Blog For Arizona

Farnsworth, Kavanagh, & Lesko Are Among 17 AZ Legislators Courted by ALEC

by Pamela Powers Hannley

At least 17 Arizona state legislators attended a lavish recruitment dinner on Tuesday for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an out-of-state right-wing corporate bill mill that wields a heavy influence in Arizona and at state capitols around the country. [Hat tip to Progress Now for the info.]

The senators and representatives, including Senate President Andy Biggs, enjoyed dinner and drinks alongside several prominent lobbyists in a private back room at Donovan’s, one of the Valley’s finest steak and chop houses. They came at the behest of Rep. Debbie Lesko, ALEC’s Arizona Chairwoman, whose leaked invitation billed the event as “an Arizona ALEC Membership Reception/Dinner” while including her House office number for RSVPs.  It is unclear how many Arizona legislators Lesko invited to Tuesday’s shin-dig, but no Democrats were seen arriving.

In addition to Sen. Biggs and Rep. Lesko, lawmakers spotted at the dinner included: Reps. Eddie Farnsworth, John Kavanagh, Carl Seel, Brenda Barton, Bob Thorpe, David Livingston, J.D. Mesnard, Justin Olson, Michelle Ugenti, T.J. Shope, Adam Kwasman, Jeff Dial; and Senators Nancy Barto, Chester Crandell and Don Shooter. [You'll remember that Farnsworth and Kavanagh were big stars on Thursday-- valiantly defending the anti-gay bill SB1062-- when the Arizona House passed it. You'll also remember that Farnsworth, Olson, Ugenti, Lesko, and Seel were on the committees that forced the death of the Equal Rights Amendment by not hearing it. So, who are they supposed to be working for?]

A second self-indulgent trip down memory lane

by David Safier

As I count down to my exit from BfA and entrance onto The Range, I'm taking a look back on my tenure here. Mike Bryan says I've written over 3,000 posts, and I believe it. Even scrolling through them at lightning speed takes some time. Here's a continuation of my first self-indulgent trip down memory lane, stopping just before the horrific January 8, 2011, shooting.

• I started blogging about charter schools in earnest in 2009, looking at the Imagine School chain, which has gone from bad to even further downhill, BASIS, which does a good job at what it does but lies through its teeth about how it does it, and other charters.

• I went after candidate Steve Kozachik in a post in 2009 when he ran for city council for the first time. Boy, was I wrong. Sorry about that, Steve.

• I began my series about the "Creative Headline Writing Team" at the Star in 2010 when it was coming up with jaw-droppingly misleading and/or politically slanted headlines. I capped the series with a "Worst Star Headline of the Year" contest in December. Probably coincidentally, the paper's headlines have gotten better since then.

• The Goldwater Institute's education guy, Matthew Ladner, was pushing the "Florida education miracle" pretty heavy. I wrote a series of posts, "The Floridation of Arizona Education" in 2010, taking apart the not-so-miraculous educational progress in the Sunshine State. Since then, Arizona has adopted a number of Florida education ideas, while Florida has backpedaled on some of them. Ladner now works for Florida ex-Guv Jeb Bush.

This can't be good

by David Safier

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce announced its 2014 legislative agenda. Along the way, Speaker of the House Andy Tobin, who's running for Congress in CD-1, said Washington is what's wrong with Arizona.

“If the federal government took its foot off the throat of Arizona, we would be doing a lot better,” he said.

The ed news is, the Chamber wants to promote a world-class education system. So far so good. It wants to do it by adding more educational choice -- not so good. That's code-speak for more vouchers, more money and latitude for charters and a continuing shrinking of funds for our school district schools. If there's any question about the direction this is heading:

Toward that end, the Arizona Chamber announced nationally recognized education leader Lisa Graham Keegan, a past Arizona superintendent of public instruction, will lead an effort to bring about major reforms to Arizona’s education system.

Keegan brought us charter schools when she was in the state senate, made sure they were under-regulated when she was Arizona's Ed Supe, was McCain's education advisor when he ran for president, and currently works fist in glove with Craig Barrett, the multi-millionaire ex-CEO of Intel who is Brewer's point man for the state's conservative "education reform" agenda and has said he wants to make sure we don't "throw money" at education.

At least there's no question where the Chamber stands.

La Paloma charters: "We do expel quite a few kids a year."

by David Safier

Raena Janes, who founded the La Paloma Academy charter schools, has a Q&A in today's business section. Naturally, she sings the praises of her schools. What's her secret? The school emphasizes character. "We demand that our students are respectful and caring."

Sounds good, right? Why can't school districts do that? The answer is, they can try, but there's one thing they can't do. According to Janes,

"[W]e do expel quite a few kids a year that don’t want to be a part of that program."

Ah. If you can be selective -- charter schools can expel kids virtually at will with little or no cause -- you can end up with exactly the student body you want, unlike the come-one-come-all neighborhood schools. And where do you think the La Paloma undesirables end up? You guessed it. Back at their neighborhood school, of course, often in the middle of the year. If the child returns after one hundred days, the district school won't get any state money for the rest of the year. La Paloma keeps it all.

Julian Vasquez Heilig, an education prof at University of Texas at Austin, says, "School Choice means Schools Choose." That about says it. I'll give Janes some credit. Unlike the heads of BASIS and Great Hearts charters, she owns up to her selectivity.

In Indiana, district school test scores out-gained charters and private schools

by David Safier

Yeah, I know, Indiana is a long way from Tucson, but the conservative "education reform" juggernaut, like "Money" in Oliver Stone's Wall Street, "never sleeps," so any news that contradicts its constant myth making is worth reporting on.

Indiana's database on state school grades and test-score gains is out, and it looks like school district schools out-gained both charter and private schools that take kids with vouchers.

To be sure, there are charter schools and private schools with strong growth scores. In fact the scores are all over the map for charter schools, private schools and public schools. And among public schools, there’s no clear pattern to which schools do well and which don’t. . . . But the overall trend is clear: Schools that are part of public school districts do better.

If you've read my posts over the years, you know I don't like the national Imagine Schools chain, which has a dozen-plus schools in Arizona. The founder is a multi-millionaire who made his money on an Enron-like energy scheme, and he thinks growth is more important than quality. The four Indiana Imagine schools earned two Ds and two Fs from the state. One of the D scores is actually an improvement, since the school had an F in 2012.

The Tucson charter link to unrest in Turkey

by David Safier

The current unrest in Turkey isn't big news in Tucson. Corruption in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government doesn't merit front page, or even inside page news here. But there's a connection. Erdogan has close ties to a Turkish Sufi preacher living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen. And Gulen is the glue holding together a number of charter schools across the country including the Sonoran Science Academies here in Tucson, which has a number of campuses including one on the Davis-Monthan Air Force base.

There's nothing new about the news that Sonoran Schools are loosely affiliated with what is known as the Gulen movement in the U.S., or that Sonoran Science charters are affiliated with similar charters across the country. I've written about it. The Star's Tim Steller has written about it. It's been on 60 Minutes and other news programs. But with Turkey, Erdogan and Gulen back in the news, it's worth mentioning.

Well funded voucher push gets even more funding

by David Safier

People don't like vouchers. Voucher initiatives have been voted down every time they've been presented to voters. Arizona's two voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits and Education Savings Accounts, were passed by our conservative state legislature, and that's true in other states as well.

Big money conservatives like vouchers, so they keep pumping more money into the idea. Here's the latest. The Walton Family Foundation -- the WalMart fortune -- is putting $6 million into the Alliance for School Choice, a pro-voucher lobbying group working in Arizona and a bunch of other states, doubling the group's budget. For the Waltons, $6 million barely counts as lunch money. Their foundation is one of the financial pillars of the conservative "education reform" movement, and many, many millions more go into supporting charter schools as well as efforts to promote vouchers.

Let's connect a few dots. The head of Alliance for School Choice is headed by Betsy DeVos of the Amway fortune. She also founded the American Federation for Children (AFC), a conservative pro-charter/voucher/privatization organization. The AFC is joined at the hip to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a PAC that works to elect Dems in Democratic-heavy districts who support the privatization agenda, including vouchers. DFER opened a branch in Arizona this spring and along with the AFC has thrown its support behind three Democratic legislators: Sen. Barbara McGuire (LD-8), Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19) and the recently appointed Sen. Carlyle Begay (LD-7).

Story about BASIS' financial secrecy in the NY Times

by David Safier

An article in today's NY Times, via the Texas Tribune, discusses the way charter schools, which are funded with taxpayer dollars, hide much of their financial information from the public. The poster child: BASIS, which recently opened a San Antonio branch. BASIS's Texas application is online, but much of the application is blacked out because the charter schools are run by Basis.ed, a private, for profit corporation, and, according to the application, much of the material is "Confidential/Proprietary Information and/or Confidential/Financial Information."

It's an important story about how nonprofit charter schools like BASIS funnel most of their taxpayer dollars to for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs), also referred to as Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), where it is hidden from public scrutiny. The publicly traded corporation, K12 Inc., which runs virtual schools including Arizona Virtual Academy, is another prime example, and there are many more.

The story of the redacted BASIS application in Texas started right here. It was first reported by Ann-Eve Pedersen on the monthly cable access show she and I do, Education: The Rest of the Story. In her segment debunking the conservative myth that the business model will improve education, she displayed the BASIS application, which looks like an FBI file where entire pages are blacked out. I used her information to write the post, BASIS Charters' educational trade secrets. Some people in Texas who are concerned about the proliferation of Arizona charters like BASIS and Great Hearts in their state saw the post and the video, relayed the information to Morgan Smith, a Texas Trib reporter, and she used it as part of her article.

More about Allsport Academy Charter School

by David Safier

Tucson's Allsport Academy Charter School's charter should be revoked due to failing academic grades, according to Judge Thomas Shedden. The Star story gives all the necessary information but little background on the school. Here's more information based on a web search.

The school began in 2004 as a for profit corporation, Allsport Enterprises, Inc., and was granted nonprofit status by the Arizona Charter School Board in 2009, changing its name to Allsport Academy. The odd thing is, I can find no record of it filing any tax returns since it's been a nonprofit. All nonprofit tax returns should be on the NCCS website. I've never had trouble locating the forms of any nonprofit school before. It makes me wonder whether Allsport has failed to file tax returns since 2009.

Allsport has fewer than 60 students -- about 55% white, 29% Hispanic and the rest listed as "unknown." According to its records, 90% of the students are on free or reduced lunch.

The school is run by Moses Montoya, listed on the school website as its Administrator and Board Chairman. Raquel Montoya is the Manager and Board Secretary Treasurer. I'm reasonably certain Raquel is Moses' wife, since, according to records I found, they are similar ages and live in the same Foothills home. Aaron Montoya, 33, used to teach at the school until he was arrested in 2010 for having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old student. I'm reasonably certain Aaron is Moses and Raquel's son. [I qualify the relationships by noting I'm "reasonably certain" because I don't have completely verifiable information.] This "All in the Family" situation is all too typical in charter schools, which are often family businesses -- usually to the detriment of the students.

The real Craig Barrett

by David Safier

The headline for my column in the Weekly is, Craig Barrett might be the most powerful man in Arizona education, but should he be? That captures the column pretty well. I'm often surprised how few people know who Barrett is, but I shouldn't be. I'm so immersed in all things educational, I see his name and deeds cropping up on a regular basis, but he prefers to fly under the radar. He occasionally allows himself to be quoted in a news article or writes an op ed. He was reasonably visible when he helped campaign against Prop 204, the one cent sales tax for education. But his real power isn't in swaying public opinion. It comes from whispering in Governor Brewer's ear and steering the legislature toward adopting his educational ideas.

The purpose of the column is to let people know who Craig Barrett is -- a politically conservative ex-CEO of Intel worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- and what an outsized, potentially destructive role he plays in determining the future of education in Arizona.

I squeezed as much as I could into my allotted 750 words; there's much more I didn't have room for. The most important thing to know is, Barrett heads Brewer's Arizona Ready Education Council (AREC), and he has some dangerous ideas that will probably be turned into bills in the next legislative session. Here's a condensed version of the ideas coming out of Barrett, AREC and Sen. Chester Crandell, who is the point man for conservative "education reform" legislation.

Don't add a penny to K-12 school funding. Freeze it right where it is, even though we're spending about 20 percent less than five years ago and we're near the bottom of the nation in per-student funding.

Bruce Ash tears into me about tuition tax credits

by David Safier

Last Saturday, I was on Robin Hiller's State of Education radio show on KVOI. For the last 10 minutes, Robin and I talked about tuition tax credits, beginning with GEICO's "generous $8 million donation" in corporate tuition tax credits, which in fact cost GEICO nothing -- not one penny -- while we taxpayers picked up the entire tab. More on this in an earlier post.

The show after Robin's in Emil Franzi's Inside Track. Franzi had Bruce Ash on as co-host, and Ash spent the beginning of the show disputing what I said: "David Safier was either intentionally misleading listeners, or he didn't know what the heck he's talking about."

Mostly, Ash talked about the wonderful work Bank of Tucson did by "investing" about a million-and-a-half dollars in the kids at Tucson's San Miguel High School, a private Catholic school. The only comment directed at what I said was, "These were not rich kids, they were not Jewish kids as Mr. Safier seemed to intimate." Now, I'll give Ash the benefit of the doubt and assume he garbled that sentence a bit -- it happens when you're talking off the cuff -- since I never mentioned Jewish kids (though I would like Mr. Ash to explain whether he was intimating in that statement that this Jew is anti-Semitic). However, Ash is right to say not all kids who receive tuition tax credits are rich. As a matter of fact, corporate tax credits can only go to kids from low income families. But personal tax credits can go to anyone, and that means kids from wealthy families can have their entire private school tuitions at the most expensive schools paid for by these backdoor vouchers -- which you and I pay for, since the "donors" get 100% of their money back at tax time.

Two AZ Dems leave Democrats for [Conservative] Education Reform

by David Safier

Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is basically a front group for the conservative "education reform" movement -- i.e. privatization and corporate takeover of education. For more information, here's a detailed post I wrote about the group and its direct as well as indirect connections to conservative education groups.

DFER set up an Arizona branch earlier this year. I wrote a post about the state director and the 6 people who formed the board. And then there were four. Two of the people listed as board members have aksked to have their names removed from the website.

The first ex-DFER board member is Julie Erfle. When I mentioned her in the earlier post, I said she didn't fit the DFER mold. Turned out I was right. Her name was listed on the board without her permission, and when she saw it was there, she had it removed. Currently she's working on David Garcia's campaign for Superintendent of Education, which puts her way up there in my book. Go dg4az -- David Garcia for Arizona! (More information about dg4az on Facebook and the campaign website.)

The second ex-DFER board member is Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19). He contacted me recently to let me know he had his name removed from the list. I'm pleased to see that, but I'm still not quite sure where he stands of education issues. His candidacy was endorsed by American Federation for Children, an unabashedly conservative group which I would describe as the right wing brother of DFER. And he's currently supporting the work of the group, Stand For Children, which is another one of those groups that makes progressive noises while its money and support goes toward anti-union, pro-privatization candidates and issues. However, I want to be fair to Cardenas. I'll watch his votes and statements on education this next legislative session to see where he stands on the issues.

 

The Star editorial board loves vouchers: Part 2

by David Safier

Yesterday I wrote a quick post slamming the Star's editorial board for applauding Geico's $8 million school voucher donation even though GEICO's "generosity" won't cost it a cent. The company will get back every cent when it pays $8 million less in taxes. The money will come out of the state coffers, meaning you and I are paying for GEICO's $8 million gift. Yesterday I said I'd get back to the subject in more detail later. Later is now.

Let's start by looking at the two forms of vouchers in Arizona. The first is the Tuition Tax Credits, often referred to as backdoor vouchers. People and corporations give money directly to School Tuition Organizations (STO) out of their own pockets, and the STOs give out the money as scholarships to private schools. Come tax time, the donors get all their money back in the form of tax credits. So, for example, if I write a check for $1,000 to an STO, I'll pay $1,000 less on my state taxes, meaning I've spent no money, and the state is $1,000 poorer. That makes tuition tax credits vouchers for all intents and purposes. If there's a distinction between regular vouchers and tuition tax credits, it's a distinction without a difference. In the same way, Arizona's more recent "Empowerment scholarships" are vouchers as well. Certain students qualify for these scholarships, and money is taken from the state coffers and put into an account the students' parents or guardians can tap into for private school tuition or other educational services. Once again, the state is paying for education at non-public schools, so once again, it's a voucher.

Both vouchers were passed as law by the legislature, not voted on by the public. There's a reason for that. No voucher initiative has ever passed in the U.S. Ever. Even in conservative Utah with its strong Mormon Church where people might be especially inclined to want the state to pay for religious schooling, a 2007 voucher initiative went down, with 62% voting No. And a Gallup Poll taken this August said that 15% fewer people like vouchers now than they did in 2012 -- down to 29% from 44%. Vouchers are simply unpopular. That's why you rarely hear voucher supporters use the "V" word.

There are a number of reasons why I think vouchers -- which many conservatives, especially conservative libertarians, love -- are a bad idea.

K12 Inc. stock update (downdate?)

by David Safier

For anyone interested in the financial well being of the for-profit, online-school corporation K12 Inc. (local school, Arizona Virtual Academy), after the stock plummeted 40% two weeks ago, it made a feeble attempt at recovery from its $17.60 low -- it climbed all the way back to $19.01 -- but today it ended at $17.90.

Short snapshots like this don't mean much, but it does say the market is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the corporation. It didn't hit earnings projections and says it's going to be low again next quarter. Then there was that monumental stock short by hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, who created a devastating 120 page PowerPoint presentation laying out his case for why K12 Inc. gives students a lousy education and is a lousy financial risk. And then there's the fact that K12 Inc. has gotten pretty much nothing but bad press since . . . since almost forever. It may come back, but only if it can replace the 50,000 students it loses every year -- about a third to a half of its students leave -- and add another 10,000 or so on top of that. Finding new customers when your reputation is in the gutter is a tough proposition.

K12 Inc., Arizona Virtual Academy and Craig Barrett in a nutshell

by David Safier

My monthly column in The Explorer came out today. The subject is my current obsession, for-profit online education corporation K12 Inc., its local charter school Arizona Virtual Academy, and Craig Barrett, Gov. Brewer's education right hand man and K12 Inc. board member. So much is happening on those three fronts right now, it's hard to keep up. [Note: Read the online version. There are some serious problems with the print version that was delivered to people's doorsteps.]

A few excerpts:

Arizona Virtual Academy (AZVA) is an online charter school. It has no school buildings and no classrooms. Its 4,200 students sit at home getting their lessons from their computers and from textbooks the school provides. Many of the teachers work out of their homes; some “teach” as many as 300 students.

[snip]

K12 Inc. knows many of its students are ill-suited for online learning. In fact, recruiting those students is part of its business plan, because more students means more money, and more money means higher profits. The corporation runs call centers which target potential dropouts and special education students, feeding their parents misleading information about how well their children will do.

Meanwhile, my 2008 story about K12 Inc. outsourcing student papers to India has resurfaced in Idaho, first in an op ed by teacher Travis Manning, then in a story on Boise's NPR station. Both refer back to my 5 year old posts about K12 Inc. online schools in 10 states sending student essays to a company in India where employees scored and commented on the students' papers. It was done without the parents' knowledge and was discontinued because my posts were picked up in Arizona and in the national Education Week.

I plan to write later about the lies and inaccuracies spouted by the K12 Inc. spokesman in the NPR story. Honestly, if the corporation can't come clean about a practice it apologized for and quit 5 years ago, how can we believe any of its pronouncements explaining its current problems?

Arizona Virtual Academy and K12 Inc: The failure of the for-profit model

by David Safier

Yesterday I posted a segment of "Education: The Rest of the Story" where Ann-Eve Pedersen discussed Craig Barrett's scheme to change Arizona's education funding to slant it toward charter schools. Here's a segment I did that goes into one of the many ventures Barrett is involved in: K12 Inc. He sits on the national Board of Directors of the for-profit corporation, which runs the 4,200 student online charter school, Arizona Virtual Academy.

 

Craig Barrett and the scheme to change Arizona's education funding

by David Safier

Ann-Eve Pedersen has an incredible segment about Craig Barrett and the still-under-wraps scheme to change the way Arizona funds education on our latest installment of "Education: The Rest of the Story." Barrett is a heavy hitter on the state and national educational stages and a big political contributor. He's working on a state funding plan that would help charter schools and hurt school districts. This is information you haven't seen covered in the media because it hasn't been publicized, which appears to be part of the plan.

 

The conservative underpinnings of Democrats for Education Reform (AZ Dems beware)

by David Safier

The group, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), is made up of Democrats who are in bed with the conservative "education reform" movement. You can find lots of information about the group and its links to the corporatization/privatization movement in an earlier post. You can also read about the three Democrats in our state legislature who are closely affiliated with the group in other posts: Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19), Sen. Barbara McGuire and newly appointed Sen. Carlyle Begay (LD-7). McGuire recently had the distinction of changing her vote on SB1363 -- the expansion of Arizona's education savings accounts (aka Vouchers on Steroids) -- at the last minute, which allowed the bill to pass.

DFER just sent out an email blast on the upcoming election for the Denver Public School Board. It's a perfect example of the group's leanings. All four candidates DFER endorses support the expansion of charter schools in the district, merit pay, and most of the conservative "education reform" agenda. One of them used to support vouchers, but she said she changed her mind. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has come out against all four and has given its endorsement to the four candidates running against the DFER slate.

Our Democratic state legislators need to understand where their three DFER colleagues, Cardenas, McGuire and Begay, are coming from educationally, and they need to be wary when a DFER representative comes knocking at their door pushing their version of the "Democratic reform" agenda.

K12 Inc. stock loses about 40% since yesterday

by David Safier

The markets are closed for the day. K12 Inc. ended yesterday at $28.59. It dropped to $17.60 at today's close, a fall of almost 40%. The primary reason is that its earnings are lower than projected, because its enrollment is lower than expected.

I don't know if this is a typical stock merry-go-round, but here's the chart of K12 stock from its beginning in December, 2007.

The chart doesn't show today's fall, but even without that, it looks like a pretty bumpy ride. The stock fell when the market crashed in 2008 -- though not as much as some other stocks, because people figured since the government was paying the tab, it wouldn't get hurt as much as many other corporations. It fell again when the stockholders sued over false information K12 gave them about student achievement, also when it was sued over problems in Florida.

In the meantime, the press has dumped on K12 Inc. all over the country, including a very critical article in the NY Times. The stock is being shorted big time by one hedge fund, and two stock analysts downgraded it today. With all those negative reports floating around, K12 may be more vulnerable now than it was in the past. It may rise from the ashes once again. If this were a just universe (which, of course, it isn't), K12 would have failed long ago due to its flawed educational model. Maybe market forces will lay it low.

A couple of K12 Inc. stock downgrades

by David Safier

K12 Inc. stocks have been soaring lately, and it's been recommended as a strong buy. But a few analysts are changing their tunes.

Baird downgraded K12, Inc. (NYSE: LRN) from Outperform to Neutral.

BMO Capital reduces its rating on K12 (LRN) to Market Perform from Outperform.

The Baird story didn't give reasons for the change, but BMO was more specific: "The investment firm chops its price target almost in half to $22 after taking in the trend of slowing enrollment at the education concern." And, "LRN -11.6% premarket."

K12 Inc. has received a flurry of bad press lately. Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson has published a long, detailed screed about why he's shorting K12 stock big time. And Travis Manning, an Idaho teacher and activist, wrote a column linking my 2008 investigation into K12's practice of outsourcing student essays to India to current corporate practices. Progressive educator and historian Diane Ravitch has picked up the story as well. I'm sure those negative stories had an impact on the downgrades.

Meanwhile, K12 Inc. put out a rush announcement that it's planning a Thursday conference call "to discuss full fiscal year 2014 guidance." Apparently, "enrollments fell short of internal expectations." Uh oh.

UH-OH UPDATE: Yesterday, K12 Inc.'s stock (LRN) was at $28.59. As of noon eastern time today, the price has tumbled to $17.40. Here's a chart of the stock prices over the past 5 days.

Dr. Word says: "The State" is good, but "The Government" is bad

by David Safier

Dr. Word appreciates the linguistic distinction David Sirota made recently between the terms "The State" and "The Government." In a column about the government shutdown, Sirota commented that in our current political culture, institutions which are part of The State are venerated and have been left open while The Government is lambasted, and institutions related to that term have been shut down. "The State" equals the military, our surveillance apparatus, the Drug War, even the IRS, all of which are operating at full speed, business as usual. The Government equals the Safety Net, the Regulators and the Inspectors, all of which are on temporary (we hope) life support.

It's not a perfect linguistic construct -- language is too slippery to fit neatly into simple binary analyses -- but it's accurate enough to be instructive. Since the Doctor is most interested in education, he tested out the terms in his area of specialty. Sure enough, the term "state schools" has a neutral, descriptive tone. It's used more to describe state-funded colleges and universities than K-12 schools. The term "government schools," on the other hand, is a strong pejorative used by conservative "education reformers" to decry what they believe is the sorry state of K-12 public education -- minus charter schools, of course, which are not included in the "government" label.

K12's outsourcing of essays to India linked to current practices

by David Safier

Travis Manning, an Idaho teacher and director of The Common Sense Democracy Foundation of Idaho has penned a column linking the for-profit online education corporation K12 Inc.'s past practices of outsourcing student essays to India with its ongoing corporate policy of putting profits ahead of students.

Travis begins by writing about my 2008 investigation into K12's essay outsourcing (He contacted me, and we discussed the topic). He noticed that the corporation admitted sending essays from Arizona Virtual Academy but nowhere else. He got them to admit Idaho Virtual Academy outsourced essays as well.

The revelation that K12 Inc., the world’s largest online charter school provider, sent thousands of student essays overseas was revealed back in 2008 by Arizona blogger David Safier. But it wasn’t until September 2013 that K12 verified at least one Idaho charter school was also involved. After being pressed, K12 admitted that Idaho Virtual Academy (IDVA), Idaho’s largest virtual school and operated by K12 Inc., had outsourced student essays.

In fact, K12 schools in 8 other states participated in the outsourcing. We'll see whether K12 spokesperson Jeff Kwitowski will admit to the other cases as well.

Travis goes on to note current concerns at IDVA.

IDVA’s 2013 Annual Update also reveals that, “There appears to be potential for conflicts of interest to result from IDVA’s administration and management staff being K12 employees.” And, in a 2012 study by Western Michigan University, 27% of K12’s schools in 2010-11 reported making adequately yearly progress, compared to 52% for brick-and-mortar schools. Perhaps K12, which donated 44K to Superintendent Tom Luna’s 2010 campaign, shouldn’t also get transportation costs for “bring(ing) the school to the children.”

The column is very timely, coming as it does on the heels of hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson's epic takedown of K12 Inc., explaining why he's "shorting" the corporation. Tilson is convinced the corporation's educational model is fatally flawed and it's poised to collapse like a house of cards. We'll see if Tilson is right. The way the corporation is run now, most of its students would be far better off if it failed.

Drive-by teaching at charter schools

by David Safier

On "Education: The Rest of the Story," the public access show I do with Ann-Eve Pedersen, I discuss the average 3-5 year tenure of teachers at charter schools. The typical story is, they begin teaching at the charters straight out of college, the schools work them hard, chew them up and spit them out. They leave a few years later exhausted and often demoralized, many of them leaving the teaching profession for good.

 

K12 Inc. says I "may be a good fit" for one of its schools

by David Safier

h/t to Politico's Stephanie Simon for noting this in her article, From China to Chicago, K12 Inc. markets more than virtual schools. (You also might like her Cyber schools flunk, but tax money keeps flowing).

K12 Inc. has a recently added new venture, Insight Schools, targeted to low achieving students who are potential dropouts. Think of it as a cyber-alternative school. As with all K12 Inc. ventures, recruitment is paramount. So at the bottom of the home page, you're asked to fill out a simple online questionnaire to answer the question, "Is Online High School right for you?" I decided to see if I was a good candidate.

• #1: "I want to earn a high school diploma." I already have one. I answered, No.
• #2: "Sometimes I like one-on-one attention." Who doesn't? I answered, Yes.
• #3: "I need to spend more time on certain subjects." Sure I do. I answered, Yes.
• #4: "I prefer to learn and study at home rather than in a traditional classroom." You know, I've always liked classrooms. I answered, No.
• #5: "I'm uncomfortable with all the drama at school." I assume this doesn't refer to school plays, and I like the social back-and-forth of the school atmosphere. I answered, No.

Here's the result, based on my responses on the questionnaire:

To recap: I don't want a high school diploma, would rather study in a traditional classroom and don't have a problem with all the drama at school, which makes me a good candidate for Insight's Online High School. Reminds me of what someone in the know said about K12 recruiting techniques: "[C]all centers . . . were encouraging enrollment and enrolling students who were obviously ill-suited for learning in a virtual environment."

UPDATE: Stepanie Simon, who wrote the Politico piece, informed me that if you answer "Yes" to any of the 5 questions, you get the "good fit" response above. If you answer "No" across the board, you're directed to talk to an Insight counselor for more guidance. Sounds like there's no "quit" in K12 Inc. when in comes to recruiting.

Would Craig Barrett buy K12 Inc. stock (or enroll his child in one of their virtual schools)?

by David Safier

As I posted Wednesday, Whitney Tilson, who runs Kase Capital hedge fund, is shorting K12 Inc. On Sunday, he explained why.

Before I go into Tilson's reasons for the short, I feel the need, once again, to ask for Craig Barrett's views on this. Barrett, Gov. Brewer's spokesman on education, president and chairman of BASIS charter schools, one of the prime movers behind the Common Core and rich, savvy ex-CEO of Intel, is also one of 10 members of the K12 Inc. Board. While he talks in public and to the press regularly, he has never, so far as I know, talked about K12 Inc. or its Arizona Virtual Academy for the record. Yet K12 Inc.'s Arizona school alone enrolls over 4,000 students, which is similar to the number of students enrolled in all Arizona BASIS charters combined -- and that's only in Arizona. Certainly the subject deserves a mention from a high profile educational spokesman like Barrett.

Tilson goes into his reasons for shorting K12 Inc. at some length. They are based both on recent earnings and what he sees as an untenable educational model. He notes that "year-over-year revenue growth – critical for a stock trading at nearly 50x earnings – has been falling sharply over the past two years, and is projected to fall further in the next year (to 16%)."

He says that, while there are a small number of students who are well suited to the virtual school model, K12 Inc. needs lots of students, which means aggressive recruiting for students, most of whom are a bad fit. "Since going public in late 2007, numerous former employees have told me that K12 has adopted a growth-at-any cost mentality in order to support its richly priced stock."

Exploding the myth, "The business model will improve education"

by David Safier

On our cable access show, "Education: The Rest of the Story," Ann-Eve Pedersen addresses the myth that the education will be improved if schools adopt the for-profit business model. Ann-Eve's research uncovered the BASIS application for a San Antonio, Texas, charter with 72 blacked-out pages I posted about recently (BASIS Charters' educational trade secrets). She goes into the for-profit nature of the BASIS model in this segment, bringing in the blacked-out application pages, the Goldwater Institute (G.I.'s Clint Bolick sits on the BASIS board) and recent legislation increasing BASIS's competitive advantage in Arizona.

 

I'll be spotlighting the three other segments in this month's show in later posts, but if you want to see them now, here they are: Drive-by teaching at charter schools (charter teachers last an average of 3-5 years); The Anti-test protest Movement (parents are joining teachers and academics in protesting high stakes testing); and our "Unbelievable!" segment, The Doubling of private school tuition tax credits."

BASIS Charters' educational trade secrets

by David Safier

It looks like one of those heavily redacted CIA documents with page after page of "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you" information blacked out. But it's not a CIA document. It's the BASIS application to open a charter school in San Antonio, Texas. The document is 400 pages long, and 72 of those pages are completely blacked out. At the bottom of each page are the words, "Shaded material denotes Confidential/Proprietary Information and/or Confidential/Financial Information." Apparently, a whole lot of what BASIS does is confidential and proprietary.

The three pages of the BASIS reponse to the topic, "Discuss the educational innovations that will distinguish this school from other schools," are redacted. Other blacked-out topics: Measurable student goals (2 pages); Educational program (9 pages); Extracurricular activities (1 page); Professional development opportunities for teachers (2 pages); Startup budget and budget for the first year of operations (8 pages).

When the application gets down to the business end of things, the BASIS folks really get serious about redacting information. The 4 pages where they were required to "Describe the extent to which any private entity, including any management company, other nonprofit group, other governmental agency and/or any other educational organization will be involved in the operation of the charter school" are blacked out. The 12 pages of bylaws of the sponsoring entity, BTX Schools, Inc. (BTX is short for BASIS Texas), are blacked out as well. So are 26 pages describing the "negotiated service agreement(s) with any organization(s) and/or individual(s) that will provide financial accounting, payroll, and/or tax accounting services for the proposed charter school."

Not all charter school operators find it necessary to black out major portions of their Texas applications. Two other Arizona-based charters filed applications to open schools in San Antonio: Carpe Diem and Great Hearts. The only blacked-out parts of their applications are about half a dozen names and email addresses of people who aren't directly related to the schools. Unlike BASIS, their applications put their educational approaches, operations and finances into the public record.

Charter schools churn through teachers

by David Safier

The NY Times has a good article about a phenomenon many of us have known about for years: the high teacher turnover rate at charter schools. The burnout rate is legendary. Teachers stick around two, three, maybe five years, then they're gone -- and usually not to another school. Gone from the profession. And we're not just talking about low rent, fly-by-night charters here. The turnover rate is high at some of the most respected charters.

It's true, lots of teachers at traditional public schools leave after a few years. Teaching can be pretty miserable if you don't like what you're doing, and it's unbearable if students don't like what you're doing either. But most teachers stick around at least ten years, time enough to know what they're doing, or they stay until retirement. Not so at charters.

Why the high turnover rate? One reason is, charter school teachers are often worked like dogs. Many of them are required to spend long hours at school, often they're required to be available by email or phone until 9pm, and sometimes the school year is weeks longer. With no union protection, working conditions are what the school says they are. Young teachers can sustain that kind of frantic pace for few years, but eventually it wears them down. And if a teacher gets married and has kids, that kind of enforced devotion to the school can be impossible to maintain. Charter school teachers often say, "It's either the teaching or my husband/wife and my kids. I can't do both."

Another reason could be, there's less incentive to stay. Many charter teachers are underpaid, though at some charters, teachers earn as much or more than traditional public school teachers. But often the rest of the package is less attractive. And tenure is virtually nonexistent, meaning teachers know they could be let go in June without being given a reason. In fact, some charters make a rule of getting rid of teachers on a regular basis. Turnover is part of their educational strategy.

The big question is, what does this do to the children?

Is Carlyle Begay the newest "pro-education choice" [pro-voucher] Democratic state legislator?

by David Safier

Hat tip to Steve Muratore for his post in the Arizona Eagletarian digging deeper into the background of Carlyle Begay, who was appointed as LD-7 state senator when Jack Jackson Jr. resigned to join the Obama adminstration. I recommend the post for those who want to know more about Begay.

Muratore found a press release from the Arizona chapter of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) praising Begay and referring to him as "a member of the DFER-AZ advisory board." Begay isn't included in the DFER-AZ's online list of Board members, which may just be an oversight -- though the list included Julie Erfle at one point, who doesn't support DFER and demanded that her name be removed, so there's no telling whether DFER put Begay's name on the Board without his permission.

DFER is a part of the well funded conservative education privatization movement. It goes beyond advocacy for charters and deep into voucher territory. It's closely connected to the very right wing American Federation for Children (AFC), with overlapping staff and a similar agenda. Both DFER and AFC endorse and fund pro-privatization candidates, and they're very fond of supporting the most educationally conservative Democratic candidates in safe Democratic districts. Other than Begay, the two current Democratic legislators who have benefitted from AFC/DFER support are Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19) -- a DFER Board member -- and Sen. Barbara McGuire (LD-8). McGuire is famous for recently changing her vote on the expansion of Arizona's educational savings accounts -- our vouchers on steroids legislation -- from No to Yes at the last minute, which was the swing vote needed to pass the bill. McGuire received high praise from both the AFC and the Goldwater Institute for her Yes vote.

Assuming Begay isn't booted from the lege because of residency problems, he's likely to be a third Democratic vote Republicans can count on to further their conservative "education reform" agenda. Democratic legislators need to be aware that these three folks might couch their pro-privatization agenda in Democrat-friendly terms, but they're part of the push to dismantle public education.

Pennsylvania charter school owner stole $1 million from his school

by David Safier

If this were a random theft by one bad actor, I wouldn't be writing about it. But one of the dirty little secrets -- not much of a secret, actually, and not so little -- is that there are all kinds of ways, legal and illegal, to profit from taxpayers' money when it flows to charter schools. The prefered method: set up a company that sells goods and services to charters at inflated prices.

Nicholas Trombetta created Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which brought in $100 million in taxpayer dollars in 2012 to educate 10,000 students. According to a grand jury, he set up dummy companies, diverting about a million dollars for his own personal use.

Mr. Trombetta, the grand jury said, used diverted funds to pay for houses, a Florida condominium and a $300,000 twin-engine plane as well as more mundane items such as groceries and restaurant tabs.

The indictment alleges that the former wrestling coach and school superintendent formed businesses that billed for doing no work; masked his control of a corporation by naming straw owners; hid income from the IRS; took $550,000 in kickbacks on a laptop computer contract with Virginia-based NCS Technologies Inc.; and even "caused" employees to make $40,000 in individual payments to his favored political candidates before reimbursing them through one of his companies.

Lax oversight of charters is one reason this kind of misuse of government funds is so common. Arizona compounds the problem by allowing its charters to use no bid contracts, unlike school districts which are required to take bids on large contracts. Another reason this kind of profiteering is so easy is that charters often take the money they get from the state and send most of it up to CMOs -- Charter Management Organizations -- which are basically in charge of the schools. There's very little accountability for that money once it leaves the schools.

A WE-DON'T-KNOW-HOW-BASIS-SPENDS-ITS-MONEY NOTE: I have no reason to believe that BASIS charter schools are scamming the state. But if they are, there's no easy way for me -- or the state of Arizona -- to find out.

Federal Investigation of BASIS charter in DC

by David Safier

In this month's cable access show, "Education: The Rest of the Story,"  Ann-Eve Pedersen looks at problems with BASIS' first charter school outside of Arizona. The DC campus apparently hasn't been following the proper guidelines with its special education students. Looking at BASIS' budgeting for special ed and ELL in Arizona, Ann-Eve wonders how well BASIS is serving those populations here as well.

 

The show airs Thursdays at 4:30pm on Cox channel 20 or Comcast channel 74. Thanks to Access Tucson Community Media, our wonderful producer Carolyn Brown and the people behind the cameras and in the booth.

Myth Busting: Charter schools are better than district schools (Part 2)

by David Safier

Ann-Eve Pedersen and I have a monthly cable access show, Education: The Rest of the Story. In a segment of this month's show, I discuss the recent study out of Stanford which updates its 2009 study comparing charters and district schools. The 2009 study gave district schools a slight edge -- statistically significant, but nothing that really matters in the real world. This time, charter schools received the "distinction without a difference" edge over district schools. Math scores were virtually identical, but in reading, the study indicated the average charter student had the equivalent of 8 days more learning per year. That's about a 4% difference in reading scores. My conclusion? Another study shows you can't point out a significant difference between the education students receive at charter schools and district schools. That being said, Arizona charters took a serious hit in the Stanford study, which said AZ charter students had the equivalent of 24 fewer days of reading instruction and 29 fewer days of math instruction per year than students in AZ's district schools. That's a 12% and a 16% difference, which speaks very poorly for how Arizona grants charters and oversees the schools.

I also explain that the entire discussion of which type of school is better, district, charter or private, is ridiculous. The trumped-up controversy is about politics and privatization, not education.

 

The show airs Thursdays at 4:30pm on Cox channel 20 or Comcast channel 74. Thanks to Access Tucson Community Media, our wonderful producer Carolyn Brown and the people behind the cameras and in the booth.

ALEC’s Legacy of Destruction: PDA Members Join Anti-ALEC Protesters in Chicago (video)

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Inside the 40th annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Chicago, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and other right-wing big-wigs addressed ALEC members and on-the-dole politicians.

Outside, the people, who have been cut out of the legislative process by ALEC and big money donors, protested in the streets. (Photos here.)

In its 40-year history, ALEC has done more to destroy the American Dream than any other group. According to a report by the Center for Media and Democracy, 466 ALEC bills were introduced in 2013, and 84 of them became law. Every state and the District of Columbia considered ALEC bills this year. Read the highlights of this ALEC legislative report and watch a video of Chicago protesters after the jump.

Not Qualified to be TUSD Superintendent

As of 11 June 2013, H.T. Sánchez is the sole finalist in the search for a new Superintendent of TUSD. The Governing Board is soliciting comments.

Executive Summary: Dr. Sánchez is nowhere near qualified to be superintendent. He would make a fine cheerleader, but we should not trust him with the job of quarterback. The board needs to reopen the search and find somebody who is more of a scholar, a manager, and a leader.

All available evidence suggests that Dr. Sánchez tends to come down on both sides of critical issues. This indicates both a lack of character and a lack of fundamental management skills. The primary issue is his attitude: He’s more worried about not “violating somebody’s dignity” than about getting the right answer.

For a fuller discussion of the pros and cons and other details, continue reading here ....

 

Another charter school cautionary tale

by David Safier

I'm an [almost] equal opportunity skeptic about the economic and political corruption related to charter schools. Case in point: Chicago's United Neighborhood Organization charter schools, their crony-laden construction contracts and all-too-close connection to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) got a $98 million state grant to start up charter schools. That in itself seems like an inordinate amount of money for the state to give to a charter school. But it's even more questionable when millions in construction projects went to two brothers of a high-ranking UNO exec without giving proper notification, in violation of the terms of the grant.

Even more eyebrows should be raised because UNO's CEO is a key political supporter of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Greasing the political skids. Giving lucrative contracts to family members and friends. These are all-too-common practices among charter school operators and Charter Management Organizations. Seeing it happen in Chicago, whose schools were once run by Obama's Arne Duncan and whose mayor is Obama's former Chief of Staff, just makes it worse.

By the way, the name of one of the schools getting construction funds is UNO Soccer Academy High School. Soccer Academy High School? Seriously?

The state has halted the funds pending an audit, and Mayor Emanuel says UNO should be "held accountable." Soft, cautious words and actions from politicians with too-close-for-comfort connections to the charter school group.

Will Indiana forgive $6.28 million in government loans to Imagine charter schools?

by David Safier

Imagine Schools, the charter school corporation with more schools than any other charter organization (including more than a dozen in Arizona), may not be too big to fail in Indiana. Three of its schools were shut down because of lousy performance. But it's too . . . I don't know, too charter . . . to pay back its loans. The schools borrowed $6.3 million in startup costs from the state, and they still owe $6.28 million. Indiana lawmakers are thinking about wiping the slate clean and forgiving the loans.

If these were mom-and-pop charter schools that were shut down and they didn't have a larger organization behind them, I can see how the loans could be wiped out. I guess the schools could declare bankruptcy, and that would be the end of it. But Imagine is a for profit corporation. It's hemorrhaging money right now, but that's the risk you take in a free enterprise system. If you're still in operation, you have to pay your bills, or that's how it's supposed to work. Imagine Schools should pay up.

It would be interesting to know what the $6.3 million loan paid for. Did the money go toward building the schools? If so, they should be repossessed by the state -- except that what Imagine does is build schools with one part of its organization, then sell them to another corporation, which rents them back to Imagine. If that's what happened here, Imagine pocketed the profit from selling the schools which were paid for by a state loan it doesn't have to pay back. Good work if you can get it.

What Would Jesus Do? He'd Pay Unemployment Tax for His Workers

by Pamela Powers Hannley

HB2645, which was advanced by the Arizona Senate this week, would allow churches and religious schools to avoid paying unemployment tax for teachers and day care workers. Passed by the Arizona House in March, this bill would deny unemployment benefits to these workers if they were laid off or if the institutions closed.

Republicans, conservative groups, and religious schools are backing the bill. According to ABC Channel 15, "The measure marks the latest Republican-led effort to expand tax subsidies for religious institutions and limit unemployment insurance at a time when the state's jobless benefits fund is millions of dollars in the hole because of the struggling economy." [Emphasis added.] More details after the jump.

Craig Barrett's stealth campaign to cut urban/lower income school funding

by David Safier

Ex-Intel CEO Craig Barrett is the brains and very possibly the muscle behind Arizona's version of the conservative "education reform" movement. The current president and chairman of for-profit BASIS Charter Schools and a national Board member of the for-profit online charter school corporation K12 Inc. is also the head of Brewer's Arizona Ready Education Council (AREC). He's one of the prime movers behind the Performance Funding plan which, if implemented, will reward the "winner" schools with high income students and punish the "loser" schools with low income students.

Barrett is barnstorming the state leading discussions about Arizona education. In a recent stop in Yuma where, according to a Yuma Sun article, he spoke mainly about the Common Core standards, Barrett slipped in a hint of funding trends to come.

“In my mind, there ought to be a very simple formula which doesn't depend on the tax base in your school district but the state basically equalizes the funding across school districts on a statewide basis not a local basis... I'm suggesting that we get to the point where the state assures that there is an adequate amount of funding to provide each kid with an equal opportunity and that has to be a statewide issue and not a county by county or district by district issue. So we're going to look at how you might modify the funding mechanism... We have not made any formal proposals yet but it's something we're starting to work on."

This is a deceptively simple, common-sense statement that is full of red flags about ways to cut funding to poor and urban districts.

Billionaires attempt to buy LA School Board seats. Shades of things to come?

by David Safier

I've watched TUSD school board candidates scramble to rub a nickel and a dime together to mount their campaigns, so when I read that the recent L.A. School Board primary generated more than $5 million in spending, it made me sit up. When 80% of that money came in the form of independent expenditure campaigns, it was evidence that school board elections are turning into a playing field for the Billionaire Boys' Club.

The largest amount of independent expenditure money -- about $4 million -- went for candidates who supported charter schools as well as teacher evaluations linked to student outcomes and sped-up firing procedures -- in other words, supporters of the conservative "education reform" movement. The sources of funds show that the movement isn't purely right wing Republican.

Donations to the coalition included $1 million from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; $300,000 from the California Charter Schools Assn.; $250,000 from StudentsFirst, the advocacy group headed by former District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee; and $250,000 from a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

When you get Murdoch on the far right on the same side as swings-both-ways-politically Bloomberg, you know there's a strange-bedfellows coalition happening here. And knowing that L.A.'s Democratic mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in that same bed makes the coalition even more unusual.

Teaching Christianity at K12 Inc.

by David Safier

[NOTE: In the original version of this post, I ventured into the question of whether there was an actual historical Jesus. That was an error on my part. Though some people debate that issue, it's not relevant to the point I'm making about the K12 Inc. material discussed in the post. Since I don't believe in removing anything I've written, I crossed out those passages and added wording that more accurately reflects my views.]

In January, Greg Cochran enrolled his 7th grade son in Agora Cyber Charter School, Pennsylvania's online school run by the for-profit company K12 Inc. When his son complained that his history textbook was teaching religious beliefs, Greg looked through the textbook and the online materials and agreed. He decided to email me because of what I've written about K12 Inc. in the past. He wrote,

I read the chapter on Jesus Christ which referred to Jesus in the factual sense as if it were a provable fact that Jesus “Said,” “Did,” etc. It was . . . clearly written with a Christian perspective.

Greg sent me copies of Agora Cyber's online materials which included maps taken straight from Christian websites as well as links directing students to other Christian websites. The material treats Jesus as a historical figure without any mention of the scholarly questions about the existence of a historical Jesus. The material treats the specific details about Jesus' life described in the New Testament as historically accurate. Worse, the material fails to create a clear distinction between "biographical" and religious information. Greg also sent me the textbook his son was using.

Agora Cyber, like K12 Inc's online schools across the country (including Arizona Virtual Academy), is a publicly funded charter school. As is true with other public schools, it is required to draw a bright line when it comes to religious instruction; it can teach, but not preach. The K12 Inc. materials cross that line over and over again.

'Fast Eddie' Farnsworth applies nullification theory to education

Posted  by AzBlueMeanie:

I warned you about this at the start of the legislative session. Neo-Confederate dead-enders revive  discredited 'nullification theory' again.

Now Rep. "Fast Eddie" Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, wants to extend nullification theory to education. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Arizona House passes anti-federal education bill:

Dozens of public schools would be able to throw out federal education policy regulating academic standards, teacher evaluation requirements and student tracking systems under a measure approved by the Arizona House on Thursday.

The Republican-led House voted 36-23 along party lines to advance the measure to the Senate after heated debate over the value of federal education dollars.

The proposed law would allow roughly 130 district and charter schools that don’t receive federal money to ignore federal and state mandates. The exempted schools would still need to follow any health, safety, civil rights and insurance mandates.

Walton money for charters

by David Safier

The Walton Family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, love charter schools, and they show their love by giving generously through the Walton Family Foundation. But until I found a link on Diane Ravitch's blog  to the Foundation page listing the grants it gave in 2012, I had no idea how generous they were. The Foundation gave $158 million to education in 2012. Lots of the groups and schools receiving the grants have names that don't indicate who they are, so I just pulled out names that are clearly charter schools or organizations supporting charter schools. A quick estimate of the money in that very partial list comes to something like $80 million. Some of the biggest recipients are organizations like California Charter Schools Association ($5,000,000), Charter School Growth Fund - Louisiana ($2,000,000), KIPP Foundation ($8,374,000), Teach for America ($11,445,000) [this isn't directly charter-related, but I decided to throw it in because TfA is becoming a big part of the "school choice" movement], and a whopping $14,900,000 to Charter Fund, Inc.

Here's my partial list of charter school-related recipients. It continues below the fold. I'm sure if I spent some time, I could nearly double it.

• Alliance for School Choice, Inc. 1,700,000
• American Center for School Choice  125,000
• Arizona Charter Schools Association 586,475
• Arizona School Choice Administration Corporation 100,000
• Association of Missouri Charter Schools  326,300
• Black Alliance for Educational Options  1,114,200
• California Charter Schools Association   5,000,000
• Center for Education Reform 809,209
• Charter School Partners  314,000
• Colorado League of Charter Schools 245,000
• Education Reform Now, Inc. 500,000
• Florida Charter School Alliance  168,345
• Foundation for Excellence in Education   1,000,000

Judge reinstates Board at Florida [ex?] Imagine charter school

by David Safier

For those of you following this story (a shout-out to Floridians who are reading and commenting here on Blog for Arizona), Imagine North Port charter school is trying to sever ties with Imagine Schools, one of the main reasons being North Port is tired of sending money -- it would be $890,000 next year -- to Imagine and getting little in return. Tuesday, a judge said the principal, Justin Matthews, could stay on even though Imagine tried to suspend him. "He's trying to steal a school," Imagine's lawyer said in court. Today, according to an email from a parent I'm communicating with, the judge ruled the original Board, not the one Imagine tried to create in its place, will be in charge until the end of the school year, at least. The Imagine lawyer asserted, "We have the sole right to replace the Board," but apparently the judge doesn't agree.

This is a victory for the Board and what I understand to be a large majority of the parents (though one commenter said some parents are upset by the Board's move and aren't happy with the principal).

The issue of who controls, or runs, or "owns" a charter school that's part of a national chain is problematic. Is it really a local school if it's run out of headquarters in Virginia where the hiring, firing and allocating of resources takes place -- and, in some cases, the curriculum is created? Is this what was envisioned when people first promoted charter schools as being close to their communities and able to create educational options that take students' and communities' needs into account?

UPDATE: More information from an email I just received from my parent contact below the fold. Imagine schools is looking ever more underhanded as this farce continues.

Parents, Board at Florida Imagine charter win first day in court

by David Safier

I know this story about a Florida charter owned by Imagine Schools seems distant from Arizona, but really, it's right next door. Imagine, the country's largest charter chain, runs about 18 schools here in Arizona and is one of the poster children for the charter school movement at its worst. What happens in a Florida Imagine school does not stay in Florida. It has ripple effects across the country.

I've posted recently about the story at Florida's Imagine North Port, where the school's local Board decided to sever ties with Imagine Schools and go it alone. The main reason: $890,000 in management fees that go to Imagine's Virginia headquarters instead of furthering the students' educations. In response, Imagine took the bold and desperate step of putting the principal on administrative leave and suing the Board for $15,000.

Yesterday the case went to court, and the locals won the first round. Principal Justin Matthews, who has solid support from parents, was reinstated. Since FCAT testing is going on in the schools right now (the Florida equivalent of our AIMS testing), it's important that the school atmosphere not be disrupted by the controversy. According to a North Port parent I'm in contact with, the principal and the rest of the staff are doing a wonderful job of keeping the school operating smoothly.

This story is being covered in the area -- ABC News, the AP and various local news outlets were at the courthouse -- and it's likely going to spread to Imagine's campuses around the country, helping to breed a climate of fear and ill will between the upper level management and the people working in the schools.

The question is, why didn't Imagine just let the school leave and avoid the controversy along with the bad publicity? After all, other Imagine schools have left in the past without such a strong response from corporate headquarters.

Imagine charters CEO to schools: We're still in charge

 

by David Safier

North Port, Florida, could prove to be the tipping point for the Imagine Schools chain of charter schools. When the local board of Imagine North Port decided last week to sever ties with Imagine and become an independent charter named Sarasota Preparatory School, it was yet another loss for Imagine, which has been losing schools by the handful over the past few years.

And Imagine isn't taking the defection lying down. It's decided to fight back, hard.

After the Board sent an email to parents describing the break, Imagine Schools "hijacked parent email addresses from our contact lists and sent all of you an email," according to a post on the new school's Facebook page. If the national Imagine doesn't normally have access to parents' email, yet it managed to send a message to parents by hacking into the school's list, that looks a whole lot like an act of desperation.

Imagine claims the Board's actions are illegal and it still runs the school. It has suspended the school's principal and sued the Board for $15,000. There's going to be a court hearing Tuesday. Now it's performing damage control at other schools to make sure this defection doesn't turn into a snowball rolling down Imagine Mountain and carrying other schools away with it. Imagine can't sustain many more school losses and remain viable.

On February 22, Imagine CEO Dennis Bakke sent a letter to the leadership of Imagine Palmer Ranch in Florida which was copied onto the school's parent newsletter. The letter has what I've been told are factual inaccuracies, along with an underlying tone of bullying with a hint of desperation thrown in: You'd better not do anything like North Port tried! Please?

Imagine has a history of demanding absolute loyalty from its staff, especially its administrators. It's been known to fire principals for complaining about not having enough funds to educate their students, then hiring more compliant people to fill their spots. So the folks at  Imagine Palmer Ranch are likely walking on eggshells, fearful of what might happen if they show the slightest support for the the school at North Port.

You can read Bakke's letter below the fold.

EJ Montini on "The secret lives of charter schools"

by David Safier

Leave it to EJ Montini, the caustic, curmudgeonly, it's-funny-but-it-ain't-funny columnist for the Republic to lay out one of the problems with Arizona charter schools: Nobody knows what they do with their the taxpayers' money.

[Arizona politicians] happily allow these particular public schools to keep secret the salaries of administrators and teachers; to have unelected school boards that can be stacked with the family members, and to hand out lucrative contracts to board members and administrators without competing bids.

He does a wonderful job of skewering Goldwater Institute's Clint Bolick for his blatant hypocrisy on the matter. First Montini compliments G.I.'s brainpower by saying it "fuels the brains of many Arizona legislators, who otherwise would run on empty." Then he notes that Bolick is one of the directors of BASIS Schools Inc., which means Bolick has a vested interest in keeping salaries quiet and contracts selective.

One thing Montini doesn't mention, so I'll add it here, is that BASIS Schools Inc. is a for-profit corporation. Each BASIS school is nonprofit, but 70% of the funds they get from taxpayers is sucked up by the for-profit corporation, where the money disappears from sight. While people can get a picture of how nonprofits spend their funds by looking at their 990 tax forms that are posted on the web, for-profit tax returns are private. One small example: we used to know the salary BASIS founder Michael Block received when all of BASIS was nonprofit. Now that BASIS Schools Inc. is expanding rapidly in Arizona and beginning to open schools across the country, for all we know, he makes millions a year. It's all hidden behind the corporation's for-profit status.

Imagine Schools' continues its downward slide

by David Safier

First off, this post is about Imagine charter schools, the country's largest charter school chain, and among the worst. It's not about Imagine Learning whose connections with Al Melvin I've been writing about lately.

Imagine Schools has been losing schools by the handful over the past few years, some because the local chartering agencies shut them down for poor performance, others because the schools decided to split from Imagine and go it on their own. The for-profit company (that calls itself a nonprofit) is built on the expand-or-die model, and it looks like Imagine is dying a death by a thousand cuts.

This latest story is a split that's turning  into a very messy, contested divorce.

The governing board of Florida's North Port charter school voted unanimously to leave Imagine Schools and go it alone. In a letter to the parents and staff, the board wrote, "We did not feel it was fiscally responsible to continue to make exorbitant payments to the Imagine Corporate and not receive any justifiable benefit for our students and parents." By "exorbitant payments," the board was referring to the management fees which would be $890,000 next year.

The board has the right to cancel its connection with Imagine Schools, but not according to Imagine. In a jaw-dropping move, Imagine put the school principal on administrative leave, refused to acknowledge the break and sued the board for $15,000, writing to parents:

“I believe it's important to reassure you that your school and your child's teacher remain full-fledged members of our Imagine Schools family. We are the parent company of Imagine North Port and not a management company to your campus.”

Dennis Bakke, Imagine's founder and CEO, once wrote in an infamous email that Imagine owns and runs the schools, not the local board, which should simply rubber-stamp his decisions. This move is a desperate effort to stop his company's slide into bankruptcy, but most probably he's accelerating the process. Imagine's 70 other schools and the state agencies that charter them aren't likely to feel very comfortable when they hear about this.

Brewer's "Performance Funding" plan: Who created it?

by David Safier

[I've written three posts about Brewer's Performance Funding plan: An explanation of how it rewards schools in wealthy neighborhoods and punishes schools in poor neighborhoods; an example of how three schools would fare under the inherently inequitable plan; and a way to make the plan more equitable.]

The question is, were the people who put together Brewer's Performance Funding plan too stupid to know it favors wealth and punishes poverty, or was that part of the plan? The answer is clearly the latter. Brewer's Performance Funding plan is classic "education reform" conservative-style, where No Child (except poor children) Is Left Behind.

Most likely, the brains behind the plan is Craig Barrett, the head of Brewer's Arizona Ready Education Council (AREC). In the section of Brewer's proposed budget on Performance Funding, it says she tasked AREC with improving education in Arizona, and "after nine months of collaborative deliberations, research and input from a broad selection of education stakeholders," they came up with this plan.

Who is Craig Barrett? He's the ex-CEO of Intel, a smart guy who knows how to get things done. These days, he's focused on education with a conservative, privatization bias.

The bad news continues for Imagine Schools

by David Safier

Three Imagine charter schools are closing in Indiana, two in Fort Wayne and one in Indianapolis. Ball State University sponsored the charters and decided not to renew because of poor academic performance and the schools' failure to indicate they were making changes that would lead to improvement.

This adds to a long list of forced closings of Imagine charter schools. Six were closed in St. Louis in June. Imagine is based on a growth model, and if schools are closing, not only is the corporation shrinking, but other communities are less likely to agree to open new ones.

Arizona's Imagine schools are comparatively healthy educationally. That doesn't mean they're doing great, but they don't seem to be educational sinkholes like some schools in other areas. But their financial structure looks unsustainable; Imagine seems to be losing money on most of the schools, though their strange bookkeeping makes it hard to know exactly what's going on. The for-profit corporation's model, taken from the world of energy conglomerates which is where its CEO came from (think Enron), is particularly ill suited to the world of education. Watch for a continued crumbling of the Imagine empire.

This paragraph should earn writer a journalism award

by David Safier

Colin Woodard writes for Maine's Portland Press Herald. In an article about Maine's refusal to allow a K12 Inc. virtual school in the state because the school's board isn't independent enough from the for-profit corporation, he has this great paragraph:

Amy Carlisle, president of the local board for the proposed Maine Virtual Academy, wrote the charter school commissioners to say she “was disappointed and blindsided” by their decision. She also vigorously denied that her board lacked independence from K12 Inc., the Herndon, Va., based online education company that would manage the school, hire and fire its staff and headmaster, and provide curricular materials and assessment data.

Right, Ms. Carlisle. Your board is completely independent from the multi-million dollar, publicly traded, for-profit virtual school corporation (that runs Arizona Virtual Academy) even though it oversees every aspect of the school.

Woodard wrote a long article about all this back in September, including an amazing graphic, "Following the money and influence for digital education." I'm still reading the article, but you can view the graphic below the fold. (Spoiler alert: ALEC and Jeb Bush are among the financial enablers.)