Strange News. News of the Weird. Not my terms, but appropriate to this latest edition of what are charter schools up to these days? Here we go.
Orlando FL: In a newly released video, an Orlando police officer was seen arresting a 6-year old girl and putting zip ties around her wrists (NBCNews.com). Police responded to a call from the school that the 6-year-old had “battered three staff members by kicking and punching them” at her school, the Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy in Orlando.
The video, released by the child’s family, shows the child being put in the back of the police car. The officer went back inside the school, where at least one employee is seen wiping away tears and asking, “Are the restraints necessary?” “Yes,” the officer replies. “And if she was bigger, she would’ve been wearing regular handcuffs” (NBCNews.com).
The police officer was fired within days of the incident, which occurred in September.
New York, NY: Success Academy, New York’s largest charter chain, run by Eva Moskowitz, is no stranger to bad press. This week, Liz Baker, a spokesperson for Success Academy resigned in protest. In her resignation letter, Baker said, “I am resigning because I can no longer defend Success Academy’s racist and abusive practices”. Further, Baker said these practices are “detrimental to the emotional well being” of its students In the strongest statement in her resignation letter, Baker said, “I strongly believe that attending any Success Academy school is detrimental to the emotional well-being of children.” (Chalkbeat.org). More on Eva Moskowitz can be found here.
FREDERICK, MARYLAND: The Board of Contributors of the Frederick News Post called for legalizing privately-operated online charter schools as a matter of choice. It makes no sense to legalize privately-operated online charter schools for so many reasons. Stanford University’s CREDO produced several studies showing that academic performance in privately-operated online charter schools is consistently abysmal. They enroll as many students as possible through heavy advertising and marketing, but their graduation rates are low, their test scores are low, and their attrition rates are high (Ravitch, 2020).
While findings vary for each student, the results in CREDO’s report show that the majority of online charter students had far weaker academic growth in both math and reading compared to their traditional public school peers. To conceptualize this shortfall, it would equate to a student losing 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math, based on a 180-day school year. This pattern of weaker growth remained consistent across racial-ethnic sub-populations and students in poverty. (CREDO).
Charter school advocates and the Secretary of Education believe that schools are like businesses and parents and students are customers who shop for education. (DissidentVoice).
To truly understand the issue with online-charter schools, here’s some information:
- More than half the states in the US do not offer cyber charter schools.
- Maryland is home to about 45 charter schools enrolling roughly 23,000 students.
- Nearly 70% of these schools are located in urban settings.
- Approximately 900,000 students attend Maryland’s more than 1,400 public schools in 24 public school systems.
The largest virtual charter chain is K12 Inc. virtual charter chain, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with revenues exceeding $1 billion this year.
Executives earn big salaries. one of K12’s founders, Ron Packard, was paid $5 million a year but has since moved on to lead other charter chains. Michael Milken was an early investor in K12 and Bill Bennett was a prominent leader until he made racist remarks that caused him to be removed (Ravitch, 2020).
GLENDALE, AZ: Justin Dye, Principal of Heritage Elementary Charter School in Glendale was fired after an employee posted to social media a series of anti-Semitic and racist messages the principal had sent to the employee. Danielle Elkin, Heritage’s events planner made the accusation. Elkin provided screenshots of the offending posts: “What do you get when you cross a black person and a Jewish person? The loudest/cheapest thief in town. He steals pennies, holds on to them, and then screams about it to everybody. I just made that up on the fly, what do you guys thing? Clever?” Dye wrote in a text to Elkin and her sister. Elkin is Jewish. Dye then texted: “Wait I changed my answer. A basketball player who’s too greedy to pass.” Dye then sent another text that said: “Wait wait wait, a prisoner who refuses to spend a quarter for a phone call.” (AZCentral.com).
Elkin said she was hesitant to take her concerns to Dye’s supervisor because school executives had stood by Dye the last two years through the allegations of sexual harassment and that Dye had shorted teachers on their pay. Two years ago, Mr. Dye was accused of sexually harassing female staff and not paying bonuses to teachers who had earned them AZCentral.com).
NORTH CAROLINA: A recent study released by Duke Law School shows the cost of the state’s voucher program is $160 million dollars – money diverted from the public schools with no accountability. Most voucher schools are religious. Since voucher schools do not participate in the state’s accountability program, their academic progress cannot be assessed.
The program is an opportunity for public funding to go to parents who want their children to go to a religious school, with no regard to the quality of the education the children receive.
Some of the conclusions from the Duke study:
- The North Carolina voucher program is well designed to promote parental choice, especially for parents who prefer religious education for their children. It is poorly designed, however, to promote better academic outcomes for children and is unlikely to do so over time.
- The public has no information on whether the students with vouchers have made academic progress or have fallen behind. No data about the academic achievement of voucher students are available to the public, not even the data that are identified as a public record in the law.
- The State Education Assistance Authority (SEAA), which administers the program, concluded that the reporting of test scores produces no meaningful information. Therefore, the SEAA has discontinued requiring schools to produce the data and it no longer publishes any reports on test scores.
- The number of children receiving vouchers has increased ten-fold since it began: from approximately 1,200 in the first year to 12,300 in 2019-20. Although the program has attracted additional students each year, the rate of growth has been less than the General Assembly anticipated and not all of the appropriation has been spent.
- Unlike private schools in most states with similar voucher programs, North Carolina private schools accepting voucher money need not be accredited, adhere to state curricular or graduation standards, employ licensed teachers, or administer state End-of-Grade tests.
- The amount of the voucher is small, about $4,200, not enough for a high-quality education, but just right for an inferior religious school without certified teachers. This is what the NC General Assembly wants. (Ravitch).
With much of the focus in education on the reopening of K-12 schools post- pandemic, it’s important not to lose sight on the lack of transparency and accountability in the charter sector. Mrs. DeVos keeps pushing for more public funding for more charter and voucher programs, likely because no one is watching.
These are my reflections for today.
6/26/20
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William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator (summer 2020 release) Peter Lang Publishing.
Reflections in Education 