LWVeducation
I really enjoy little children. So must Bill de Blasio in New York City. His universal full day preK program enrolls more children than in any other state except Georgia. All four-year-olds have access to preschool. All income levels participate.
Which states get it right? Not Florida. It was one of eight states that received an overall grade of ‘F’ when its grades were averaged across the categories studied. The Network for Public Education rated states based on six criteria.
For each category, I combined the percentages of A, B and C grades received across states. I was surprised at the results. Relatively few states (11) use test scores to punish students and teachers, but Florida is one of those that do. You can see the combined percentages (think of them as passing scores) at the end of each of the criteria.
http://www.prwatch.org/files/new_charter_school_black_hole_report_oct_21_2015.pdf
Since expelling students is difficult in New York City, Success charters drive parents to withdraw their children. The suspension rates are reported to be between 4 and 23 percent at least once. Most schools suspend at least ten percent while public schools have a three percent suspension rate within a school year. Suspensions start as early as kindergarten.
The charters use other strategies to encourage some parents to withdraw children who find it difficult to adapt to rigid rules. Schools repeatedly call parents to pick up their children early. They may be counseled that the school is not a ‘good fit’ for their child. Staff may tell parents that students needed special education that the school could not provide. Some schools use 911 calls as a threat for children who misbehaves. One mother whose child was on the list said she did not know about it. She said, “He doesn’t hit kids, he doesn’t knock kids over, he doesn’t scream, he just talks too much.”
This whole notion that parents should be able to choose schools that ‘fit their children’ has serious consequences. The whole idea of a school where some children do not belong does not sound like a ‘public’ school. When schools become exclusionary communities, the sense of community is lost. With that loss, the problem is not contained just in a school.
Yes, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) average scores are slightly down overall in 2015 from 2013. The grade four reading scores did go up from 217 in 2002 to 221 in 2015. This is a one point increase from 2007 Average eighth grade math and reading as well as fourth grade math scores declined.
Do changes of a point or two have any significance? Not really. It is comforting when scores tend to rise, but they often fluctuate some. It is more meaningful to look at scores over time. This is a very revealing exercise.
Does Florida short change its students? Where does the education funding come from and where does it go? Answers to such questions require some ‘tax literacy’. Florida is one of seven states with no income tax. As a percentage of personal income, Florida has the fourth lowest tax rate in the country. Corporate taxes currently are 2.9% of Florida’s revenue. Yet, Florida is not a poor state; some areas are quite wealthy.
horse trading
In a political move to pass immigration reform in New York, the Governor linked private school tax credit scholarships to Dream Act bills. The trade off would make undocumented students eligible for college scholarships in exchange for tax credit scholarships for poor and wealthy families.
A bipartisan coalition failed, and the Governor announced this week he would withdraw budget funding for both programs. Reading the article in Capital magazine is like reading a political case study.
This is a story told by a former data analyst from New York City schools. He provides the data to show the selectivity of the Success Academy schools in Harlem.
It is a compelling story.
by Pat Drago and Sue Legg
This is not an easy walk into the woods, but you need to know where the funding for charter schools comes from and where it goes. It is your money.
There is a lot money to be made and lost with charter schools, and it is public tax dollars. As usual, independent schools tend to lose it, and large charter management chains come out on top. This is not always to the children’s benefit. How does this happen? We looked at the audits and found huge disparities in facility and fee expenditures. This meant that instructional parts of the budgets were reduced accordingly.
We wanted to know how these facilities were financed. If State funds were creating opportunities to make real estate venture capitalists wealthy, we wanted to know how this worked. Unfortunately, public dollars that go to private companies are hard to see. The lack of transparency for their financial records provides only vague outlines. We did find some clues by looking at how facilities are financed.
We wondered what other states were doing to ensure that state money was allocated for instruction and not for profit making ventures. We found some answers. As always, different approaches have their share of unintended consequences. As we groped in the darkness, there was a glimmer of light. The brave among you are invited to go down this path with us.
Remember the post on Profit Trumps Public Interest? It was the one the National Council of State Legislatures put out on for-profit education management companies. We discovered that National Heritage Academies had some serious problems. Propublica published a follow-up article on the for-profit National Heritage Academies.
Where Does the Money Go?
The Michigan State Board of Education has now asked the legislature to outlaw “sweep contracts” to for-profit companies, but the legislator did not listen. Continue reading
Charters and traditional public schools are claiming that their funding allocations are inadequate and unfair.
Given the massive cuts in education funding, their claims are not trivial. Their arguments, however, are different. Judges are ruling differently as well. Based on information reported by Education Justice, a program of the New Jersey based Education Law Center, and Access, a research institute at Columbia University, charters want facilities and traditional public schools seek fairness.Continue reading