Tag Archives: charter funding

A Dangerous Political Game

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In the midst of our Coronavirus Crisis, President Trump and Education Secretary DeVos are playing a dangerous political game.

Gambling on parent’s desire for their children to go back to school, Trump and DeVos are pushing for in-person instruction this fall in all schools. But they have no authority over that decision. So why would they make the demand?

The Obvious Set-Up

From the Daily Beast: “Trump Banks on School Reopening to Help Him in November”

“Donald Trump’s aggressive push to fully reopen schools this fall is being driven by a belief inside the president’s orbit that the policy will be a political winner for him this November. Their confidence, they say, is backed up by the campaign’s private polling data.”

“It’s unclear if Trump’s gambit—aimed largely at suburban female voters and moms—will work in his favor. …”

Yes, we know the president only has his eyes on re-election. But we should not think the  appeal is aimed at just suburban women. Opening schools appeals to every single-parent working without support at home, the working-poor couples that can’t afford daycare, and all those still not seeing COVID-19 as a real threat.

But there’s more.

“President Trump understands … that we need to get children back into the classroom so they do not fall behind …” said Trump 2020 spokeswoman Samantha Zager in a statement to The Daily Beast … , adding that …

… “Joe Biden puts his loyalty to the teachers union ahead of the well-being of students and families in America.”

How many times has DeVos said her school choice “freedom” agenda is about “funding to students …not institutions… not systems”? How many times have we heard we must “catch up”? “We’re falling behind.” “Leave no child behind.” —It’s a crisis! —Jump on the bandwagon!

You get the picture.

Photo Credit: Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/ZUMA. This article found in Mother Jones highlights DeVos’s preference for funding christian and charter schools through vouchers ahead of improving existing public schools.

 So —given the obvious— what makes this such a dangerous political move and for whom?

The Not-So-Obvious Set-Up

Did you notice the prepared statement released by the Trump campaign included this jab?

“… loyalty to the teachers union ahead of the well-being of students and families…”

Battle lines were drawn. And, the public’s attention was drawn to this story while media coverage of the continued protests of Black Lives Matter went on a back burner. Distraction politics works for both Trump and DeVos.

And with some voters, setting up a fight with the teacher’s union wins political points. But Trump and DeVos are merely pulling that “back-channel strategy” out of an old hat full of political tricks. Back in the 80’s, Lamar Alexander (then TN governor) hatched the anti-teacher’s union strategy to push teacher “career ladder” (pay-for-performance) policies.

Source: A RIDDLE IN A PLAID SHIRT David Jackson, Tribune Staff Writer CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Later as secretary of education, Alexander proposed the first federal voucher legislation in 1991, and as current chair of the senate education committee “dragged Betsy DeVos across the finish line to become secretary of education.”


Then There Is The Matter of Money

So in addition to using the familiar ploys of distraction politics, “putting students first” and setting up the teacher’s union as the bad-guys, this “open-all-schools move” brought in the money follows the student theme —effectively making some people hesitate — stop and think.

From The Hill: “Chris Wallace presses DeVos on threats to withhold funding from schools that don’t reopen”

“Look, American investment in education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds, and give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise,” [DeVos] said.

This dangerous political game appeals to individuals not truly focused on “America” —the country— our country as a united nation. DeVos twists the nation’s ideals and principles making her dogmatic views sound appealing. But she has it wrong. American investment in education is in a system of public schools capable of delivering on the promise of universal education. It’s not about a student; it’s about all students.

Wallace disputed DeVos’s comments on withholding funding, … [and went on to say] …

“I know you support vouchers, and that’s a reasonable argument, but you can’t do that unilaterally,” he added. “You have to do that through Congress.”

DeVos answered by saying the administration is “looking at all the options.”

 

Chris Wallace (like how many others?) acknowledges DeVos’s argument as reasonable, at least on the surface. But, will people dig beneath the surface to find that charters and vouchers fail to deliver on the real promise of American education? Trump and DeVos are gambling that people won’t dig deep.

What are the odds?

And Wallace was right about the need for Congress to approve voucher-funding language in another corona relief bill. Stop and think.

When the DeVos team is “looking at all the options,” does that mean they are looking at existing loopholes in the existing laws, or looking to create new ones? Will anyone in Congress recognize new loopholes if a new relief bill comes forward? Did they see it coming in the relief to “small businesses”? To education?

Search results from 7/10/2020

Is there anyone in either the U.S. House or Senate willing to represent and fight for an honest attempt to help our public education system? Or will we continue to fund the demise of our public education institution?

Some private institutions supporting charters and vouchers are already accelerating marketing of the idea of ten children in a classroom, which they never did for traditional public schools. How appealing will their plan be come mid-October?

We Are Funding Unequal Access

From TruthOut: “Charter Schools May Have Double-Dipped as Much as $1 Billion in PPP Loans”

“… Education Secretary Betsy DeVos awarded to 10 charter management organizations in April, weeks after the PPP was passed, to “fund the creation and expansion of more than 100 high-quality public charter schools in underserved communities across the country.”

That’s additional funding, the double-dip, the set-up, through the use of multiple laws (PPP plus ESSA). But this is only the tip of the federal charter school iceberg. There is a billion wasted here, and multi-billions spent there on this federal 1994 “program” that has not advanced the nation towards educational equity.

“Charters also make appeals under the aegis of ‘school choice’ to students in underserved school districts. Though many charters deliver on promise of higher quality education, others have not, and some of those that do have been accused of siphoning money from public districts that need it the most.

For these reasons [and others], charter schools are seen by some as an existential threat to public education.”

They are robbing our future! From right, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia listen during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing the U.S. Department of Education on July 8, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong / Getty Images

The Threat Is Real

While push-back against the Trump/DeVos demand to open all schools is prevailing, we won’t know how it fully plays out until November. But the bigger danger is in underestimating the stamina, determination, and political will of voucher proponents. We can’t afford to be recklessly short-sighted.

Those wishing to destroy our institutions are in this dangerous political game for the long-haul. Trumpism is a force. It is a danger to us all.

“Most importantly, we will need to remain vigilant … [and know this] … hope and prayer must be augmented by decisive action.”

 

Why Comply With A Bad Education Law?

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And just because lawmakers say they are giving “autonomy” to states and local schools doesn’t make it so.

Why comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) when it is as bad as the law it replaced — No Child Left Behind (NCLB) ? Worse really.

Most teachers feel they must comply. Most parents don’t know what the law does. The general taxpaying public? They should care. Billions have been wasted in the false promises of reforms.

I’m part of the general public. The “why comply” question began to plague me because I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears how compliance with the ESSA requirement for “meaningful” consultation with parents was not at all meaningful.

This teacher clarifies what happened when we complied with NCLB. We knew it had “unintended consequences” by year five of its existence. It did harm without doing what it promised. But we kept on complying for another decade. Why?

Here’s the problem: ESSA still contains everything that made NCLB a law detrimental to the education of disadvantaged children. Plus it is a federal law designed to defund existing public schools.

Is the promise of ESSA to “restore local control, and empower parents” really what it does?

This is how the House of Representatives presented this law to the public. Truth?

Well? We hear more about state control, don’t we? And as many know, state lawmakers have been a cheap date for organizations like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).

I would love to avoid being critical of my state, but I’m watching the same scenario unfold as I did with NCLB.

Why comply with NCLB’s “replacement” when it is based on the same failed theory? Lessons learned?

“What NCLB has demonstrated, 15 years in, is something policymakers already knew—that standardized test scores are strongly correlated with a student’s family income.”

Photo by Bradley

Well, here’s how the NCLB replacement law, ESSA, rolled out in my state.

At an early November (2016) meeting here in Idaho, the first draft of our ESSA State Plan was presented. With “meaningful consultation” with stakeholders about the state plan being part of ESSA, the compliance recommendation was met — in theory.

The word “meaningful” is used abundantly in the law. Among other things, ESSA promises “meaningful choice” to parents, “meaningful parent and family involvement,” “meaningful communication between family members and school staff,” and “meaningful teacher leadership.” You get the idea.

But eleven months after the passage of the new law, the draft of our state plan did not have even ONE INDICATOR of school quality decided. So, how meaningful could the meeting be? Isn’t input about school quality what most parents would like to voice?

But does it matter what the state presented “to stakeholders”? Other than teachers and administrators who happen to also be parents, how many parents attend these meetings? This particular meeting was in a school in my district that was designated under NCLB as “Needs Improvement,” and under the NCLB Waivers and now ESSA as a “Focus” or “Priority” school.

If there was to be meaningful involvement concerning school improvement issues, this should have been the place.

But meaningful parental involvement in a “reform” planning process doesn’t happen when you don’t give notice of the meeting, don’t have anything relevant for parents to comment on, and don’t give a presentation that is substantive. And when you schedule more meetings to occur over the holidays, a meaningful contribution by regular-ole parents is highly unlikely.

Truth is, parental input in my state has historically been selective.

How Compliance Eats Up Time and Money

Those of us attending this meeting were told that the Idaho State Department of Education took the first three months to read and translate the law.

We were told that from the time we adopted Idaho Core Standards (Common Core Standards) to the development of the assessments that correspond to those standards was 18 months.

Can’t we see how much time and money has been wasted on new standards and tests to give us a correlation to family income?

Meaningful Input?

Then, to add salt to my open wounds, a young state department of education employee stated,

“Children learn while taking assessments.”

Hello! THAT’s right! And that is one problem with computer-adaptive standardized tests. Remember, the promise was local control. Testing corporations are not “local” for most of us.

The local curriculum —what and how things are taught in the classroom— is not under local control. There is no meaningful consultation with parents. Parents have no clue what their children are being taught through the tests…..no matter what the “high” standards say.

So in Idaho’s plan, our assessments stay the same as they were under No Child Left Behind… with the addition of computer adaptive tests. Like them or not, parents comply regardless of how those tests are affecting their children. Or are parents not aware of the problems?

“One thing is certain: When policy makers and school administrators
are basing more and more high stakes decisions on the results from assessments, we are obligated to explore and find a solution to the growing problem of test anxiety for all modes of testing administration.”

 

Plus, we were told at this local ESSA meeting that assessment scores for math, reading, and language arts would be heavily weighted in our new accountability plan. The new plan is just like the joke that was NCLB “accountability.”

Can it get worse?

The night of this meeting I didn’t get all my questions answered. But I heard enough to know ESSA is No Child Left Behind all over again — with some extremely damaging additions. CHARTER FUNDING, CHARTER FUNDING, CHARTER FUNDING is written in all over this law.

The danger? Federally funded, state “controlled” corruption. (So much for accountability.)

And this law continues to pretend to be a “reform” law. It’s standards-based (not standards guided) — revolving around “challenging” State academic standards. It still requires annual standardized testing based on those “challenging” standards. Therefore, this continues to be an outcome-based system exactly like NCLB but using different language.

ESSA puts test scores ahead of children’s learning needs. This is the opposite of the anti-poverty law it used to be.

So, the bulk of our federal education money is going towards standards, assessments, data-collecting technology, accountability systems, and “choice.” ESSA stands upon the principles of NCLB and the direction set by the National Governors Association back in 1988 (credit Lamar Alexander, Bill Clinton, and many others).

1988 – Restructuring schools (dismantling) was really the first step in restructuring public schools for use in the “knowledge economy.”

And all over the country, good people are trying to make a bad law “work” just like they did under NCLB. They comply.

Never mind that the 15-year experiment called No Child Left Behind produced overwhelming evident that how “high”, “challenging”, or “rigorous” the standards are has little correlation to student achievement. Yet we comply.

How can we even say with a straight face that we require “evidence-based” programs for education reform? The law itself isn’t based on evidence. It goes against the evidence.

Why comply?

Why not #Resist bad law? Why not take over the Quiet Revolution with our own #PublicEdRevolution ?

Our schools; our rules?