PA: Charter Operators Find Another Way To Take Over A District

 Chester Upland School District is located in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania. It has been through the wringer. More specifically, it has been through just about every wringer a school district can go through, from segregation through financial crises through an attack by charter interests. The full background can be found here, with following chapters here, here, and here.

Short version. The district's financial woes put it in receivership with the state. The local charter operator (a huge money-maker for a businessman named Vahan Gureghian) pushed the courts to open the district up to charter school takeover. 

For a brief moment this summer, it looked like the district had won a reprieve. The newest court-appointed receiver (and previous CUSD superintendent) Juan Baughn considered three proposals to take over CUSD elementary schools (throughout all of this, no charters have expressed interest in taking over the high school, which creates its own set of issues) and then rejected all of them, citing, in part, the strong voices of public opposition to the takeover.

And then Baughn resigned.

Chester Community Charter School (Gureghian's business) sent a letter to the court announcing that it intended to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Education petitioned the court (Judge Barry Dozor) to appoint Dr. Michael Pladus to the post. Pladus has thirty years of experience as an educator as well as working as Chief Recovery Officer of CUSD. He had the support of the state and the district. However, as laid out in a press release from the Education Law Center, the night before the hearing in which Pladus was to be considered, the Friends of CCCS filed a motion proposing an alternative-- Nafis Nichols. Nichols had put his hat in the ring via private letter the week before.

Nafis Nichols is currently the Chief Financial Officer of the City of Chester. He's done some drug free counseling and community outreach work. He attended college but never graduated. The court heard testimony in his support from Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland and Senator John I. Kane, which is not super-unusual. But Judge Dozor also listened to the Friends of Chester Community Charter, Chester Charter School for the Arts, and Chester Community Charter Schools. That's nuts--to give the charter schools a major say in the selection of the person who will fashion the fate of the public, and make a decision the next time a charter takeover proposal appears, is a mind-boggling conflict of interest, like letting McDonalds have a major say to a zoning board hearing about whether a Burger King can open up.

The court order (dated August 13) notes that Nichols is a graduate of Chester High, that he meets the statutory requirements, that his "public and private sector experiences identifies [sic] strengths in management, book keeping, human resources, public relations, grant applications, contract negotiations, collective bargaining agreements..." Even the court is unable to pretend that Nichols knows anything at all about education and schools. But, of course, as you've already realized, the court passed over the state-approved education veteran in favor of the charter-supported receiver for the public school system.

The court also notes that the community is "very much engaged" and that community support is "crucial." Well, that's a problem.

CUSD is a district where trust has been trampled. Teachers have been asked to work without pay. Money just kind of disappears. City leaders honor the charter leaders, and school board members show up to celebrate charter school openings. Vahan Gureghian was the top contributor to Thaddeus Kirkland's election campaign (Kirkland, who used to be a state representative, has worked with Gureghian before). Judge Dozor reportedly said during the August 5 hearing that charter's are an integral part of the district "and it's going to remain that way." If CUSD has a champion anywhere in the local power structure, it's hard to see where.

The story of the charter attempted takeover has been a story of hidden back-room deals and a distinct lack of transparency, eventually revealing that the agendas being served are not the agenda of Chester's student or the Chester Upland public school system. The reprieve is over and it appears that charter operators have figured out more than one way to grab the profitable pieces of a dismantled, beleagured school district. 

NH: Prenda Just Hit The Jackpot. Who Are They?

 New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu just gave Prenda a whopping $6 million cut of the granite state's pandemic school relief. It's a relatively small slice (the full pile of money is $156 million), but it's notably a larger per-pupil amount than the state gives in normal "adequate aid." So who is Prenda, and what is the money for, exactly?

Prenda is a company riding the new microschools wave. Microschools are the next evolutionary strep in homeschooling. Says the Micro Schools Network website, "Imagine the old one-room schoolhouse. Now bring it into the modern era." Or imagine you're homeschooling, and a couple of neighbors ask if you'd take on their children as well. Or to look at it another way, imagine back to the beginning of a public system, only this time, your system would only include the students and families you wanted to include.

Microschools like to emphasize their modern awesomeness. From the Micro Schools Network site: While no two micro schools are identical, most share several common traits: a small student population, an innovative curriculum, place-based and experiential learning, the use of cutting-edge technology, and an emphasis on mastering or understanding material. The education that micro schools provide is highly personalized."

The microschools movement seems marked by a lot of educational amateur columbussing--the breathless announcement of "discoveries" plenty of people already knew. Again, from the network's website:

Teachers typically guide students’ curiosity rather than lecture at them. Instead of utilizing a fixed curriculum, they integrate subjects that students are passionate about into daily lesson plans and account for each student’s unique strengths, learning style, and existing knowledge.

Because nobody who works professionally in education ever thought of any of those things. Or you can check out a video from Prenda founder/CEO Kelly Smith in which he may tell you ecitedly about how cool it was running his own microschool and seeing students become lively and excited about something they had learned. The microschool movement seems to be very much excited about its discovery of the wheel.

Microschools have plenty of fans. Tom Vander Ark, a techo-reform cheerleader who's been making a living at it for quite a while--he thinks microschools are a Next Big Thing. Betsy DeVos has been sending microschools some love. And Prenda itself got a healthy shot of investment money from a newish Koch-Walton initiative called VELA Education Fund. Headed up by Meredith Olson (a VP at Koch's Stand Together) and Beth Seling (with background in the charter school biz), the board of VELA is rounded out by reps from Stand Together and the Walton Foundation. VELA "invests in family-focused education innovations."

Prenda provides "inspiring adults the tools and structure needed to support the young learners in their lives." A Prenda pod does not include a teacher, but instead uses a "guide." And Prenda reassures you that "caring about people and being passionate about learning are more important than transcripts, certificates and pedagogy." You don't need any of that fancy professional educator stuff. Just a guide with her heart in the right place.

This comes through in all of Kelly Smith's appearances--he comes across as a warm fuzzy kind of guy. What he's not is an education guy. BYU degree in Physics, then MIT for Plasmas and Fusion. He's worked for energy companies doing grid platform management and building analytics. In 2013 he founded Code Clubs of Arizona. He started Prenda in 2016, then in 2018 launched a the first pod "with seven neighborhood kids." He discovered that teaching children is cool. Boom. New business.

I could pull miles of miles of quotes from the Prenda website that are indistinguishable from any actual school (students should see themselves as learners, build confidence and skills, nurture love of learning and creativity, etc). Every human is a natural born learner. They do blended learning (aka, time in front of screens). They do collaborative learning! Personalization! Also, did you know it's hard to teach people who don't want to learn?

Prenda enrolls students in "partner schools," but Prenda and the guide in the pod do the actual educating; it's setup a little reminiscent of the homeschooling charter schools of California, which turned out to be a huge scam. Prior to landing the huge New Hampshire gig, Prenda's reach was not all that amazing. Some charter and online schools--one per state in Louisiana, Utah, Colorado and Kansas. Three "partners" in Arizona, their home base. In Arizona, they attracted the attention of the attorney general with a very lucrative deal with EdKey, operators of the Sequoia online school--Sequoia enrolled the students, Prenda "taught" them (with the aid of guides), and then the two companies split the $8,000 per pupil revenue. 

Prenda has said it wants to be the Uber of education, but that really only makes sense if Uber were a service where the state paid the company and then you drove (or "guided") yourself to your destination. Prenda does exist in a grey area that allows it to escape virtually all oversight. In Arizona, they don't need a charter, don't have to get their curriculum approved, and are not subject to any kind of oversight or audits.

There's no explanation out there of why Sununu decided to spend $6 million on Prenda of all things. Their administration claimed that the microschools "are particularly helpful to students who have experienced learning loss and will thrive with more individualized attention," but when the individual attention comes from a guide with no educational training (but lots of caring) and a computer program, it's unclear how helpful it will be. Last fall they had 400 pods of roughly ten each in action; there's virtually no information about how well these things actually work.

And yet, New Hampshire is handing over a sweet $6 mill in federal dollars. Said Rep Mel Myler (D), member of the House Committee on Education:

Chris Sununu's decision to use federal funds to advance his anti-public school agenda and help a shady for-profit organization, rather than providing public schools the resources they need to prepare for the next phase of the pandemic, could have serious consequences for our teachers and students.

Good luck to the children of New Hampshire.

NH: New Voucher Boondoggle Under Examination

 New Hampshire has weathered a variety of voucher proposals over the years, always turning them back, and the latest seemed like no exception. Having turned the legislature Republican, the voucher fans were hankering to finally get their way, but when over 3000 people showed up at hearings to explain how much they didn't like the idea, the GOP graciously yielded to the will of the electorate. Ha ha--just kidding. They tucked the voucher bill into the budget. 

It's a smart maneuver if you're more concerned with getting your way than with listening to the voters, but the voucher program is not out of the pine-filled woods yet.

Tomorrow (Thursday, August 19), the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (JLCAR) is set to vote on interim rules for the "Education Freedom Accounts" (another version of the education savings account, beloved by hard-right folks because it both finances private school vouchers and gets rich people out of paying taxes).

JLCAR is not tasked with determining whether the voucher law is a good law or a bad one (spoiler alert: it is one of the worst). But their legal team does look for places where it might conflict with existing laws, and they have spotted some issues:

Minimal oversight and "impermissible delegation of authority." ESA's are notable for their lack of oversight; the family gets a voucher (often in the form of a loaded debit card) and they can spend it on whatever educationy thing they like. There's a middle-person, a "scholarship organization" that distributes the money. In New Hampshire's version, nobody screens the the scholarship organization or vendors on the EFA eligible list (just ask, and you're on), and a long list of ways that the state is not allowed to dictate or limit the vendors (including, of course, religion). Nor are there any limits on which families can apply for a voucher, which really broadens the way that the vouchers will be spent (if you're already sending your kid to Philips Exeter, you don't need help with education basics, but a voucher might be nice for a computer upgrade or "educational" vacation).

No requirements for criminal background checks. Along with the many ways that vendors are not subject to oversight is this one--none of the vendors or service providers are required to do a criminal background check, even if the service is, say, private tutoring.

No protections for student private data. There's no requirement for vendors or scholarship organizations to follow any existing privacy laws when it comes to student personal, health or education records. There's no sign anywhere that scholarship or service providers have to follow federal basics like FERPA or HIPPA, and there are no protections at all for data privacy.

Remember-- JLCAR won't decide whether these features make the rules "bad," but whether or not they are within the agency's authority, whether or not they conflict with other existing laws, whether or not the financial impact statement has fully outlined the costs, and whether or not the rules are clear and universally applied.

If JLCAR says these rules won't fly, the legislature backs up and does some rewriting (which has apparently already been going on). The best hope here is that New Hampshire ends up with a terrible voucher program that is marginally less terrible. The only other hope here is that continued noise about this underhanded giveaway to privatizers awakens more state residents who remember it all up through the next election. These folks have made a swift, sneaky, sloppy attempt to shovel education money away from public schools and toward private operators; here's hoping that someone other than students gets to pay a price.

PA: A Different Tax Credit Approach

 One of the great voucher-promotion dodges is the Tax Credit Scholarship. In this, I give a bunch of money to a "scholarship organization," and they use the money to foot some student bills at the private school of their choice (in some states, "their" means both the parents and the donor). It's a great way to dodge any of those annoying (yet rapidly vanishing) separation of church and state rules.

But what if the tax credit money was used differently. What if it was used to help improve a public school?

In Pennsylvania, Representative Stephen Kinsey (D) from the Philly area, has proposed HB 1778, a bill that would create Educational Improvement Initiative Tax Credits. The basic idea is this:

The program shall provide tax credits to entities that provide contributions to educational improvement organizations. Contributions to the educational improvement organization shall be used to provide grants to school districts with low-achieving schools to improve students' academic performance.

The business can contribute up to $750,000 per year and get 90% of that credited against their taxes. They would contribute to operators on the state-approved list, and those would provide one of several state-approved types of school-fixing techniques:

* Targeted tutoring during the normal day intended to increase the student's test scores on the Big Standardized Test.

* Targeted interventions, including after school and/or summer school programs that could include tutoring, mentoring, and family servicing.

* Community partnerships and wraparound programs for students and families. Could include behavioral support or trauma-informed education.

* Other stuff that the local district might propose and the state board approve.

There's plenty not to love here. "Low-achieving school" is defined strictly by test scores, and one of the listed interventions is just test prep--and test prep during the day, so it will pull the student out of some other class. Noir is it clear what kind of organizations will step up to fill these duties, or why those services couldn't be provided in house by the district.

That said, the bill does get two things right. First, if you're going to let companies get out of paying taxes to the state, why not have them make their contributions to help the state's public services instead of, as with tax credit scholarships, taking the money out of the public coffers and using it to benefit private businesses. Second, using data and "low-achieving" designations to target a school for assistance and not targeting it for destruction, privatization, and charter/private school attack. 

So, the bill is not great, but it at least moves in a better direction than much of what we've seen this year. It was referred to the Education Committee last week, so we'll wait and see what, if anything, becomes of it.

Curmudgubirthday

 Today's the 8th birthday for this blog. Post #4114. It took a while to figure things out (please do NOT go back and read the posts from my first few weeks), but it has served as a handy way to scratch my writing itch. 

The best kinds of responses from readers have fallen into several categories.

"Thanks for putting this into words, because I knew this but couldn't really find a great way to say it."

"Thanks for writing this. I was afraid I was the only person who had noticed this."

"I had no idea this was going on other places, too."

"Can I share this?"

Also, the occasional "Would you like to write something for us for money" is okay, too.

Some things have certainly changed in the world of education policy since 2013. Various genius ideas for Fixing Everything have come and gone. Some privatizers have pretty much shed their camouflage. Some folks have switched sides depending on prevailing winds and the true source of their stance. 

My sense is that the blogosphere is not quite as lively as it once was, for both readers and writers. That's okay. Media--especially social media--shift and change regularly. Substack is the hot new blogging, even as it rests on the positively antique medium of e-mail. I'm not trying to make money here--just trying to say what I have to say, both here and at Forbes.com and The Progressive.

I believe in public education in this country as the best of all possible systems, even as it struggles eternally with its various weaknesses and issues. Public education exists at the intersection of every major issue in our society as a whole; consequently it is destined to be noisy, messy, and always trying to negotiate hard pulls from many directions. That comes layered on top of the universal belief that "since I went to school, I know all about what should be done to it." 

So there will always be a large mob of disparate voices holding forth on Education and How To Do It. I don't believe that all of those voices deserve equal consideration (teachers generally know more about education than economists and hedge fund managers), and some voices certainly deserve to be called out for peddling nonsense, but a loud number of voices will always be the norm. That's okay.

I owe thanks to a too-long-to-include list of people who have helped me, inspired me, amplified me, and introduced me to others. It has reinforced my belief that one of our most basic purposes in life is to lift each other up, and I am grateful to everyone who has, in large ways and small, lifted me. 

I'm grateful to have the chance and the resources to do this, grateful for an outlet for my writing itch, grateful for the audience and the platform. Thank you for reading. Now I'll get back to it.

Club For Growth Launches School Choice Push. What That Tells Us.

Betsy DeVos is back, and we can learn a lot from the company she's keeping. 

Over the past many years, we've seen lots of groups direct their attention to school choice aka privatization. There have been groups like Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) that have built an argument around a social need--that choice was needed to get a better education for non-wealthy non-white students. There have been groups like those the American Enterprise Institute that have made their case based on the notion that people should have freedom of choice.

But Club for Growth is a different animal. And while it has not been a major player in the education debates, it's launching a big push at the end of this month, and it's worth looking at that push, because it tells us a lot about what the push for school choice is really about for many fans.

The Club is launching the National Campaign for Parental School Choice on August 31 in Concord, New Hampshire. 

It's an instructive choice. New Hampshire has become a bit of a libertarian stronghold, and was one of the places where the transformation of the GOP into Something Else first bloomed. It's a personal story for me, because what the new version of the party replaced was literally my grandmother's Republican Party. My grandmother was a well-respected GOP member of the state legislature for many many years, but when John Sununu became governor in 1983, she was not impressed. But while the Democratic Party has not gone away, the Granite State GOP has become increasingly, belligerently right wing.

She's back!

At any rate, the Club wants to start there to deliver their message that American folks all really want that school choice, particularly in voucher form, and they want to offer New Hampshire's new voucher program as Exhibit A, which is an interesting choice, because vouchers have been failing regularly for years. This newest proposal was floated this year and over 3000 people came to Concord to tell the legislature that they didn't want it. So, lacking public support for the bill, the GOP just went ahead and tucked it into the budget. This is consistent with the history of school vouchers, a policy that never gets put in place by the voters because the voters always vote it down. So when Club president David McIntosh claims that most Americans actually want school choice, actual history would suggest that he's full of it.

Helping the Club launch this national privatization tour will be former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. DeVos will be chirping the familiar refrains about how the "union-driven school lockdowns" have revealed the awesomeness of choice." Pompeo's message is expected to be more along the lines of "School choice blah blah do I look Presidential to you?"

It looks to be much of the same old song and dance, but here's why the Club for Growth participation is a tell for what's really going on here.

Club for Growth is a very conservative organization founded in 1999. Their history has been about opposing not-right-enough Republicans, opposing the Affordable Care Act, opposing raising any taxes ever (and so also opposing raising the debt ceiling), opposing any climate changey responses. In 2016, they considered Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul the "gold standard" candidates. School choice, education quality, social justice--these have not been regularly on their radar. 

When they list their own policy goals, it includes reducing taxes (including getting a flat tax), eliminating Obamacare, reducing size and scope of federal government, cutting government spending-- do you see a pattern emerging here?

Club for Growth has learned to pick up some of the language-- public schools are failing, families want "exceptional education," and parents should be able to "access the best available schools" (yes, "available" is doing an awful lot of work in that one). They are not going to even pretend that this is about social justice of improving economic futures, and they are barely pretending that choice is about educational quality.

Club for Growth doesn't want to pay taxes to provide services for other people. Not health care. Not social safety nets. And now that public education is on the ropes after going a few rounds with the pandemic and the critical race theory panic crowd, the Club smells a chance to do away with paying taxes for public education as well.

Now's a good time to remember that vouchers are a trade. Parents get a check, and government washes its hands of any responsibility for education young citizens. "I handed you some money," says the government. "Now you and your kids are on your own."

Club for Growth is a one-issue organization, a group devoted to shrinking government, cutting government services, and reducing taxes that folks pay. Their interest in school choice tells us plenty about what they and DeVos and Pompeo and whatever conservative actors sing on to this tour really want, and the smart money says that what they want is a country where rich folks don't have to pay taxes to fund a system that educates Those Peoples' Children.

ICYMI: Not Out Of The Woods Yet Edition (8/15)

 Take a deep breath and push on. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week.

Deep Divisions in Americans’ Views of Nation’s Racial History

Yeah, you'd already figured this out on your own, but the Pew Research people have some survey results to show just how different we are on how to view, deal with, and teach about our racial history. 

‘How Can I Follow a Law I Believe Endangers My Students?’

In states where the governor (one of those anti-big government overreach and local control guys) have imposed anti-anti-mask mandates, some school leaders are standing up anyway. In Ed Week, a defiant superintendent in Texas explains why.

A majority of parents favor mask mandates

From the Washington Post, info about a survey showing that mask mandates are preferred by the silent majority.

Furious mom demands school board revote

However, the really loud minority continues to be really loud.

Angry anti-masker punches teacher

And more than just loud...

Behind the Critical Race Furor

Is the crt panic another Koch-funded enterprise? Jasmine Banks at The Nation.

How Ohio's budget creates a path out of state takeover

Regular readers have heard about Ohio's school takeover law and the havoc it has wrought on Lorain, among others. Now there's a light at the end of that tunnel. Jan Resseger has done the reading.

How corporate school reforms and ed tech cause dangerous distrust about Covide-19

Nancy Bailey peels back the layers of chaos and distrust in the pandemic crisis.

The end of ed reform

At the Progressive, Jeff Bryant argues that modern ed reform is dead, and some other bad things are moving to takes its place.

The problem with private school vouchers

It has been a big year for pushing vouchers. Also in The Progressive's back-to-school issue, Jessica Levin runs through the various incursions of voucher policy in 2021.