, Chris Barbic. Coincidentally, Barbic is being sued for unfairly picking his YES Prep charter chain to operate in the ASD.
  • Libertas' non-existent track record
  • KIPP's method of kicking out students before TCAP testing
  • A former Memphis KIPP teacher speaks up about the high teacher turnover and cult-like environment.

Parents Don't Want to be Disenfranchised by the ASD

Another problem that these communities are having trouble digesting is the loss of elected representation. No one on the school board represents the ASD schools. Public parents demand to have an elected official to turn to when they or teachers have concerns. They pay taxes for public education and they want elected school board members to have authority over their public schools. But instead, their tax dollars are paying for charter schools. Sounds a lot like taxation without representation where public dollars are controlled by private interests. Parents don't like putting their children in the hands of those who are there (and let's be honest) because their profit potential is huge.

Parents appreciate House Representative Antonio Parkinson and Shelby County School Board Member, Stephanie Love, for speaking up for the teachers, students, and communities at the Raleigh Egypt High meeting. That is elected leadership representing their constituents. We hope other elected officials join their efforts.

Parents Don't Like the ASD's Back Room Dealings 

A Memphis blogger talked to Stephanie Love about this "hostile takeover" and Love felt the community was being left out of the process. “People are meeting behind closed doors about our children and our communities who don’t know anything about our children, don’t ask us question about what’s best for our children and our communities.” Even though Love is the elected school board member for Raleigh-Egypt's district, she had never been included in the meetings.  The blogger goes on to say that Love "would rather see those schools being taken over included in [Shelby County School's] iZone. Love agreed that these schools need extra support but she urges support be given within the current framework of SCS." Unfortunately, this is not an option with the ASD because the ASD has made it clear that it works with charter school operators, not Shelby County School Board nor their constituency. And they are more interested in making money than being popular with the voters. A recent Commercial Appeal article said, "State Rep. Antonio Parkinson suggested it was time to follow the money, noting that charters aren’t interested in taking over small schools, suggesting they don’t offer enough cash."


Parents Don't Want the ASD to Say Goodbye to Teachers & Staff

When these communities realize that their school's teachers and staff will likely be replaced with unqualified, inexperienced staff, they're not so keen on the idea.  They like their teachers.  They are invested in the community. One news station reported how Green Dot brought some of their current ASD students to talk to people at Raleigh Egypt High School, but one of the  Green Dot students admitted that the staff at her high school had changed drastically when the ASD took over, saying "probably 10 teachers that I recognize from last year" are still at her school this year.   

Even though Superintendent Dorsey Hopson co-authored a letter in the local newspaper just a few months ago with ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic, Hopson is now saying he is opposed to giving the schools to the ASD.  In fact, the SCS Board is considering a moratorium on ASD takeovers, citing that it is achieving better results with its own iZone schools, which pour more resources and qualified teachers into struggling schools.


Parents Don't Forget the ASD's Broken Promises
  • Children in Memphis’ Coleman neighborhood are not allowed to attend their neighborhood ASD school that is blocks away from their home.  Despite the law that said ASD must take zoned neighborhood children, children are being bussed an hour away to another ASD school across town because Aspire Charter Chain says they have no capacity for them.  But here’s the thing:  Coleman Elementary had 515 students in 2012-13, but now they are maxing the school out at 380 students as a new ASD school?  This is not acceptable.  Parents do not want their children riding on a school bus 2 hours a day or sent to a failing school across town.  This is not good for children.  Some speculate it is about money and raising the scores of the school across town.
  • Parents were told that two veteran charter school operators, KIPP and Freedom Prep were chosen by the ASD to takeover their schools. But these charter chains recently decided to pull out of the ASD market in Memphis. They said it was to focus on their current schools but at least one of them is eyeing new charter schools in Nashville leaving parents to wonder if it truly about children or about profits.   
  • And the biggest broken promise of all... our schools taken over by the ASD aren’t anywhere near reaching the top 25% of the state like ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic has repeatedly promised parents.
Local news coverage in Memphis:
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Memphis isn't the only pocket of resistance.  Nashville is simmering, too.  This strongly worded press release below from East Nashville United shows that parents are not willing to give in.  They clearly do not like back-room deals being made regarding their children or their community's schools between politicians and venture capitalists:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                              
Contact: John Haubenreich
haubenreich@gmail.com
October 28, 2014

EAST NASHVILLE UNITED BLASTS REGISTER’S INGLEWOOD DECEPTION

Nashville, Tenn. -- East Nashville United is calling on Jesse Register to back away from his back room deal to hand over the management of Inglewood Elementary School to KIPP, a local charter school operator. 
On September 24th, Nashville Schools Director Jesse Register hosted a community meeting at Inglewood Elementary to discuss his recently announced East Nashville schools’ plan. Nearly every parent at the meeting voiced unbridled support for their zoned school, prompting Register to tell the Nashville Scene that he was not inclined to hand over Inglewood to KIPP.
“It sounds like this community does not want this school to convert to a charter school. So, we need to hear that,” said Register. “I would be very hesitant to recommend a conversion here. There are some other places where a conversion might work, but I don’t think so in this community.”
On Monday, however, it was revealed that Register had already made a deal with KIPP for Inglewood Elementary, despite repeated assertions to the community that “there was no plan” and statements to Inglewood Elementary parents confirming that he was not going to convert the school to a charter. Recently released emails confirm that the district’s central office had already settled on Inglewood as a location for the next KIPP location, weeks before Register announced his 3rd Way Plan to the school board. 
“We made it very clear to Dr. Register that we were not in favor of a charter conversion and he appeared to listen,” says Jai Sanders, an Inglewood parent and one of the founding members of East Nashville United. “But now it’s clear that the fix was already in to flip our school to KIPP and that his meeting with parents was a charade.”
Although East Nashville United has repeatedly signaled its support for the existing charter schools in the Stratford and Maplewood clusters, John Haubenreich, the chair of the parent-led group, affirmed yet again that his group’s opposition to the district’s dealings is not over the role of charter schools in public education. 
“Had the parents at Inglewood expressed any interest in handing over their school to KIPP, we would not oppose a charter conversion,” Haubenreich says. “But the parents made it clear that they did not want a charter to run their school. What they wanted--and still want--is for their zoned school to stay intact, only with MNPS providing it with the resources it needs to succeed.” 
Haubenreich says he is mystified how Register could hedge his position after hearing from so many Inglewood parents. 
“Our message all along has been that any East Nashville plan can be created only after listening to parents and educators,” he said.  “We thought that’s the direction we were all headed, but now it appears we’re back to square one, fighting a cram-down scheme concocted in back rooms by people who don’t live in our neighborhoods and don’t have kids in our schools.”

Ruth Stewart, the vice chair of ENU, says that the recently released emails raise serious questions about whether Register has any plans to listen to the community task force. The task force, pushed for by East Nashville United, was supposed to help devise a plan by listening to parents and educators and researching the best options for each school.  Stewart, however, says the recently released emails suggest that district officials and charter officials were already engaged in serious policy discussions well before anyone else knew an East Nashville plan was afoot. 
 
“We were told over and over that there was no plan, but the emails show the exact opposite.” Stewart says. “Before the task force begins its work, we want to know details of this secret plan. We’re not sure what the point of having a task force is if the district is already making decisions behind closed doors, with no community input.  Who knows what else they’ve already decided and haven’t told us about.” 
As Jim Horn eloquently wrote on his blog:

"Parents and teachers, however, are not nearly as uninformed as county officials who are doing the Gates dirty work believe. In fact, they know how the charter school takeover cycle works. They know that first you need public schools isolated by years of neglect, segregation, and poverty--schools that everyone outside the affected communities would rather forget about. Memphis has an ample supply of these schools in the poorest neighborhoods, and politicians are eager to make them someone else’s responsibility. 

These neighborhood schools make easy targets for profiteers and politicians convinced (or pretending to believe) that these public schools have low test scores because of lazy teachers, public bureaucracy, unconcerned parents, unions, or other reasons having nothing do with the reality of poverty, racism, or a sordid history of inequality.

I am glad they are among those who have been awakened to the threat to their neighborhood schools by corporate takeover, as they have decided to SKIP the KIPP and offer a loud NO to YES Prep and put a big red light in front of the Green Dot. 

Frederick Douglass knew that power concedes nothing without a demand.  It is time for Shelby County to concede what these teachers and parents demand, and that is nothing more or less than quality public schools for all children."

November 2 in Nashville... Why you should be there

10/27/2014

 
Can Nashville learn from the mistakes of New Orleans' all-charter school district?
Public School activist and parent Karran Harper Royal and Public School Reform author Kristen Buras come together in Nashville, TN on November 2nd to speak about the past decade of education reform in New Orleans. 

As Nashville continues to shape its public education reform it must learn about the success and failures of these reform models in other cities. Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence and Gideon's Army: Grassroots Army for Children welcome two foremost experts on the public school privatization front lines. Karran Harper Royal and Kristen Buras will talk about how those solutions look today in New Orleans, LA.
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Free and open to the public with parking at the center.  

Click this link to register.
Tennessee Parents wrote about this issue in February, but it is definitely worth sharing again:
Big Easy, Little Choice 
Posted on February 26, 2014
By Ashana Bigard
A parent advocate says run—don’t walk—from New Orleans-style school choice
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When I talk about *choice* in New Orleans I use quotations with both fingers and I wink too. Supposedly we have what’s called a *choice model for excellent education* but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of schools in New Orleans now operate the exact same way. They have rigid disciplinary codes that punish poor kids for being poor and are neither nurturing nor developmentally appropriate.
I’m an advocate for parents in New Orleans, which means that I work with them and represent them when their kids are suspended or expelled from school. Last year we had 54 school districts in New Orleans and all of those different districts make their own rules. For six years after the storm, the schools all set their own expulsion policies. As of last year we have a uniform expulsion policy but individual schools still make their own suspension rules.

Punished for being poor
Most of the cases I see involve kids who are being discriminated against and criminalized for being poor. Think about it. If I’m setting up a school where I know that the majority of students I’m serving are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced lunch—to access free lunch in New Orleans your family has to earn less than $12,000 a year—why would I punish kids for not being able to pay for things that are clearly out of the range of what their families can afford? It isn’t logical. Yet as an advocate I have to go and argue with the school that if this child doesn’t have a belt or his mother can’t afford a size 15 uniform shoe that costs $200, you don’t have the right to put them out of school and keep them from being educated. This is a child we’re talking about. Even if you’re saying *we’re going to teach this child a lesson,* what are you teaching him other than that *if your parents are poor, you can be hurt*? What is the lesson?

Case closed
The case that still breaks my heart involved a 14-year-old who kept getting demerits because his uniform shirt was too small and came untucked basically every time he moved. His mother was a veteran, well-educated, and had sold real estate but got divorced and ended up losing her job, and became homeless. They were living with friends and really struggling. The school expelled the child because he’d had three suspensions—the last one for selling candy to try to raise enough money to buy a new shoes and a new uniform shirt. I felt that if the mother went and told her story that the school would understand and wouldn’t hold up the expulsion. She didn’t want the school to know how impoverished she was but I convinced her to do it, so she came and told all of these people what she was going through—about her struggles. I thought for sure the board would overturn the expulsion, not just because her story was so compelling, but because there wasn’t actually anything in the school’s discipline book about selling candy. But they upheld it and it broke my heart that this kid was being put out of school because he was poor.

Little prisons
The majority of schools in New Orleans have these overly rigid disciplinary codes—they’re run like little prisons. The schools aren’t nurturing and they aren’t developmentally appropriate. Children need social development time. They need recess, they need to be able to talk at lunch. You’ll hear the schools say *we’re providing structured social development*—but there’s no such thing! If you have to manage kids’ social development, it’s not social development. Typically you’ll hear from school leaders that they have to have this overly rigid school climate because the school has just opened and it’s chaotic. They’ll say something like *we need these rules in place until we get a structured, calm environment, then we can make it less rigid. But first we have to calm these children and get them to a place of orderliness.* But children will never be calm, orderly robots unless there’s something wrong with them. They’re never going to get to the place that you’ve decided is necessary before they can have more freedom. In order for children to know how to operate in freedom, they have to have freedom to operate in. We don’t teach kids to eat with a fork and spoon by not giving them a fork and spoon!

Recess and recourse
When parents ask me for advice about schools in New Orleans they never ask *what are the best schools*? They want to know what the least terrible schools are. I tell them to go for one of the Orleans Parish School Board schools because at least then they’ll have some recourse. I tell them to look for schools that have recess and try to find the good teachers. And if they end up at a school where the teachers are really young, look for developmentally appropriate material and bring it to the teacher—kind of like *educate the educator.* So many of the teachers in New Orleans are brand new—this isn’t their profession. They don’t know about child development or adolescent development. I also tell parents to document absolutely everything. If you have a problem with something that happens at the school, keep a record. Try to create an email trail and keep a log of   everything that happens. At some point there is going to be a class-action suit because our children’s rights are being violated and we need as much documentation as possible.

The choice to leave
My daughter attended a kindergarten where the students spent most of the day doing worksheets. I didn’t feel that this was in any way developmentally appropriate. At six years old, my daughter should love math—I love math!—but the school was basically fostering a hatred of math. Their response was basically *if you don’t like our program, you have the choice to leave.* So I left. As of last year, though, parents in New Orleans no longer have the choice to leave schools they’re unhappy with after October 1st. In order to transfer, you have to get the approval of the school board to agree to release your child, and you have to get the other school to agree to take your child. Our children are prisoners—are kids are inmates—and in order to get them out, we have to beg for pardons, which may or may not be granted.

A sorting mechanism
OneApp, the centralized enrollment system for the New Orleans schools, is supposed to make it easy for parents in the city to have their choice of schools. But parents aren’t going to have real choice just because they filled out the OneApp application. For example, you can’t see a school’s discipline guide before you register your child. And if I want my child to go to a school that has recess, art or educates the whole child, I have very little choice at all. I can try for one of the high-performing charters—the magnet schools that existed before the storm—but which are now even harder to get into than they were before Katrina. Parents of special needs kids, by the way, have even less choice, because so few of the schools will accept their children at all. What OneApp does is ensure that the various charter operators get the enrollment that they were promised. No matter how bad the school is, or how terrible the climate, we’re going to make sure that you get those kids.

Fight harder than you’ve ever fought
If New Orleans is being held up as a model for the schools in your community, I have some advice for you. Fight harder than you’ve ever fought to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you. Because once you’re in it, it’s so hard to get out of. Fight tooth and nail. If people come to your community and try to sell you bull crap, come down here and talk to us first. Read anything you can get your hands on. They’ll tell you that your input matters, that your schools are going to be run according to a community model. Don’t believe it. At the end of the day, they could care less about what kind of schools you want. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we said that we wanted arts and music in our schools—that those were really important to us in a city like New Orleans that’s build on arts and music and culture. Instead we got prisons.

Ashana Bigard is a life-long resident of New Orleans and a long-time advocate for children and families. She helps lead the Community Education Project of New Orleans

This was printed with permission from this awesome website: www.edushyster.com 
Tennessee's Achievement School District is modeled after New Orleans' FAILING Recovery School District.  Tennessee parents do NOT want this system here.

Giving our public schools away to charter operators is not acceptable. It is especially sneaky and dishonest to give them away one grade level at a time (starting with only the Kdg. & 1st grade in year 1, and adding a grade each year thereafter) so that the charter operator isn't held accountable by test scores for several years. Plus it hides the glaring low enrollment rates due to parents transferring their children to other public schools.  The claim that "the ASD must immediately intervene to save those poor, failing students currently in those schools" is a big, fat lie.  Those current students aren't being helped one bit by only taking the brand new younger grades.  It really IS about profit, isn't it?

This is NOT what those parents want for their children.  They want fully funded public schools.  Parents voices are repeatedly being ignored. Parents in those communities will not forget this in the voting booths.

Stop giving away our public schools away.
They belong to the public.

Why it won't work...

10/20/2014

 
Do your eyes get a glazed-over expression when people start talking about education reform?  

Are you intimidated by the slick marketing tactics that the reformers bombard you with?  Do you REALLY understand their lingo and impressive-sounding buzz words?

Do you sincerely believe the gloom and doom coming from the media and reformers, even though you think that your neighborhood's schools & teachers are excellent, so it must be that "other" school district?

You're not alone.  Don't despair!  There is hope!

Even though the mainstream media tends to simply regurgitate press releases from richly-funded reformers...  and even though education reporters are strangely replaced with out-of-state journalists who have very little knowledge on our state or local education issues... there is a light that is growing brighter that people cannot ignore: independent bloggers!  The word is spreading!  One such blogger is Peter Greene, a teacher by day and a blogger by night.  

This recent blog of Greene's is simply fantastic.  He has the incredible gift of writing the obvious.  Please read it, wipe the reformy grit out of your eyes, and share it with others.

Free Market Forces Will Not Save US Education -- They Will Destroy It

by Peter Greene
originally posted at Curmuducation 

Fans of market forces for education simply don't understand how market forces actually work.

What they like to say is that free market competition breeds excellence. It does not, and it never has.

Free market competition breeds excellent marketing. McDonald's did not become successful by creating the most excellent food. Coke and Pepsi are not that outstandingly superior to RC or any store brand. Betamax was actually technically superior to VHS, but VHS had a better marketing plan.

The market loves winners. It loves winners even if they aren't winning -- Amazon has yet to turn an actual profit, ever, but investors think that Bezos is a winner, so they keep shoveling money on top of him. And when we enter the area of crony capitalism, which likes to pretend it's the free market, picking winners becomes even less related to success. Charter schools were once a great idea with some real promise, but the whole business has become so toxically polluted with crony capitalism that it has no hope of producing educational excellence in its present form.

But then, the market has only one measure for winning, and that is the production of money. The heart of a business plan is not "Can I build a really excellent mousetrap?" The heart of a business plan is "Can I sell this mousetrap and make money doing it?"

There is nothing about that question that is compatible with pursuing excellence in public education.

The most incompatible part of market-driven education is not its love of money-making winner, but its attitude about losers. Because the market hates losers. The market has no plan for dealing with losers. It simply wants all losers to go away.

Here's the problem. I teach plenty of students whom the market would consider losers. They take too long to learn. They have developmental obstacles to learning. They have disciplinary issues. They may be learning disabled. They have families of origin who create obstacles rather than providing support. What this means to a market-driven education system is that these loser students are too costly, offer too little profit margin, and, in their failures, hurt the numbers that are so critical to marketing the school.

In PA, we already know how the market-driven sector feels about these students. It loves to recruit them by promising a free computer and a happy land of success where nobody ever hounds you about attendance and all homework can be completed by whoever is sitting by the computer. But sooner or later, those students are sloughed off and sent back to public schools. And by "sooner or later," I mean some time after the cyber-charter has collected the money for that student.

The market sheds its losers, its failures (well, unless they can convince some patron or crony that they are just winners who are suffering a minor setback). Schools cannot.

For the free market, failure is not only an option, but a necessity. Losers must fail, be defeated, go away. For a public school system, that is not an option. Only with due process and extraordinary circumstances should a student be refused a public education. And certainly no traditional respectable public school system can simply declare that it has too many loser kids, so it's going to shut down.

The free market approach to schools must inevitably turn them upside down. In a free market system, the school does not exist to serve the student, but the student exists to serve the interests of the school by bringing in money and by generating the kinds of numbers that make good marketing (so that the school can bring in more money). And that means that students who do not serve the interests of the free-market school must be dumped, tossed out, discarded.

To label students losers, to abandon them, to toss them aside, and to do all that to the students who are in most need of an education -- that is the very antithesis of American public education. The free market approach to schools will no more unleash innovation and excellence than did 500 channels on cable TV. What it will do is chew up and spit out large numbers of students for being business liabilities.

Free market forces will not save US education; they will destroy it. To suggest that entrepreneurs should have the chance to profit at the cost of young lives is not simply bad policy -- it's immoral. It's wrong.


The above article is reprinted with the kind permission of its author.  Click HERE to read more of Peter Greene's enlightening, witty blogs about education reform.  You can easily subscribe to his blog on the sidebar of his website.

Common sense reforms:

10/1/2014

 
I attended a community meeting at Jere Baxter Middle School tonight to hear discussion of the East Nashville "Third Way" plan. Jere Baxter is located just off Dickerson Pike and only a few blocks away from the new Rocketship charter school (which is directly across the street from Jenna's Adult Toy Box, but that's an entirely different issue). 

Jere Baxter boasts a beautiful new building, but is severely underenrolled at only 53% capacity. Dr. Register said hundreds of students in the area are now attending new charter schools, which have oversaturated the East Nashville market. (See the correlation here?) 

Jere Baxter serves a population of 97.9% free and reduced lunch students. It has a mobility rate of 58% and a chronic absence rate of 18%. To no one's surprise, this school is struggling. This year, only 15.8% of its students were reading on grade level.

Dr. Register led off the discussion with Jere Baxter's dismal performance and said that no child should be subjected to a "failing" school. A parent responded with the question I had in mind: What actually makes Jere Baxter a "bad" school? Although Dr. Register didn't really answer this question, staff members complained about the lack of continuity - with constantly rotating students, teachers and principals. Teachers asked for greater supports. A parent noted that many students at the school are desperately seeking teachers' attention, and the school needs more staff. One teacher who had taught at both a charter and traditional schools pointed out that guidance counselors at traditional schools are too tied up with testing to actually offer counseling. (This is definitely the case at my child's school.) No one mentioned the elephant in the room - the impact of poverty and mobility on student performance.

The most disturbing part of the discussion for me, however, was the new focus onrecruiting students, rather than discussion of how to best address the huge challenges at the school. According to Dr. Register, the need to compete for students is just a reality now, and traditional schools need to step it up. He went on: Because charter schools are "out recruiting us" (despite the fact that our traditional schools provide more offerings than MNPS charter schools), we must become better recruiters at traditional schools. Other MNPS officials also spoke about the need to "sell" and market our schools and go door-to-door looking for students (like our charter schools). One teacher pointed out that charter schools often host huge BBQ dinners to recruit families and (only somewhat jokingly) asked for a budget for BBQ! 

This focus on recruitment and competition is all a direct result of the national, state, and local attacks on public education, created by those who view our schools as markets, our families as consumers, and our children as mass-produced commodities. 

Then, a voice of reason spoke up. A teacher said, "I went to school to be a teacher. Not a business person. Not a marketer. Not a recruiter." She asked: When can I do my job and teach? Where are my supports?

So after tonight's meeting, here are my questions: Is it really a good idea to require parents to compete for spots at coveted "choice" schools and ask teachers to become recruiters for the best test takers? Where is community in all this "choice," competition and winning? 

What has happened to the ideal that we will work together to build healthy communities and ensure that every neighbor is welcomed and accepted? We should make sure that children who have special needs, immigrant children who can't speak English, those with behavioral problems, and those who simply struggle in school are just as welcome as children who perform best in school, and that our struggling students will receive the extra support that they require. We should work together to support our schools in addressing these difficult issues and never give up on a single child.

In the end, this all seems to be a numbers game. Last year, Memphis closed down several of its "failing" schools, which increased Nashville's number of "failing" schools. We can now respond by shutting down our own "failing" schools (poof- no more "bad" schools!) and play the game of competing to win. Or we can take the brave step of not buying into all of this market-driven insanity. 

In short, we can choose to educate children, or we can sell out by "marketing" our "product" to "customers." 

We can have chaos, or we can have community.

What would happen if MNPS refused to play the "reform" numbers game anymore? What if we just decided to stand up to the bullies? Instead of merely shuffling students around to make our numbers look better, we, as a district, could decide that shuffling struggling students around is not the answer, even though it may momentarily make MNPS look better on the State Report Card. We could decide that we value each individual student and recognize that just moving "failing" students from school to school does nothing to address their academic problems. Instead of rubber-stamping military-style schools that get great scores, but don't offer healthy social/emotional learning opportunities, physical activity or enrichment, we could demand a focus on best practices. We could acknowledge that there are no miracle school cures, just like there are no miracle diet cures, and invest time, energy and long-term resources into our existing schools. We could create a budget that allows for extra support staff in the schools with the most challenging populations.
We could acknowledge that real school reform takes time. 

I believe these are the discussions we need to undertake. Who's with me?

- written by Amy Frogge, Metro Nashville School Board member
[emphasis added by TN Parents]
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