You may recall that the last time we checked in, York PA was on a fast track to the suspension of democracy. But that train has been called back to the station.
York Schools were among the PA schools suffering sever financial distress (PA has operated with a school funding system that produces a lot of local financial hardship). The previous administration of Tom Corbett had used that as a trigger to install a district recovery office, and just a few months ago-- almost as if we were in a hurry to do a deal before the new governor took office-- a PA judged ruled that the district could go into receivership, a nifty system in which the democraticaly elected school board is stripped of power and the state-appointed receiver could do as he wished.
What David Meckley, the receiver, wanted to do was turn the whole district over to for-profit charter chain, Charter Schools USA. Lots of people thought that was an awful idea (among other problems, there was no reason to believe that CSUSA had a clue what to do with the district once they took it over). The judge who ruled in the case did so based on close reading of the law, declaring that even if the plan was clearly terrible, that wasn't his problem. That ruling was being appealed.
But now all of that has come to a screeching halt.
The full account is in Friday's York Daily Record. The short headline version is simple-- David Meckley has resigned as recovery officer. The longer version is encouraging for Pennsylvanians (like me) who weren't really sure which way new governor Tom Wolf's wind would be blowing-- Meckley resigned because the governor's office made it plain that charters were off the table.
There was apparently an intermediate stage, during which Meckley and locals and the state fiddled with a charter-public mix plan.
Meckley said in an interview that, around
December, he, district administrators, the proposed charter board and
some community leaders had crafted an alternative plan that involved a
mix of district- and charter-run buildings. He said he had significant
conversations with the Wolf administration about it, but "ultimately the
position came down that charters are off the table."
And so, reading the writing on the wall, Meckley has resigned, and the search for a new receiver is on. The board president is wryly hopeful.
"My understanding is they wanted to put someone in that position who knows about the educational aspect of schools," she said.
Meckley, even on his way out the door, continued to demonstrate that he was not that education-understanding guy by expressing his belief that a receivership was necessary because if the schools weren't going to be punished into excellence, they would never get there (I'm paraphrasing).
Wolf has stated, via his proposed budget, his intention to get funding back up to a higher level in Pennsylvania. What the budget will actually look like once it gets past the GOP-controlled legislature is another question. But this move in York follows Wolf's replacement of the chairman of the board that runs Philly schools after the defrocked chair approved more charters in Philly in opposition to Wolf's stated desire to have no more Philly charters.
Meanwhile, York has plenty of problems still to solve. The York Daily Record quotes Clovis Gallon, a teacher who was one of the leaders of the local charter opposition:
"Clearly we recognize the fact there's a lot of
work to do with our students, with our community, with our school
district," he said. "We're ready to accept that challenge. As a parent,
as a teacher, I'm ready to accept the challenge."
Showing posts with label Tom Corbett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Corbett. Show all posts
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Biggest Ed Win of 2014
As the battle for the heart, soul, and future of US public education has heated up this year, there have been wins for the Resistance this year. Because it's the time of year in which we all Make Lists and Declare Winners, I'm going to go ahead and sort through public education victories this year and declare the greatest.
Political
It's now quaint to remember a time when education was the easy choice for pols who wanted a win. Coming out for better schools was like announcing your support of cute puppies and apple pie, a political stance with only an up side and no possible downside.
No longer. No longer can politicians just say, "Let's make schools better" and not have to explain what they mean and not suffer consequences for those specifics. Sure, the new opposition to Common Core from guys like Bobby Jindal is strictly political, but then, the support was strictly political in the first place. The good news is that politicians must now do some sort of homework instead of just making platitudinous mouth noises about education.
And while the fall elections left reformster politicians largely untouched, the brutal shellacking of incumbent PA governor Tom Corbett is a clear signal that voters will put up with only so much gutting of public education.
Corporate
I hope Leonie Haimson is having a great New Year's celebration tonight, because this year she was the most visible face of a movement that took down inBloom, the data collecting giant. It would be a mistake to thing our Data Overlords have given up their dreams of hoovering up every speck of data on every sentient being on the planet (it is still fundamental to Pearson's world domination business plan). But their flagship corporate initiative got its ass handed to it in 2014.
Conversational
This was the year for reformsters to talk about the Conversation. Changing the Conversation. Renewing the Conversation. Improving the Conversation. Reformsters talk about the Conversation uniformly ignored one uncomfortable truth-- the Conversation they were talking about changing was the same one they had refused to have. Common Core was rolled out quickly and in a manner deliberately designed to keep national standards, test, and (let's be honest) curriculum from being derailed by any conversation about how (or even if) these things should be done.
So 2014 was the year that reformsters, mostly, acknowledged that simply rolling over the entire country was no longer working as a strategy. Some, like Peter Cunningham at Education Post, still worked on the theory that the public just needed to be rolled over more artfully, but even that was a backhanded acknowledgement that people who disagree with the reform agenda exist and have voices and can't just be ignored. That means there's a possibility that in 2015 we might actually begin the national conversation we should have had in 2009.
The Biggest Public Education Win of 2014
None of these victories, or the many other victories for public ed this year, were the biggest win. Because the biggest win was also the quietest one. Let me tell you what it was, in case you missed it.
In the midst of a staggering assault on public education, with their integrity, judgment, reputation, and ability under attack by everyone from corporate stooges to the US Secretary of Education, and, in many areas, with their job security under direct assault by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, while powerful forces worked to dismantle the very institutions and ideals that they have devoted their lives to-- in the middle of all that, millions of teachers went to work and did their jobs.
In environments ranging from openly hostile to merely unsupportive, teachers went into their classrooms and did their best to meet the needs of their students. Teachers helped millions of young human become smarter, wiser, more capable, more confident, and better educated. Millions of teachers went to school, met students where they were, and helped those students move forward, helped them grasp what it meant to be fully human, to be the most that they could be. Teachers helped millions of students learn to read and write and figure and draw and make music and play games and know history and understand science and a list of things so varied and rich that I have no room here for them all.
When so many groups were slandering us and our own political leaders were giving us a giant middle finger, we squared our shoulders and said, "Well, dammit, I've got a job to do, and if even if I've got to go in there and do it with my bare hands in a hailstorm, I'm going to do it." And we did.
Yes, some of us finally ran out of fight this year. There's no shame in that; despite what our detractors say, this is not a job that just anybody can do for a lifetime, particularly not under today's conditions. The people who had to leave the classroom are just our measure of how hard it is to stay these days.
And yet, this year, millions of us stayed and fought and taught and did our best this year. While powerful forces lined up to make us fail, or at least make us look as if we were failing, we went into our classrooms armed with professional skills and knowledge and experience and judgment and hours of outside preparation and work, and we didn't fail. We stood up for our students, stood up for the education, their future, their value as human beings. We didn't fail.
So, if you want the biggest public education win of 2014, there it is. Millions of teachers, caught in a storm not of their own making, under fire, under pressure, under the thumb of people with far more money and power still stood up and did their job. The powers that be tried to make us fail, and we got the job done anyway. Celebrate that.
Political
It's now quaint to remember a time when education was the easy choice for pols who wanted a win. Coming out for better schools was like announcing your support of cute puppies and apple pie, a political stance with only an up side and no possible downside.
No longer. No longer can politicians just say, "Let's make schools better" and not have to explain what they mean and not suffer consequences for those specifics. Sure, the new opposition to Common Core from guys like Bobby Jindal is strictly political, but then, the support was strictly political in the first place. The good news is that politicians must now do some sort of homework instead of just making platitudinous mouth noises about education.
And while the fall elections left reformster politicians largely untouched, the brutal shellacking of incumbent PA governor Tom Corbett is a clear signal that voters will put up with only so much gutting of public education.
Corporate
I hope Leonie Haimson is having a great New Year's celebration tonight, because this year she was the most visible face of a movement that took down inBloom, the data collecting giant. It would be a mistake to thing our Data Overlords have given up their dreams of hoovering up every speck of data on every sentient being on the planet (it is still fundamental to Pearson's world domination business plan). But their flagship corporate initiative got its ass handed to it in 2014.
Conversational
This was the year for reformsters to talk about the Conversation. Changing the Conversation. Renewing the Conversation. Improving the Conversation. Reformsters talk about the Conversation uniformly ignored one uncomfortable truth-- the Conversation they were talking about changing was the same one they had refused to have. Common Core was rolled out quickly and in a manner deliberately designed to keep national standards, test, and (let's be honest) curriculum from being derailed by any conversation about how (or even if) these things should be done.
So 2014 was the year that reformsters, mostly, acknowledged that simply rolling over the entire country was no longer working as a strategy. Some, like Peter Cunningham at Education Post, still worked on the theory that the public just needed to be rolled over more artfully, but even that was a backhanded acknowledgement that people who disagree with the reform agenda exist and have voices and can't just be ignored. That means there's a possibility that in 2015 we might actually begin the national conversation we should have had in 2009.
The Biggest Public Education Win of 2014
None of these victories, or the many other victories for public ed this year, were the biggest win. Because the biggest win was also the quietest one. Let me tell you what it was, in case you missed it.
In the midst of a staggering assault on public education, with their integrity, judgment, reputation, and ability under attack by everyone from corporate stooges to the US Secretary of Education, and, in many areas, with their job security under direct assault by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, while powerful forces worked to dismantle the very institutions and ideals that they have devoted their lives to-- in the middle of all that, millions of teachers went to work and did their jobs.
In environments ranging from openly hostile to merely unsupportive, teachers went into their classrooms and did their best to meet the needs of their students. Teachers helped millions of young human become smarter, wiser, more capable, more confident, and better educated. Millions of teachers went to school, met students where they were, and helped those students move forward, helped them grasp what it meant to be fully human, to be the most that they could be. Teachers helped millions of students learn to read and write and figure and draw and make music and play games and know history and understand science and a list of things so varied and rich that I have no room here for them all.
When so many groups were slandering us and our own political leaders were giving us a giant middle finger, we squared our shoulders and said, "Well, dammit, I've got a job to do, and if even if I've got to go in there and do it with my bare hands in a hailstorm, I'm going to do it." And we did.
Yes, some of us finally ran out of fight this year. There's no shame in that; despite what our detractors say, this is not a job that just anybody can do for a lifetime, particularly not under today's conditions. The people who had to leave the classroom are just our measure of how hard it is to stay these days.
And yet, this year, millions of us stayed and fought and taught and did our best this year. While powerful forces lined up to make us fail, or at least make us look as if we were failing, we went into our classrooms armed with professional skills and knowledge and experience and judgment and hours of outside preparation and work, and we didn't fail. We stood up for our students, stood up for the education, their future, their value as human beings. We didn't fail.
So, if you want the biggest public education win of 2014, there it is. Millions of teachers, caught in a storm not of their own making, under fire, under pressure, under the thumb of people with far more money and power still stood up and did their job. The powers that be tried to make us fail, and we got the job done anyway. Celebrate that.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
PA's Education Spending Gap
The AP has put research and specific numbers to something that those of us in the Pennsylvania ed biz had already figured out-- the gap between rich schools and poor schools has opened up tremendously over the four years of Tom Corbett as governor.
Pennsylvania has had school funding issues for a while. We are tops in the nation when it comes to local contributions; the state contributes a hair over 36% of the funding for secondary and elementary spending, which puts us well below the national average of 45.5%. We rank 45th out of 50 in state education financial support in K-12. Our state universities are likewise outstanding-- Pitt and Penn State boast the two most expensive in-state tuition costs in the country.
Local school districts carry a big part of the burden for funding their schools, which means, of course, that how much money a district can spend on its students is hugely affected by how much money the local district can gather through real estate taxes because, yeah, that's still how we do it here. A 2008 bill tried to make the funding formula compensate more equitably for local tax base weakness, but Corbett scrapped that and went back to an earlier formula, giving poor districts a double (at least) whammy.
Oh-- and no quick course corrections for PA schools. Act 1, passed in 2006, said that a district must ask for state permission and hold a referendum if they want to increase taxes beyond a very low ceiling. So even districts that have the means to make up the state shortfall are hogtied when it comes to raising tax revenues.
There's more. Remember how some people got suckered back ten years ago into thinking that real estate would be a constant source of vastly growing investment income? On that list of suckers you'll find the state of Pennsylvania, which bet the education pension fund on that giant scam. PA teacher pensions are defined benefit pensions, meaning that we get a pre-determined payout and it's up to the state to make sure the money's there to pay it. When the bottom fell out, the state and local school districts found themselves on the hook for massive pension payments to make up the non-growth of the investments. PA's legislature dealt with this potential crisis by saying, "Yeah, let's just wait and see if things get better on their own." They didn't. Now the state and local districts are trying to deal with the biggest balloon payment ever.
Wealthy districts have been able to pick up the slack from all these budgetary pressures. Poor districts have not. Critics are now saying that to bring poor districts up to parity with rich ones would cost at least a billion dollars.
In the meantime, the AP report shows that rich districts now spend as much as $4K more per student than the poorest districts. That's an increase of about $2,300 more per student. A study from the Center for American Progress last summer crowned Pennsylvania and Illinois the king and queen of school spending inequality.
Tom Corbett didn't create this mess single-handedly. Previous governor Ed Rendell, who was no friend of public education or the teachers who work there, created an extra booby-trap by spending stimulus money to prop up the regular education budget. The GOP-controlled legislature gets credit for making a hash of the pension fund. But if Tom Corbett is not the guy who set the house on fire, he is the guy who told the fire department to go home because they weren't needed.
Corbett has been steadfast in hewing to the classic line that throwing money at schools doesn't make any difference. If that's true, then there should be no problem in taking all that "extra" money away from the wealthy districts and redistributing it to poor districts. After all, the extra $4K per student isn't making a difference, right?
Pennsylvania has had school funding issues for a while. We are tops in the nation when it comes to local contributions; the state contributes a hair over 36% of the funding for secondary and elementary spending, which puts us well below the national average of 45.5%. We rank 45th out of 50 in state education financial support in K-12. Our state universities are likewise outstanding-- Pitt and Penn State boast the two most expensive in-state tuition costs in the country.
Local school districts carry a big part of the burden for funding their schools, which means, of course, that how much money a district can spend on its students is hugely affected by how much money the local district can gather through real estate taxes because, yeah, that's still how we do it here. A 2008 bill tried to make the funding formula compensate more equitably for local tax base weakness, but Corbett scrapped that and went back to an earlier formula, giving poor districts a double (at least) whammy.
Oh-- and no quick course corrections for PA schools. Act 1, passed in 2006, said that a district must ask for state permission and hold a referendum if they want to increase taxes beyond a very low ceiling. So even districts that have the means to make up the state shortfall are hogtied when it comes to raising tax revenues.
There's more. Remember how some people got suckered back ten years ago into thinking that real estate would be a constant source of vastly growing investment income? On that list of suckers you'll find the state of Pennsylvania, which bet the education pension fund on that giant scam. PA teacher pensions are defined benefit pensions, meaning that we get a pre-determined payout and it's up to the state to make sure the money's there to pay it. When the bottom fell out, the state and local school districts found themselves on the hook for massive pension payments to make up the non-growth of the investments. PA's legislature dealt with this potential crisis by saying, "Yeah, let's just wait and see if things get better on their own." They didn't. Now the state and local districts are trying to deal with the biggest balloon payment ever.
Wealthy districts have been able to pick up the slack from all these budgetary pressures. Poor districts have not. Critics are now saying that to bring poor districts up to parity with rich ones would cost at least a billion dollars.
In the meantime, the AP report shows that rich districts now spend as much as $4K more per student than the poorest districts. That's an increase of about $2,300 more per student. A study from the Center for American Progress last summer crowned Pennsylvania and Illinois the king and queen of school spending inequality.
Tom Corbett didn't create this mess single-handedly. Previous governor Ed Rendell, who was no friend of public education or the teachers who work there, created an extra booby-trap by spending stimulus money to prop up the regular education budget. The GOP-controlled legislature gets credit for making a hash of the pension fund. But if Tom Corbett is not the guy who set the house on fire, he is the guy who told the fire department to go home because they weren't needed.
Corbett has been steadfast in hewing to the classic line that throwing money at schools doesn't make any difference. If that's true, then there should be no problem in taking all that "extra" money away from the wealthy districts and redistributing it to poor districts. After all, the extra $4K per student isn't making a difference, right?
Asked this month about the growing
disparity, Corbett didn't point to his administration's policies.
Rather, he said, it is a subject of great concern that lawmakers must
figure out. He also said a system of 500 school districts that make
independent budgeting decisions will complicate the effort to decide how
much should be spent to educate a child or achieve parity between the
rich and poor.
Corbett has absolutely refused to see his policies as exacerbating the problem. He does have a point about the 500 school districts. In the 1960s the state had even more, and they were almost-forcibly combined,, but each tiny district could join with any district it touched. Consequently, some counties have one unified district. My own county has four district (plus bits of a few others). Students in my building are picked up in the morning and driven through another district and then back into our district (which is shaped kind of like a big backwards E). It is, frankly, an inefficient mess. Several governors have tried to address it, but communities are not going to give up their identities easily.
When confronted with the issue of moving money into poor districts, Corbett told the AP, "So who do I take it away from?"
Corbett's administration has been marked by a real reluctance to take money away from anybody. Pennsylvania should be cashing in on the big marcellus shale boom, but Harrisburg has been determined to charge as little in fees and taxes as they can. Corbett was also determined to make PA attractive to businesses by taking away as little of their money as possible. But critics say that his determination to reverse Pennsylvania's reputation as a business-unfriendly state has left the state treasury with a huge revenue gap.
I am always cautious about using the cost-per-pupil figure, but even if we aren't certain what the figures mean exactly, the change in them sends a clear message. In Pennsylvania, the poor districts are falling behind with less revenue, less money for staff, for buildings, for resources, for basic maintenance. York is one example of what happens next-- after gutting their budget, the state can then declare that they are no longer fit to govern their own schools. This starvation diet is a perfect setting for privatization.
It's politically pleasing to lambaste Tom Corbett over this, and he certainly made things worse, but Pennsylvania has a problem bigger than partisan politics. In a few days, a new governor takes over. I have no idea if Tom Wolf is going to make things better or not-- Pennsylvania has not had an education governor in my lifetime. But I do know that things are as bad right now as they've ever been, and if you're in a poor school district, they're worse than that.
Friday, December 26, 2014
The Shafting of York, PA: Round One
Merry Christmas to the teachers, taxpayers, students, parents and elected school board of York, PA. Today Stephen P. Linebaugh, President Judge of the 19th Judicial District of Pennsylvania ruled that the state may go ahead with takeover of York Schools. Well, not so much "take over" as "hand over to a for-profit charter school company with a dubious track record in Florida." A lump of coal would have been an improvement. York is one step closer to being the first district in the country state converted straight to full charter takeover. [Correction-- York will be the first all charter in PA, but not the nation. But they will be the only all-charter currently operating in the nation.]
Here are some of the salient points to keep in mind as this story continues to unfold (because appeals are going to be filed with all the quickness, you may be sure).
Why is York's school problem, anyway?
Money. York is an exceptionally poor district, and under Tom Corbett, poor schools took an enormous hit. In Pennsylvania, public schools depend a great degree on local funding, with the state historically kicking in a little extra based on just how poor the district might be. PA schools took a one-two punch over the past six or seven years. First, previous Governor Ed Rendell (D) took the stimulus money and did just what he wasn't supposed to-- he used it to fund schools. Second, when Corbett arrived and the stimulus money left, he did not replace it. The biggest cuts of state funding happened in the poorest districts (you can visit Philly for further demonstrations of how this is working out). In 2012, York had 15% of its budget-- $8.4 million-- cut by the state.
So the state took over, anointing David Meckley Grand High Recovery Officer of the district. And it turns out that Meckley loves him some charters.And now the state (rather quickly-- as if they were working against some sort of deadline) wants to upgrade him to Receiver. Others disagree. And so, court.
So why is the state taking over?
Surprise-- this is not even the kind of academic takeover turnaround we keep hearing about from reformsters. Pennsylvania put York into Recovery Purgatory for financial hardship.
While the state's proposed receiver is making noises about improving student test scores and the district's standing in the state, academics are not what got the state involved in the first place. This is about the benjamins. If you want to see how raw and simple the conversion to Full Charter Ownership can be, here it is. Have your state government cut education budgets, then have the same government take over the school district because it is too financially strapped (because the state cut their budget). The only way to make it simpler would be for state governments to say, "We are going to give your district to a charter company because we want to." If you want to take a more detailed look at this maneuver, I recommend this post from Jersey Jazzman.
Why do they want to upgrade to receivership? Because recoveryship isn't working? Because the teachers aren't cooperating? Because PA will have a new governor at the end of the month? Pick your favorite.
What did the judge's ruling say?
The full text of the ruling is attached to this story, but I can hit some of the highlights for you.
In the discussion, the judge defined the issue as whether or not the Secretary's call for a Receiver was arbitrary, capricious, or wholly irrelevant to the financial recovery of the district. "The issues was not," he said, "what action the Receiver would take if appointed by the court."
That's a critical issue because everybody knows what action the Receiver intends to take-- handing over the district, lock, stock and barrel, to for-profit corporation Charter Schools USA. And while the future plans might have a teensy bit of bearing on the case, "It is not for the court to determine whether or not it is the best plan or even a good plan for the District. That is a determination to be made by the Receiver." The ruling's list of Receiver powers indicates that he can do pretty much any damn thing he wants without being answerable to anybody.
In the judge's opinion, the state followed the rules when calling for receivership. The school district meets some basic standards of the law (minimum 7500 students, for example) and it did some things that were not in line with the Recovery Plan that was in place (failing to get its teacher union to accept a contract with massive cuts, for example).
So the judge's basic ruling, as I read it, is that the state may or may not have a good idea about how to run the schools, but it followed its rules in doing so.
Charter Schools USA is a poster child for everything wrong with charters
Local news took a quick look at what charter operation would mean. By asking the charter operators. Guess what-- it will be awesome!
Spokeswoman, Paula Jackson, says the company has a history of turning around struggling schools. Over the span of three years all schools the company has taken over have improved to a satisfactory score. She says turning York City schools around would be nothing new.
“Look we’ve been through this, this is what we have to offer, we’re here to help. Whatever we can do to support you and your students to get them out of being 499 out of 500, we believe in these kids,” says Jackson.
I particularly appreciate how Jackson believes in these kids that they've never met and don't actually know. Perhaps she means that the company believes that these kids exist and will make them a butt-load of money.
Remember, for-profit charter is the very definition of a zero-sum game-- every dollar spent on students is a dollar the company doesn't get to keep. What could be better than a school system in which students are a cost to be control, little human money hemorrhages that must be cauterized and clipped.
Apparently, many things could be better. Charter Schools USA operate in Florida, where the League of Women Voters conducted a one-year study of charters. Turns out Charter Schools USA make use of one of the great profit-making arms of charterdom-- real estate. Here's League Education Chair Patricia Hall talking about how it works:
Our shining local examples in Hillsborough County are owned by Charter Schools USA. My first glimpse of Winthrop Charter School in Riverview in November of 2011 was during a scheduled visit with then Rep. Rachel Burgin. When told the two story brick building was a charter school, I was mystified. The site on which it was built was purchased from John Sullivan by Ryan Construction Company, Minneapolis, MN. From research done by the League of Women Voters of Florida all school building purchases ultimately owned and managed by for-profit Charter Schools USA are initiated by Ryan Construction. The Winthrop site was sold to Ryan Co. in March, 2011 for $2,206,700. In September, 2011 the completed 50,000 square foot building was sold to Red Apple Development Company, LLC for $9,300,000 titled as are all schools managed by Charter Schools USA. Red Apple Development is the school development arm of Charter Schools USA. We, tax payers of Hillsborough County, have paid $969,000 and $988,380 for the last two years to Charter Schools USA in lease fees!
CSUSA has been in business since 1997. Its head honcho, Johnathan Hage, bounced around before taking a last bank shot off the Heritage Foundation in DC and ending up in Florida as a Bush Buddy at Foundations for Florida Future. When Florida passed a charter law in 1996, Hage was right there to jump on the wave. And he was riding it in Indianapolis with Tony Bennett, another Friend Indebted to Bush, where a few million dollars just kind of went missing. Florida charter biz has been big money, little oversight for years, and Hage and CSUSA have been doing just fine.
This might be a dumb move for CSUSA
CSUSA boasts about spending little money on students and getting good test results. They like uniforms. They like structure. And they like requiring "merit pay" for teachers. But this still might be a bad move for them.
The problem with having a charter take over an entire city school system is that it leaves them with no dumping ground. All modern charter success stories depend on one thing-- a dumping ground for students who will hurt the numbers. Students who cost too much to teach because they have one special need or another. Students who are behavior problems. Students who get low test scores. Students who don't show an aptitude for picking up English. Modern charter success stories require a place to dump all of the problem children. Charters depend on attrition, but if they own the whole city system, where will students attrit to?
If CSUSA takes all of York schools, what will they do with the problem students. They will, of course, devote plenty of everyone's time to test prep. But if this is going to work for them, they'll need a dumping ground for students who can not or will not respond well to a steady diet of test prep. These guys have been at this for a while so either A) they've started believing their own PR or B) they've already figured out a solution. In which case, keep your eyes open for the Dumping Ground Loophole in their proposal.
And here's the other part of their problem:
Nobody wants this
Virtually every sector of the York community has spoken out against this move. That includes the elected school board, the teachers union, various members of the taxpaying public-- and it includes York's most prominent native son, the governor-elect of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf. Do you suppose it means anything that we've been trying to ram this through in the last weeks before Wolf takes office? I would like to think it does, but the Receiver is an old friend of Wolf's, and his charter sell-out plan didn't get a squawk from candidate Wolf until journalist Colleen Kennedy stirred up some noise.
I am particularly curious about the teaching staff. CSUSA prefers the merit pay model, favored by pretty much nobody who has experienced it. What would happen if CSUSA were unable to fully staff its schools? They are claiming they can produce more resources and staff down the line, but what makes them think they can do it.
We're not done yet
I assume that the state teachers' union had their appeal already written with a finger on the "send" key before the ink was even dry on today's ruling. So there will be more court shenanigans.
In the meantime, Pennsylvania has a really lousy but quite active cyber-schooling sector. A bad upholding of this lousy decision could touch off a head-to-head battle between charters, as angry parents pull their students to get online instead.
But make no mistake-- this is not good news. It's particularly bad news if you are in PA's other high-poverty districts. If it becomes this easy, this simple for a state to simply hand a school district to a for-profit charter, then in the long run, nobody is safe. Well, except all the people running those charter corporations, cheerfully converting public tax dollars to private profits.
If you care about public education, you may not know much about York, PA, but I'll bet that before too long, you'll know plenty about the decisions that are made there.
Here are some of the salient points to keep in mind as this story continues to unfold (because appeals are going to be filed with all the quickness, you may be sure).
Why is York's school problem, anyway?
Money. York is an exceptionally poor district, and under Tom Corbett, poor schools took an enormous hit. In Pennsylvania, public schools depend a great degree on local funding, with the state historically kicking in a little extra based on just how poor the district might be. PA schools took a one-two punch over the past six or seven years. First, previous Governor Ed Rendell (D) took the stimulus money and did just what he wasn't supposed to-- he used it to fund schools. Second, when Corbett arrived and the stimulus money left, he did not replace it. The biggest cuts of state funding happened in the poorest districts (you can visit Philly for further demonstrations of how this is working out). In 2012, York had 15% of its budget-- $8.4 million-- cut by the state.
So the state took over, anointing David Meckley Grand High Recovery Officer of the district. And it turns out that Meckley loves him some charters.And now the state (rather quickly-- as if they were working against some sort of deadline) wants to upgrade him to Receiver. Others disagree. And so, court.
So why is the state taking over?
Surprise-- this is not even the kind of academic takeover turnaround we keep hearing about from reformsters. Pennsylvania put York into Recovery Purgatory for financial hardship.
While the state's proposed receiver is making noises about improving student test scores and the district's standing in the state, academics are not what got the state involved in the first place. This is about the benjamins. If you want to see how raw and simple the conversion to Full Charter Ownership can be, here it is. Have your state government cut education budgets, then have the same government take over the school district because it is too financially strapped (because the state cut their budget). The only way to make it simpler would be for state governments to say, "We are going to give your district to a charter company because we want to." If you want to take a more detailed look at this maneuver, I recommend this post from Jersey Jazzman.
Why do they want to upgrade to receivership? Because recoveryship isn't working? Because the teachers aren't cooperating? Because PA will have a new governor at the end of the month? Pick your favorite.
What did the judge's ruling say?
The full text of the ruling is attached to this story, but I can hit some of the highlights for you.
In the discussion, the judge defined the issue as whether or not the Secretary's call for a Receiver was arbitrary, capricious, or wholly irrelevant to the financial recovery of the district. "The issues was not," he said, "what action the Receiver would take if appointed by the court."
That's a critical issue because everybody knows what action the Receiver intends to take-- handing over the district, lock, stock and barrel, to for-profit corporation Charter Schools USA. And while the future plans might have a teensy bit of bearing on the case, "It is not for the court to determine whether or not it is the best plan or even a good plan for the District. That is a determination to be made by the Receiver." The ruling's list of Receiver powers indicates that he can do pretty much any damn thing he wants without being answerable to anybody.
In the judge's opinion, the state followed the rules when calling for receivership. The school district meets some basic standards of the law (minimum 7500 students, for example) and it did some things that were not in line with the Recovery Plan that was in place (failing to get its teacher union to accept a contract with massive cuts, for example).
So the judge's basic ruling, as I read it, is that the state may or may not have a good idea about how to run the schools, but it followed its rules in doing so.
Charter Schools USA is a poster child for everything wrong with charters
Local news took a quick look at what charter operation would mean. By asking the charter operators. Guess what-- it will be awesome!
Spokeswoman, Paula Jackson, says the company has a history of turning around struggling schools. Over the span of three years all schools the company has taken over have improved to a satisfactory score. She says turning York City schools around would be nothing new.
“Look we’ve been through this, this is what we have to offer, we’re here to help. Whatever we can do to support you and your students to get them out of being 499 out of 500, we believe in these kids,” says Jackson.
I particularly appreciate how Jackson believes in these kids that they've never met and don't actually know. Perhaps she means that the company believes that these kids exist and will make them a butt-load of money.
Remember, for-profit charter is the very definition of a zero-sum game-- every dollar spent on students is a dollar the company doesn't get to keep. What could be better than a school system in which students are a cost to be control, little human money hemorrhages that must be cauterized and clipped.
Apparently, many things could be better. Charter Schools USA operate in Florida, where the League of Women Voters conducted a one-year study of charters. Turns out Charter Schools USA make use of one of the great profit-making arms of charterdom-- real estate. Here's League Education Chair Patricia Hall talking about how it works:
Our shining local examples in Hillsborough County are owned by Charter Schools USA. My first glimpse of Winthrop Charter School in Riverview in November of 2011 was during a scheduled visit with then Rep. Rachel Burgin. When told the two story brick building was a charter school, I was mystified. The site on which it was built was purchased from John Sullivan by Ryan Construction Company, Minneapolis, MN. From research done by the League of Women Voters of Florida all school building purchases ultimately owned and managed by for-profit Charter Schools USA are initiated by Ryan Construction. The Winthrop site was sold to Ryan Co. in March, 2011 for $2,206,700. In September, 2011 the completed 50,000 square foot building was sold to Red Apple Development Company, LLC for $9,300,000 titled as are all schools managed by Charter Schools USA. Red Apple Development is the school development arm of Charter Schools USA. We, tax payers of Hillsborough County, have paid $969,000 and $988,380 for the last two years to Charter Schools USA in lease fees!
CSUSA has been in business since 1997. Its head honcho, Johnathan Hage, bounced around before taking a last bank shot off the Heritage Foundation in DC and ending up in Florida as a Bush Buddy at Foundations for Florida Future. When Florida passed a charter law in 1996, Hage was right there to jump on the wave. And he was riding it in Indianapolis with Tony Bennett, another Friend Indebted to Bush, where a few million dollars just kind of went missing. Florida charter biz has been big money, little oversight for years, and Hage and CSUSA have been doing just fine.
This might be a dumb move for CSUSA
CSUSA boasts about spending little money on students and getting good test results. They like uniforms. They like structure. And they like requiring "merit pay" for teachers. But this still might be a bad move for them.
The problem with having a charter take over an entire city school system is that it leaves them with no dumping ground. All modern charter success stories depend on one thing-- a dumping ground for students who will hurt the numbers. Students who cost too much to teach because they have one special need or another. Students who are behavior problems. Students who get low test scores. Students who don't show an aptitude for picking up English. Modern charter success stories require a place to dump all of the problem children. Charters depend on attrition, but if they own the whole city system, where will students attrit to?
If CSUSA takes all of York schools, what will they do with the problem students. They will, of course, devote plenty of everyone's time to test prep. But if this is going to work for them, they'll need a dumping ground for students who can not or will not respond well to a steady diet of test prep. These guys have been at this for a while so either A) they've started believing their own PR or B) they've already figured out a solution. In which case, keep your eyes open for the Dumping Ground Loophole in their proposal.
And here's the other part of their problem:
Nobody wants this
Virtually every sector of the York community has spoken out against this move. That includes the elected school board, the teachers union, various members of the taxpaying public-- and it includes York's most prominent native son, the governor-elect of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf. Do you suppose it means anything that we've been trying to ram this through in the last weeks before Wolf takes office? I would like to think it does, but the Receiver is an old friend of Wolf's, and his charter sell-out plan didn't get a squawk from candidate Wolf until journalist Colleen Kennedy stirred up some noise.
I am particularly curious about the teaching staff. CSUSA prefers the merit pay model, favored by pretty much nobody who has experienced it. What would happen if CSUSA were unable to fully staff its schools? They are claiming they can produce more resources and staff down the line, but what makes them think they can do it.
We're not done yet
I assume that the state teachers' union had their appeal already written with a finger on the "send" key before the ink was even dry on today's ruling. So there will be more court shenanigans.
In the meantime, Pennsylvania has a really lousy but quite active cyber-schooling sector. A bad upholding of this lousy decision could touch off a head-to-head battle between charters, as angry parents pull their students to get online instead.
But make no mistake-- this is not good news. It's particularly bad news if you are in PA's other high-poverty districts. If it becomes this easy, this simple for a state to simply hand a school district to a for-profit charter, then in the long run, nobody is safe. Well, except all the people running those charter corporations, cheerfully converting public tax dollars to private profits.
If you care about public education, you may not know much about York, PA, but I'll bet that before too long, you'll know plenty about the decisions that are made there.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Will Wolf's PA Love Charters?
I'm going to hold my breath just a bit longer.
Public education boosters were pretty happy to see Tom Corbett shown the door on election day. But it still remains to be seen whether Tom Wolf is a Fresh New Direction or simply the Lesser of Two Evils. Today, folks are examining his first appointments for his new administration to see if they can guess which way the wind is blowing.
Wolf has been a successful businessman, helming the company that his family has run for decades in York, PA. But for public education advocates, York is also the site of one more attempt by charter privateers to create a happy new NOLA-style playground. This is where it becomes difficult to determine exactly which players are connected.
It was Corbett who budget-slashed York schools into charter vulnerability, and Corbett who appointed a Takeover Tsar (Chief Recovery Officer). But Corbett's choice was David Meckley, and that's where things ultimately became sticky for Wolf.
There has not been a great deal of journalism covering these next parts-- most of what you find leads back to the work of Colleen Kennedy, who is either out there in a conspiracy crackpot way or an intrepid crusading journalist way. I lean toward the latter, but time is indeed going to tell whether she got this right or not.
Meckley and Wolf are, according to Kennedy, friends. Both are connected to the York County Community Foundation, whose vision is to be "a catalyst for strategic philanthropy and a driver of community improvement." In 2013, the group issued a report calling for the 100% charterization of York schools. They also take credit for having pushed Corbett to appoint Meckley as Tsar. Michael Newsome, the CFO of Wolf's company served on that board, as did Kim Bracey, mayor of York and longtime Wolf booster. Wolf has been a member of the board, including serving as achirman, but nobody is saying that he served on the 2013 charter-plugging board.
By August, with his eye on the governor's mansion, Wolf was disavowing the charterization, and he said so right in York. Reported the York Daily Record--
"I don't think it delivers as well on the promise that we all make to say, 'Listen, we're not opting out here. We're actually going to try to make sure the kids in the city of York get a great education.' That's a responsibility we all share," Wolf said.
Whether Wolf was just revealing what he always had thought, having an epiphany, or engaging in some political rebranding is still not clear. And listen-- York is small city (about 43K population) and if you're from a small city or town, you know that everybody is connected to everybody one way or another. I have lived most of my life in my town of roughly 7,000 souls, and by charting my connections you can prove that I am tied into the Tea Party, crazy hippie liberals, angry libertarians, welfare bums, and corporate stooges (as well as all political parties). So I get that it's easy to play this connect-the-dots game and come up wrong. Wolf's Democratic primary opponents tried to tie him to a racist killer and to a scam artist and just ended up proving that Wolf was the kind of guy who stuck by old friends even when it was politically inexpedient to do so. You can read Kennedy's more thorough argument and decide for yourself if Wolf passes the smell test on education..
You may want to decide quickly. On Thursday, Wolf announced some of his transition team. It includes BFF Mayor Kim Bracey as a vice-chair, and John A. Frey as chair. Frey is the president of Drexel University, which has made its reformy mark with a program offering a MS in Education Improvement and Transformation. Their television program interviewed Diane Ravitch in 2007, but one of their adjuncts (Katharine Beals) reviewed Death and Life of the American School System and found Ravitch "unconvincing." And Drexel has been involved in some "partnerships" with the Philly Public [sic] School system; so they have some chartery smell on them. Thin connections, again, but the Drexel connection has set off alarm bells for some folks.
Wolf tapped some former aides from "Smilin' Ed" Rendell, former Democratic governor who was no friend to public education or the teachers who work there. Probably Wolf's most interesting choice so far is Kathleen McGinty, one of his opponents from the Democratic primary.
Will Wolf be good for education? Hard to say. Off the top of your head, can you think of any Democrats who ran as pro-public education and turned out to be mostly interested in tearing it down? Senators? Governors? A President? In Pennsylvania, we're a little ahead of this learning curve, thanks to the aforementioned Ed Rendell.
So maybe Wolf will turn out to be great for public education, or maybe we're just going to see more charter shenanigans. It's still too early to call, and I'm not going to breathe easy just yet.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Fraud and Mismanagement in PA Charters
In September, a report entitled "Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in Pennsylvania's Charter Schools" was released by The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United. The full report runs twenty pages, but the short conclusion about fraud and financial mismanagement in PA charters is this:
There's a lot of it, and nobody is in any real position to catch it.
The charter bill in PA is expensive enough anyway-- over a billion dollars of taxpayer money is directed away from public schools and into charter treasuries, where they will never see the light of day again. (Remember, one of the rules of operating a modern charter is that you are a public school when it comes to grabbing public tax dollars, but not when it comes to accounting for those dollars.)
The report finds two major flaws with the current oversight system. First, general auditing techniques do not uncover fraud (but they are all we're using). Second, the offices responsible for ferreting out fraud have barely enough staff to ferret out a ferret. The Philadelphia School District, which has run out the red carpet for 86 charters, employed a whopping two auditors to keep an eye on them.
They suggest some repairs for these issues, including audits by people who know fraud stuff, more staff, more transparency and accountability for charters, and better safeguards moving forward. The report would like to see better whistleblower protection and a moratorium on new charters until a decent oversight system is in place. They also include a handy fraud chart, a kind of family tree of the different ways in which charter operators can bilk the taxpayer.
In the meantime, the report figures that the Keystone State has been bilked of at least $30 million by charter operators, including some of these outstanding examples;
* The founder of the Pocono Mountain Charter School used $2.5 million in school money to fix up a church property he ran
* The CEO and founder of New Media Technology Charter School in Philly stole over half a million to help out some other side businesses.
* The founder of Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School has been indicted for stealing a whopping $8 million to provide a lavish lifestyle for himself.
It's worth noting that virtually none of the frauds were discovered by the kinds of auditing checks that the report calls for. Instead, it has been whistleblower tips and journalism that has alerted authorities to move-- and several times, those authorities were federal and not state.
I'm also struck by how amateur hour these shenanigans are. I mean-- why steal the money? Eva Moskowitz just pays herself a huge salary; since there's no penalty for a criminal lack of shame, she can openly and easily enjoy the kind of lifestyle that these guys tried to steal.
At any rate, the report recommends that the state beef up the auditors' force and require charters to institute some real internal checks and balances. Since the state legislature could not be counted on to spend the money on water if the capital building were on fire, I'm not going to hold my breath. On the other hand, if Tom Wolf wanted to add a little juice to his claims that Governor Tom Corbett has cut a billion dollars from state education money, Wolf might also like to observe that another billion is shifted from public to charter schools (oh, don't give me that tired line about charter schools being public-- they aren't) and that some unknown portion of that billion is buying charter operators swimming pools and high end party supplies.
The appendix of the report includes some more fun fraud stories and an explanation (with charts) of how fraud auditing is supposed to work. And footnotes. Grab a cup of hot chocolate and curl up on a cool autumn day.
There's a lot of it, and nobody is in any real position to catch it.
The charter bill in PA is expensive enough anyway-- over a billion dollars of taxpayer money is directed away from public schools and into charter treasuries, where they will never see the light of day again. (Remember, one of the rules of operating a modern charter is that you are a public school when it comes to grabbing public tax dollars, but not when it comes to accounting for those dollars.)
The report finds two major flaws with the current oversight system. First, general auditing techniques do not uncover fraud (but they are all we're using). Second, the offices responsible for ferreting out fraud have barely enough staff to ferret out a ferret. The Philadelphia School District, which has run out the red carpet for 86 charters, employed a whopping two auditors to keep an eye on them.
They suggest some repairs for these issues, including audits by people who know fraud stuff, more staff, more transparency and accountability for charters, and better safeguards moving forward. The report would like to see better whistleblower protection and a moratorium on new charters until a decent oversight system is in place. They also include a handy fraud chart, a kind of family tree of the different ways in which charter operators can bilk the taxpayer.
In the meantime, the report figures that the Keystone State has been bilked of at least $30 million by charter operators, including some of these outstanding examples;
* The founder of the Pocono Mountain Charter School used $2.5 million in school money to fix up a church property he ran
* The CEO and founder of New Media Technology Charter School in Philly stole over half a million to help out some other side businesses.
* The founder of Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School has been indicted for stealing a whopping $8 million to provide a lavish lifestyle for himself.
It's worth noting that virtually none of the frauds were discovered by the kinds of auditing checks that the report calls for. Instead, it has been whistleblower tips and journalism that has alerted authorities to move-- and several times, those authorities were federal and not state.
I'm also struck by how amateur hour these shenanigans are. I mean-- why steal the money? Eva Moskowitz just pays herself a huge salary; since there's no penalty for a criminal lack of shame, she can openly and easily enjoy the kind of lifestyle that these guys tried to steal.
At any rate, the report recommends that the state beef up the auditors' force and require charters to institute some real internal checks and balances. Since the state legislature could not be counted on to spend the money on water if the capital building were on fire, I'm not going to hold my breath. On the other hand, if Tom Wolf wanted to add a little juice to his claims that Governor Tom Corbett has cut a billion dollars from state education money, Wolf might also like to observe that another billion is shifted from public to charter schools (oh, don't give me that tired line about charter schools being public-- they aren't) and that some unknown portion of that billion is buying charter operators swimming pools and high end party supplies.
The appendix of the report includes some more fun fraud stories and an explanation (with charts) of how fraud auditing is supposed to work. And footnotes. Grab a cup of hot chocolate and curl up on a cool autumn day.
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