charter schools

School privatization group increases donations in key educaton race

Texans for Education Reform (TER), the Austin-based school privatization group that wants Chente Quintanilla to help it turn public schools into cash cows for well-heeled entrepreneurs, now has invested almost $300,000 – maybe more by the time you read this – into Quintanilla’s effort to unseat state Rep. Mary Gonzalez in the Democratic primary for House District 75 in El Paso.

A victory by TER and Quintanilla would be a serious loss to school children in El Paso and throughout Texas because Gonzalez, as I have written before, is a true advocate for public schools and has the record to prove it.

Gonzalez has voted to increase school funding and reduce standardized testing. And, as a member of the House Public Education Committee, she has opposed private school vouchers and other school privatization schemes. Quintanilla, as a House member a few years ago, voted for a school finance law that created a permanent funding shortage for public education and voted to increase high-stakes testing.

Despite its name, TER is not interested in real education reform. Its goal is to convince the legislature to expand corporate charter schools and experiment with other privatization ventures that offer its business supporters new investment opportunities – with your tax dollars. The more charter schools, for example, the more rental opportunities for TER members, etc., etc.

When he was in the House, Quintanilla also voted against strong regulations for charter schools, which operate with your tax dollars.

TER has contributed almost $200,000 to Quintanilla during the past month alone in the form of in-kind donations for TV advertising, direct mail to voters, social media, consulting and get out the vote efforts. That kind of support will be hard for Quintanilla to ignore back in Austin if it helps him defeat Gonzalez and TER comes calling. And TER will come calling.

School kids, parents and educators can’t afford to lose Gonzalez. With early voting ending on Friday and Election Day next Tuesday, Gonzalez can use every pro-education vote that District 75 has to offer.

Gonzalez isn’t the only strong supporter of public schools that TER is trying to unseat. Among other targets, the group also is trying to defeat state Rep. Gary VanDeaver of New Boston in the Republican primary for House District 1 in Northeast Texas.

VanDeaver is a former public school administrator, but TER has contributed more than $100,000 for advertising and campaign mail to his opponent, George Lavender, a former House member who voted to cut $5.4 billion from public education in 2011.

Education reform? Baloney.

Education “reform” group trying to unseat education champion

State Rep. Mary Gonzalez of El Paso is one of the biggest friends and advocates that public schools, educators and students have in the Texas Legislature. She has voted to increase school funding and reduce standardized testing and, as a member of the House Public Education Committee, represents the best interests of neighborhood schools.

So, why would a group calling itself “Texans for Education Reform” (or TER) try to defeat Gonzalez’s re-election bid? According to the El Paso Times, TER so far has contributed $100,500 to Chente Quintanilla, a former legislator who is Gonzalez’s opponent in the March 1 Democratic primary for the House District 75 seat.

As a House member a few years ago, Quintanilla voted for a school finance plan that created a permanent education funding shortage, and he voted to increase high-stakes testing. He also voted for the tuition deregulation law under which college tuition has soared, puncturing the higher education dreams of many young people from middle- and low-income families. And he voted against strong regulations for charter schools, which would have protected against tax dollars being diverted to charter operators more interested in profit than education.

The reason Texans for Education Reform is supporting Quintanilla so heavily against Gonzalez is actually pretty simply. Texans for Education Reform is not about improving public education and never has been. It’s goal, instead, is to take tax dollars from neighborhood public schools in favor of expanding corporate charters and promoting other unproven privatization schemes, the types of things that Rep. Gonzalez recognizes for the scams that they are. So, in TER’s view, she has to go.

TER also supported the new law requiring school campuses to be graded A-F on the state’s accountability system. This law that will do absolutely nothing to improve public education, but it will add stigma to the low-income children whose under-funded campuses will get most of the Ds and Fs.

The president and chair of Texans for Education Reform is Florence Shapiro, a former chair of the state Senate Education Committee, under whom testing flourished while school funding dwindled. One board member is Rod Paige, the former U.S. Education Secretary under President Bush who ushered in No Child Left Behind and the high-stakes testing era.

Another board member is Houston businessman Dick Weekley, founder, chairman and CEO of Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), a similar, misnamed business group that has succeeded in its campaign to make it very difficult for everyday Texans with legitimate complaints against negligent or abusive business practices to seek justice in the courthouse.

TER is similar to TLR. Both are misnamed because neither has much to do with true reform and both are supported by some of the same business people. In TER’s case, the goal is to divert tax dollars to corporations and entrepreneurs by declaring public schools a failure, under-funding them and then privatizing education services. Rep. Gonzalez stands in their way.

Another potential problem with Quintanilla, which doesn’t seem to bother TER, is a report that he is under investigation by the state attorney general’s office for alleged voter fraud. According to a recent report on KVIA-TV in El Paso, the investigation stems from a civil lawsuit filed against him alleging that he unlawfully delivered ballots for homebound seniors in a justice of the peace election.

TER’s most recent contribution to Quintanilla was in the form of $55,500 worth of in-kind services, routed through the Forma Group, for advertising, direct mail, political consulting and other campaign assistance. Forma recently hired state Rep. Marisa Marquez, who is retiring at the end of this term from House District 77. Interestingly enough, Marquez received large contributions in previous elections from TER’s cousin, Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

Now, apparently, Marquez, who is still in office, is helping out TER and Quintanilla against Gonzalez.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/02/quintanilla-takes-large-campaign-haul/79716536/

Dan Patrick, Arne Duncan: bad news “reformers”

The observation may be enough to make Tea Party darling Dan Patrick choke, but he has a couple of annoying things in common with one of the key figures of President Obama’s administration. I am talking about the soon-to-be-retired Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Both profess to be education “reformers,” but neither has a clue about how to improve public schools. Instead, they promote policies that do more harm than good to students and educators.

Both are big proponents of standardized testing, and each has championed the diversion of tax dollars from traditional neighborhood schools, where the vast majority of school children in Texas and throughout the nation are educated, many in overcrowded and under-equipped classrooms.

As a state senator, Patrick voted to cut $5.4 billion from public school budgets in Texas, and, as lieutenant governor, he left billions of tax dollars sitting in the bank while public schools remain under-funded. Then, this week, he renewed his tired call for diverting education tax dollars to pay for private school vouchers and expand charter schools, many of which are operated by for-profit companies.

Two weeks ago, only a few days before he announced he would be leaving his Cabinet post in December, Duncan announced the Department of Education would give another $157 million to create more charter schools throughout the country, despite criticisms by his own department’s inspector general that the agency has done a poor job of overseeing how charter schools spend their federal dollars.

Some charters are good, but others are operated by corporations more interested in how much money they can make from your tax dollars than they are in how well they educate children. Studies have shown that charters, on the whole, perform no better – and, in some cases, worse – than traditional public schools, but they continue to be promoted by self-styled “reformers” who would rather pay for placeboes than adequately fund public education.

Counting the new grants, the Department of Education has now awarded more than $3 billion to charter schools since fiscal 1995, but the Washington Post reported, “The federal government has not tracked how its dollars have been used by charter schools, nor has it studied their academic performance.”

The Department of Education’s inspector general, in a 2012 report, found dozens of charter schools that received millions of federal dollars never even opened their doors to students.

Among the latest grants, according to the Post, Ohio got the largest single award of $32.5 million, even though that state has “been at the center of several recent charter school scandals” involving inflated enrollment figures and evidence of inflated evaluations.

Duncan said it was largely up to state agencies and officials to hold charters accountable for their tax dollars. I guess he means agencies such as the under-funded Texas Education Agency and officials such as school-privatization champion Dan Patrick .

How reassuring is that?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/charter-love-feds-give-157-million-to-expand-charter-schools/2015/09/28/006ad118-6613-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html?wprss=rss_education

Charters – and the truth – suffer a setback

The Wall Street Journal shares an owner with Fox News, and the Journal’s editorial page shares the TV network’s ability to ignore facts in promoting its politicized viewpoint, as it did this week in an editorial rebuking the Washington Supreme Court for striking down a new charter school law in that state.

The court’s 6-3 ruling was pretty straightforward. It held that privately operated charter schools cannot receive public funding because they do not quality as “common schools” under the state’s constitution. The law – which siphons tax dollars from traditional public schools where the vast majority of Washington children are educated – was the result of a ballot initiative backed by billionaire, self-styled education “reformer,” Bill Gates, among others, and approved by voters in 2012.

The Wall Street Journal accused the court of supporting the “public school monopoly,” when, in truth, the court did nothing of the kind. The court did not strike down the ability of entrepreneurs to open and operate charter schools to compete with or supplement public schools. The court simply ruled that private owners didn’t have the right to dip their hands into public tax dollars.

The Journal’s editorial also claimed that charter schools are “far more accountable than traditional public schools.” Hooey. Public schools in Washington operate under elected school boards. Charters do not. They operate under privately appointed boards, and, despite what some promoters claim and parents hope, charters are not miracle workers.

Nationwide, research has shown that charters, on average, do not perform as well as traditional public schools.

The Journal claimed the court’s main concern was “preserving the union monopoly” in Washington. In truth, the lawsuit against the charter school law was brought by a coalition that in addition to a state teachers union also included school administrators and the League of Women Voters. They all shared the same concern – protecting public funding for public school children.

So far, only nine charter schools have been opened under the disputed law and eight of them opened for the first time this year, according to the Tacoma News Tribune, which reported that operators will try to keep them open with donated funds, if necessary.

The timing of the court ruling, at the beginning of a new school year, obviously is bad for the charter students and their families. But if the charters are forced to close their doors, no childen will be left out in the cold. Local school districts will be there to take them in.