Dear Reformy Bloggers: B’Bye

UPDATE: Peter Cunningham is a former Assistant Secretary of Education and Laura Waters's publisher at Education Post. He comes here to defend her in the comments below. Hilarity ensues...


I'm going to keep this short because one of my New Years resolutions is to stop engaging folks who are not serious. But I do want the following on the record before I move on:

Laura Waters is having a debate with Stephen Danley about Camden schooling. As far as I'm concerned, anything Stephen does is worth checking out, so here's Stephen's latest contribution:

First of all, there is no need to concoct a completely facetious account of what I hypothetically argue. My email is on the Rutgers website and I’m active on twitter. Why put words in my mouth then argue with a straw man? If Laura had the courtesy to actually ask me about her hospital analogy, I would have told her that communities are often fiercely protective of their hospitals, and that often the “poorer” hospital is the one serving the poorest population (the community least likely to be able to pay). In contrast to Laura’s stereotyping of me as someone only interested in “academic exercise,” I actually participated in protests in New Orleans around this very issue. After Hurricane Katrina, Charity Hospital was closed, in part because it’s business model of serving low-income residents was not considered viable in the long-term. A new research hospital was to open which focused less on this non-profitable clientele. Sound familiar? [emphasis mine]

As a matter of fact, yes. But I'm not talking about the hospital; I'm talking about Laura Waters completely mischaracterizing someone else's words.

Because this is what Waters does. She mischaracterizes the views of the dead so badly their families have to call her out on it. She omitted crucial context in her attempted takedown of a post by Matt DiCarlo about teacher quality. She tries to critique my work even after she admits she's unable to understand its statistical techniques. She attributes quotes to me I never said; she only retracted them after I called her on it.

Want the latest example of how Laura Waters will completely misrepresent what someone actually says and believes? Here's how she quoted Newark Mayor Ras Baraka:

Eric Dawson, a new blogger at The Newark Report (and host of the internet radio show Real Talk Radio) has managed in one short week to thoroughly irritate Mayor Ras Baraka. How thoroughly? The Mayor has posted a two-part vlog on YouTube that attempts to rebut Dawson’s accusations that Baraka is ineffectively managing city violence (there were 105 murders in Newark in 2015) and that Baraka is undermining school choice.

In the first clip Mayor Baraka says that “a guy named Eric Dawson...hasn’t stopped campaigning” (Dawson supported Baraka’s opponent Shavar Jeffries, who is now Director of Democrats for Education Reform) and has “tried to defame my name." Dawson, he says, "has a “personal vendetta” against him,  and is “creating damage” because  “the kids won’t be saved as long as we’re divided.” Dawson’s reporting, including this recent post in which he describes how a Baraka supporter put Abdul Muhammad in a chokehold during an anti-crime press conference, is “salacious" and  designed to “aggravate and divide the people of Newark.” Dawson's late father, Newark politician Carl Sharif, “ intones the Mayor, wouldn’t approve.”

In the second video clip, Mayor Baraka defends his Dec. 17th letter to Education Commissioner David Hespe requesting that the D.O.E. freeze all charter school expansion. (Dawson broke the story last week. The Newark City Council responded by sending its own letter to Comm. Hespe explaining the need in Newark for charter school expansion.)

Towards the beginning of the video, Baraka reads the letter in its entirety, including the passage where he says, “I am writing to request that, at this time, your Office not approve any further expansion of enrollment in these or any other Newark Charter Schools…”

Then Baraka says that it is “an outright lie that I want to close charter schools and we don’t want to expand.” 

Confused? Me too. Maybe the Mayor will clarify his stance in his next YouTube installment.

First of all, that's the entire post; I say this just so no one can accuse me of taking Waters out of context. Second, the bolding is not mine; it's Waters's. Her argument is plain: Baraka at one moment wrote that he was against charter expansion, but then claimed later he is not against expansion.

Now, notice that Waters uses an ellipses (...) at the end of Baraka's sentence. Why wouldn't she just quote the entire sentence -- just as I've done here for her?

Well, if you click on the very link in Waters's own post, you can read Baraka's entire letter. What comes after that ellipses?

“I am writing to request that, at this time, your Office not approve any further expansion of enrollment in these or any other Newark Charter Schools until such time as the NPS budget shortfalls can be addressed to make certain all schools have the resources needed to deliver a high quality education to their students. I further ask that you assign a team to thoroughly examine the budget and the resources needed in NPS schools, and develop a comprehensive plan to restore essential programs and staff to support our students and their teachers. My administration is prepared to work with you to ensure that this budget assessment is completed within the next six months." [emphasis mine]

Baraka does, in fact, want a temporary halt to the expansion of charters in Newark, until such time as the damage that is being done by the state's "hold charters harmless" policies can be addressed. Baraka has proposed addressing this within six months. So he is not against charters, and he is not against eventual charter expansion; in fact, he caught some grief from Bob Braun among others for not fighting against charter expansion hard enough.

Unlike Waters, I went to Newark during the last mayoral campaign and listened to what the future mayor had to say about education during a special press conference. Over and over, he insisted he was not against charter schools; he was only against advantaging one group of students over another. He couldn't have been more clear, just as he couldn't be more clear here.

If Laura Waters doesn't understand Ras Baraka's consistent position on charter schools, that's on her, and not him.

Waters's omission of Baraka's entire quote is a cheap ploy that's offered in place of any actual argument against Baraka's policy. You don't think NPS is suffering because of charter expansion?  You don't think the situation calls for a moratorium on charter expansion? Fine -- make your case. But mischaracterizing the mayor by deliberately removing the context of his statement is just about as mendacious as it gets.

Mendacity bothers me, but I'm a fairly cynical guy so I usually expect it. Ignorance makes me grit my teeth, but it's so pervasive I'm growing somewhat immune.

No, what's really bothers me is laziness. If Laura Waters wants to debate Ras Baraka or Stephen Danley or me or anyone else, by all means, go for it. But it's just plain old lazy to twist someone's words into an argument that's easy to defeat. It's lazy to remove all nuance from someone's words and then pretend that you've caught them in a contradiction.

I suppose Peter Cunningham will send out his reformy blog swarm when I restate this, but what the hell: Laura Waters is not a serious commentator on education policy. And I just don't have the time anymore to debate people who are not serious.

So goodbye, Laura, and good luck.

h/t Mother Crusader

ADDING: Here's the Honorable Ras Baraka in his own words:



The man's a poet and the son of a poet (a great poet); he knows his way around words pretty damn well. Maybe you disagree with him, and that's fine. But, again: if you're "confused" by his very simple words, that's not his fault -- it's yours.

ADDING: Yet another time when I had to correct Waters's characterization of my work. Scroll down to see my objections; note Waters only corrected ONE of them.

You can't have a good-faith argument with someone who does this to you. B'Bye, Laura.

The Friedrichs Freeloaders Go To Court

Rebecca Friedrichs and her fellow plaintiffs going before the Supreme Court today are those kind of teachers.

Those of you who've been working in schools for a while know what I mean. The kind of teacher who keeps pouring herself coffee from the pot in the faculty lounge, but never thinks to put some money in the jar to buy grounds and filters. The kind of teacher who eats his fill at the holiday party, but never seems to have his share of the catering bill "on them at the moment."

The kind of teacher who never seems to have the time to show up at a work action, but will be the first to complain that the negotiations team didn't fight hard enough for a pay increase. The kind of teacher who complains about local union leadership, but never steps up and runs for office herself.

The only difference is that Friedrichs and friends aren't guilt of these relatively trivial transgressions: instead of mooching free coffee, they want to mooch free negotiations.

As I wrote earlier this year, some of The Friedrichs Freeloaders, like Harlan Erlich, seem confused about what their case is actually all about. Erlich didn't like that his union supported marriage equity, but the law is actually quite clear: he doesn't have to support the union's political activities. A couple of quick checks on a form and Harlan can rest assured that his dues won't go to helping make sure two people in love can have legal rights. Because this is America, and you have the right to live in the Dark Ages and be a bigot if that's what you want.

No, what's at stake here is something else: The Friedrichs Freeloaders think they should be able to benefit from collective bargaining actions taken on their behalf by teachers unions. But they also think asking them to pay their fair share of the bargaining costs is somehow an encroachment on their free speech.

Understand, they aren't seeking to overturn state laws that require unions to negotiate on behalf of all public employees within a specific jurisdiction and job type. If that was the case, the Friedrichs Freeloaders could just go out and try to negotiate their own contracts, completely forgoing not only legal protections and services from the unions, but any benefits those unions receive from negotiations.

Good luck with that.

No, what the Friedrichs Freeloaders want is for the court to find that compelling them to pony up for the cost of negotiations is a violation of their First Amendment rights. Not of their rights to speak out against their union, though, nor to actually run in elections and change the policies of their locals; those rights are guaranteed (even if they are too much work for these plaintiffs).

What the Friedrichs Freeloaders want is the right to sponge off of you and me and every other hard-working teacher who is grown-up enough to understand that nothing comes free in this world -- unless Samuel Alito, who has been begging someone to bring a case like this, decides it does. They want the right to convince themselves that they aren't the worst kind of leeches, happily taking whatever they can get without ever acknowledging their gains come at someone else's cost.

Nearly 40 years ago, the Court acknowledged the free rider problem and came up with a simple solution: Abood v Detroit Board of Education clearly stated public employees could only be compelled to pay for those services related to negotiations. Understand, not all states even require these fees, known as "agency shop" or "fair share" fees.

Of course, in those states, teachers make considerably less. If the Freidrichs Freeloaders win their case, a lot of teachers, and other public employees, are going to suffer a wage penalty. I'm sure their conservative patrons -- the ones who are paying for this lawsuit -- will watch out for them.

The rest of us, not so much.

Personally, I don't know how the Friedrichs Freeloaders can sleep at night. They are setting up their colleagues for a major financial, professional, and personal blow. Millions of families of hard-working, middle-class teachers are going to suffer real consequences if they win, all so they can save a few bucks in union negotiating fees.

I'm no lawyer, so I'm not the guy to opine on the legal intricacies of this case. All I know is that I could never shaft my fellow teachers the way the Freidrichs Freeloaders are getting ready to shaft theirs. Legal abstractions are fine, but we're talking real lives here. You would think a group of teachers, of all people, would understand that.

ADDING: George Will wants you to believe it's no big deal when the Court overturns a ruling it made four decades ago. He's wrong; it's a very big deal. Stare decisis is a bedrock principal of law, abandoned only in the cases where the Court clearly ruled in violation of the Constitution or in a way that offends current principles. That's not the case here; agency fees have worked fine for 40 years, and in no way abrogate anyone's right to free speech. Overturning Abood is a radical act.

Can We Please Get the Facts Right About Newark's Schools?

Let me start by saying I like David Kirp's work enormously; I think everyone who cares about education policy should read Improbable Scholars, a detailed and thoroughly readable piece of qualitative research about school reform in Union City, NJ. I have some issues with the generalizability of Kirp's work, but he's a fine writer and I think, like Jonathan Kozol, he does a good job of describing what actually happens in an urban public school system.

Let me further say I think Kirp is on to something in his piece today for the NY Times. There's little doubt the "creative destruction" approach to schooling found in Newark has not led to any measurable gains in student learning. Bruce Baker and I recently pointed out that any gains in test scores in Newark, if they even exist, are part of a larger, statewide pattern. And I'll have new work out soon that shows the same thing with the vaunted increases in graduation rates that the fans of Cami Anderson like to crow about.

Kirp is not the first to note that urban districts in New Jersey that have resisted charter schools, such as Elizabeth and Union City, have schools that do comparatively well on tests compared to state averages, even though they have large numbers of students in economic disadvantage. Of course, we rarely hear about these schools because, unlike the large, national charter chains, they don't employ entire offices full of people to tout their successes.

So I'm all for what Kirp is doing here: by all means, let's hear some more about how to build successful urban school districts without dismantling them. Let's consider that maybe "no excuses" charters don't have all (or even some) of the answers. Let's look more carefully at claims of "beating the odds," and stop credulously accepting the idea that all American urban schools are "failing."

But can we please get the facts right when we do so?

One of Mr. Booker’s goals was to make Newark the nation’s “charter school capital,” and he largely succeeded. While these schools have recorded higher test scores and graduation rates than the traditional schools, money explains much of that gap. Freed from the district’s bureaucracy, the charters have nearly a third more dollars to spend on each student, $12,650 versus $9,604, which buys additional teachers, tutors and social workers. [emphasis mine]

No. No, no, no.

That factoid comes from -- surprise! -- Dale Russakoff's The Prize. As I have said repeatedly, Russakoff does a fine job of telling the political backstory of Newark school reform; however, her numbers are way, way off. Many of the data points she uses are not properly sourced and outright contradicted by state figures. I wrote an entire brief about this, and no one -- not Russakoff, not the Newark Public Schools (NPS), not the state, not the Newark charters -- has challenged any of it (so far as I know).

Here's the passage in The Prize where Kirp, I believe, gets his figures:

“SPENDING PER PUPIL, 2014-15

- Newark District Schools: $19,650 (This amount represents remaining per-pupil sum after payments to charters and pre-K are subtracted; of the $19,650, and average of $9,604 per pupil reaches schools.)

- Newark charter schools: $16,400 (There is no available data on the average amount reaching charter school classrooms. According to Newark’s KIPP schools, $12,664 reaches its SPARK Academy elementary school.)” (p. 288, Appendix II)

Let's first start by pointing out that the $12,664 figure Russakoff gives is not an aggregated figure for all Newark charter schools; it is a self-reported figure from KIPP for one of the schools in its network (I am assuming Kirp has rounded up to get his $12,650; if he didn't he is citing a figure I have never seen before).

Further, as I pointed out in the brief, the calculation of those figures that show money "reaching schools" is never explained; what, exactly, does the figure represent? If we go to the state spending figures -- the most complete, uniformly reported, and relevant data -- we find the trope that NPS has a bloated bureaucracy while the charters are lean and mean is just not accurate.

NPS spends more money on instruction -- "in the classroom" -- than most Newark charters.

NPS spends far more on student support services -- guidance counselors, social workers, librarians, nurses, etc. -- than any Newark charter.

NPS has lower administrative costs than any Newark charter school.

NPS's administrative salaries are lower than most charters.

One argument charter advocates make is that the state figures may misclassify spending. But Newark has many more education service personnel on staff than the charters, suggesting the district really is spending more on student support.

Both Kirp and Russakoff assert KIPP's Newark network has many* more social workers per student. But the personnel files show that's just not true. Further, NPS hires psychologists and counselors that KIPP does not, and NPS has more nurses per student than KIPP.

Finally: if NPS is a patronage factory compared to the charters, why are their total plant costs right at the median? That's especially notable when you consider NPS's physical plant is in serious disrepair.

As I've explained before, charters often do have a resource advantage over public district schools. But the empirical evidence does not support the theory that the advantage comes from charters avoiding bureaucratic waste; in fact, there's plenty of reason to believe many charters are wasting the taxpayers' money in rent-seeking and other activities.

Instead, charters get their resource advantage by:

1. Hiring less experienced and, consequently, cheaper teachers.
2. Taking advantage of philanthropic contributions that are not available to public district schools.
3. Enrolling a population with fewer special education and Limited English Proficient students, which keeps costs down.

This is what an appropriate analysis of the data tells us. It's not complicated and it's not a secret, even if it contradicts the conventional wisdom.

Again: I appreciate what Kirp is trying to do here. I've also pointed out Russakoff has many important points to make in her book. But if we're going to have a productive conversation about school "reform," we've got to get the facts right.

Please.

* Corrected: needs that adverb.

Reformy Myth Busting, 2016 Edition

I see we're in the middle of a full-blown spasm of reformy self-congratulation, self-righteousness, and self-regard concerning matters of school "choice" and anti-unionism.

Let's get a few things straight, shall we?

Reformy Myth: School "choice" has led to better outcomes for all students.

Facts: There is no evidence charter schools or voucher schools get, in the aggregate, substantially better performance than public district schools. Yes, some charter schools do better than prediction when using regression-based techniques to measure their outcomes; however, those charters almost always have features such as a longer school day (generally useless but helpful when disadvantaged students don't have other good options), more financial resources, different student populations which likely produce peer effects, or high rates of attrition that almost certainly account for much of the realized gains.

In other words: There is no evidence charter schools' "charteriness" makes them any better than public district schools.


Reformy Myth: Charter schools are closing the "achievement gap."

Facts: No charter school study that I am aware of has ever shown the effect sizes of charter schools to be anywhere close to the gap in test scores that can be explained by socio-economic differences.

Even the most generous reading of the few cherry-picked studies that are repeatedly cited by charter advocates shows that their effects are a fraction of effect of poverty and income inequity on school outcomes. Even the paid pitchmen for the most "successful" charter chains -- groups that have been around for decades -- cannot bring themselves to admit they are getting equivalent results to public schools that enroll affluent children.

Because it's just not so.


Reformy Myth: Teachers unions perpetuate a white power structure that has historically disenfranchised families of color for their own gains.

Facts: Certainly, teachers unions, like almost all American institutions that have been around for a long time, have had their moments of racist and classist behavior. No one should discount that; however, no one should also ignore the fact that, historically, the civil rights movement was closely tied to unionism.

The research consensus on the effect of teachers unions is, at best, mixed, although there is some evidence strong teachers unions lead to more equitable school funding systems. There is no question that we have a serious problem with the demographics of our teaching corps: we don't have nearly enough teachers of color, and the gap between the diversity of students and their teachers has meaningful consequences for student outcomes.

The idea, however, that unions are impeding the diversification of the teaching corps has no evidence to support it. Unions have been actively recruiting for a more diverse teaching workforce for some time. Further, blacks have a higher overall unionization rate than any other racial group; unions are a force that arguably makes workplaces more diverse.

In addition, we know that "choice" systems have targeted teachers of color for employment consequences. We also know charter teachers are more likely to be white and have less experience than teachers at public district schools. It's not an exaggeration to say many "successful" charter schools are systemically replacing experienced black teachers with inexperienced white ones. How does this support the dismantling of a "white power structure" in public schools?

One last point: the idea that charter schools are breaking up a white power structure is especially absurd when it's quite clear the entire charter industry has been promoted and supported by white billionaires.


Reformy Myth: School "choice" empowers families of color.

Facts: The true historical context for "choice" in education is that it was used as a pretext to avoid the desegregation of Southern schools. These "choice" plans, incidentally, impacted teachers of color disproportionately. By all indications, it appears that charter school expansion has continued to lead to more segregated schools -- in some cases in astonishingly blatant and pernicious ways.

School "choice" has been flourishing in places where local, democratic control of schools -- a privilege enjoyed by suburban families -- has been replaced by state control (Philadelphia, Camden, Newark, Detroit) or "strong mayor" governance (NYC, Chicago).

Those who think this is conspiracy theorizing need only read the words of the people who, with the backing of billionaires, created secret plans that called for dismantling local control of schools in cities and replacing public schools with charters. Of course, these days plutocratic charter cheerleaders don't even try to hide their intentions, no matter the damage they may do to local, democratically controlled systems.

These charter expansion policies have led to a "choice" for urban families between underfunded, crumbling, inadequately resourced, unsafe public district schools and shiny new charters that abrogate the rights of parents and students while remaining in many ways unaccountable to the taxpayer.

Many urban families have hit the point where they can only get their children into a safe, healthy schools by giving up many of their rights and democratic control of their education systems. Again: this would never be tolerated in white-majority suburban communities.


Reformy Myth: Charter schools do "more with less."

Facts: Even the researchers most familiar with the spread of charter schools in New Orleans, the reformy poster child for charters, acknowledge that the influx of extra funds made a difference there. Many other "successful" charters gather up substantial extra funds, which helps with their operation.

The idea that charters get "more money to the classroom" has no empirical evidence to back it up. Charters actually have very high administrative costs, including high salaries for their leaders.

Many charters have also been found to engage in all sorts of corruption and abuse, as well as legal but nonetheless pernicious rent-seeking activities. The current charter system is also wasting taxpayer money by encouraging the transfer of public capital to private hands using the public's own money.

Some charters have lengthened their school days by employing younger teachers but paying them more in exchange for increasing their hours. This has led to faculty that have far less experience than public school faculty, a threat to the long-term stability of the teaching profession. It is certainly not a strategy that can honestly be called "doing more with less."


Reformy Myth: Charter schools are innovative because they are "free" from (mostly union-driven) bureaucracy.

Facts: There is no evidence charters, as a group, engage in innovative classroom practices. "No excuses" charters engage in a pedagogy of compliance that would never be tolerated in suburban schools. Again, the "successful" charters use a non-unionized staff to hire younger, less experienced teachers who are willing to work longer hours; however, these staffs churn much more than public district school staff, which calls into question their long-term viability. Nothing about any of this is particularly "innovative."

Much of the instruction in "successful" charters appears to be based on test-prep, which is hardly a novel approach. There is reason, in fact, to believe that this sort of curriculum does not prepare students well for the rigors of four-year colleges.



Reformy Myth: There are some bad charter schools that we should shut down, but many , if not most, are excellent.

Facts: We know very little about most of the charter schools in America. The few high-flying chains touted in the press (thanks to their high-powered press offices and cozy relationships with editorial writers) represent only a fraction of the total charter school sector.

Charter oversight systems in Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan have been an unmitigated disaster. Even states with allegedly strong oversight like New Jersey have seen several high-profile scandals in charter schools. Charters are proliferating with inadequate oversight and inadequate attention paid to their true costs to the taxpayers.


Reformy Myth: Charter schools are public schools.

Facts: The courts have ruled repeatedly that charter schools are not state actors and, therefore, not public schools in any meaningful sense of the word. Students in charter schools are not accorded the same due process rights as students in public district schools. Many charters have auxiliary organizations or for-profit management organizations that are not subject to the same standards of governmental oversight as public district schools.

Charter schools can choose which grade levels to serve, how large their enrollments will be, what time of year to take students, the communities where they wish to locate, how they will accept applications from students, and who will serve on their boards. Public schools have no such luxuries, because they are public.


Reformy Myth: Education "reform" is a grassroots movement.

Facts: I have little doubt that many charter school parents genuinely care about their children's schools and are proud of their accomplishments. No one begrudges them their right to speak out publicly in favor of charter schools (even if the voices of parents who do not support charter proliferation are often ignored or marginalized).

That doesn't change the fact that a group of extremely wealthy white men are currently financing an industry which appears to be almost entirely devoted to selling the gospel of corporate-styled education reform.

These plutocrats continue to promote an agenda that most assuredly does not include raising taxes on them or curbing their excessive influence on our government and our media. The notion that their power is in any way equivalent to a few bloggers, teachers, union spokespeople, and education researchers who point out the emptiness of the pro-reform arguments is absurd on its face.

The public is, however, starting to wake up to the fact that this country is on the wrong track, and that public education and public teachers unions are not to blame. In the end, I am confident the truth will win out; I only worry that the system will, sadly, be so broken by these people that it will take a Herculean effort to reassemble it.

When that day comes, however, you can be confident my fellow teachers and fellow union members will be there to pick up the shattered pieces of our public school system and put it back together.

It's what we do.

Return To Teachers Village, Part IV: What's It Costing Us?

Here are links to all of the posts in this series:

Part I - Introduction
Part II - The Teachers
Part III - The Students
Part IV - What's It Costing Us?

 * * *

Q: How much taxpayer money is flowing to Newark's Teachers Village?

A: Quite a bit.

All school districts, including charter schools, are required by the state to file a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) with the NJDOE. All of my numbers below come from these documents, but before I get to them, I'd like to point out a specific paragraph from the 2014 CAFR for Great Oaks Charter School.

Keep in mind that Great Oaks both leases space from TV for its school, and pays to put up its "tutor corps" in TV housing units. The tutors are not certificated teachers; they are recent college graduates, paid through federal AmeriCorps grants, who take on part of the instructional load at the charter.

Here's how Great Oaks sees the future of Newark, and its part in it:

The City has experienced a surge of large-scale economic development projects initiated by the private sector over the last decade. The increasing number of businesses relocating to the area is expected to result in an increase in employment level, which could result in an increased tax base, both residential and industrial, and an increase in annual daily enrollment. The period of economic development and expansion is expected to continue which suggests that the Charter School will continue to prosper. As our enrollment increases we plan to lease additional facilities at our current location and possibly in surrounding areas in the City. [emphasis mine]

I find this quite telling: this charter school sees the potential positive change in Newark's economic fortunes going hand-in-hand with its own growth. They anticipate diverting more taxpayer funds to leaseholders -- private leaseholders, if trends continue -- throughout the city. And I don't think it's a stretch to say they are implying that an influx of more affluent residents means a greater demand for their school.

As I pointed out before, Great Oaks serves fewer students who qualify for free lunches -- a proxy measure of economic disadvantage -- than the Newark Public Schools (NPS). Certainly, their FL percentage is higher than most of the surrounding suburban schools. But is Great Oaks suggesting that a turn in Newark's economic outlook will create a greater demand for charters that serve a different student population than NPS schools?

And is one of the consequences of this demand a growing amount of taxpayer funds diverted to the leaseholders of private property? If Teachers Village is any indication, the answer is clearly "yes."

Again, these figures come from the state's CAFRs. But "Comprehensive" ought to be in quotes; it's hard to get precise figures on many expenses. TEAM-KIPP, for example, in their 2014 CAFR, aggregates all of its lease patents together, so it's impossible to determine how much Teachers Village gets compared to TEAM-KIPP's other landlords -- that's why I left them out of this graph.

Still, what's here is instructive. Great Oaks and Discovery moved into TV for the 2013-14 school year. Great Oaks's 2013 lease payment was obviously an anomaly; but even accounting for that, they saw a very substantial increase in their rental payments when moving to TV.

Let me be clear: there is nothing inherently wrong with that. If Great Oaks is getting a much nicer facility with room to expand, a larger payment is, in my opinion, justified (at least so far as relates to their own fiscal responsibility). But it does suggest Great Oaks is seeing a future of expansion (unlike Discovery, a small school (less than 100 students) whose lease payment didn't change much after moving to TV).

Great Oaks had a separate facility for their high school; their last CAFR said that facility's lease was not renewed. The school is also making substantial payments to TV to house their tutors, although there is no indication the amount is inordinately high compared to what they were paying before (reportedly for housing their tutors at the Courtyard Mariott Hotel).

Let's look at these figures through another lens:

I put TEAM-KIPP back in for a comparison, keeping in mind TV is only one of many lease deals they report as an aggregated figure (also: TEAM-KIPP's 2015 CAFR wasn't available when I made this graph). Again, 2013 was an anomaly for Great Oaks, which isn't necessarily indicative of anything. Take out that year and their lease payment per student enrolled actually stays fairly flat. Discovery's goes up a bit, but again: if they're getting a better facility, it's arguably worth it. TEAM-KIPP's overall lease payments per student has dropped; I would guess they anticipated expansion earlier and are now filling up to capacity, bringing down their per pupil costs.

Overall, I don't see anything that leads me to believe TV is a bad deal for these charters relative to their previous lease payment deals. Of course, one could argue that, given the large subsidies the public has given towards the financing and construction of Teachers Village, the least the taxpayers could expect was break on the cost of the leases.

But there's another issue: Why is so much public money going to private leaseholders for charter school rents when the district's buildings are below capacity and not being properly maintained?

Both current State Superintendent Chris Cerf and former State Superintendent Cami Anderson have lamented that NPS's properties are in bad shape, and that many of the buildings are not at capacity. OK... so why are we building new facilities rather than fixing the old ones? Even if you believe in charter school expansion, wouldn't it make more sense to let the charters come into the public buildings, use the same tax breaks and public financing TV uses to fix those buildings, and then have NPS collect lease payments from the charters? Why pay to build new schools when the old schools could be fixed and occupied? 

As Bruce Baker* and Gary Miron point out in their recent brief for NEPC, when charter schools and/or their associated organizations buy up public schools, they are essentially using taxpayer money to buy buildings the taxpayers already own and transfer them to private ownership. Teachers Village takes it a step further: The taxpayers are subsidizing the development of new, privately held school properties that directly compete with properties those taxpayers already own, thus decreasing their value.

I have voiced serious reservations over the years about how Newark Public Schools is turning over its capital stock to private operators (again, using taxpayer funds). But it makes even less sense to couple that policy with one where the taxpayers essentially fund the construction of private school facilities that compete with current public facilities.

Because who would want to send their child to this school...

American History HS, Newark, NJ, 2011

When she can go here instead?

Teachers Village Gym

It's as if policy is creating a demand which devalues public assets while simultaneously increasing the value of private assets. Does this make any sense?

* * *

To wrap this up: here's what we know so far about Teachers Village, the Newark housing/retail complex that is designed to provide both rental units for teachers and space for charter schools:

- According to the developer, Ron Beit, nearly 70 percent of the residents at TV are "educators"; however, over 80 percent of those residents are either charter school teachers or tutors in a program run by Great Oaks Charter School (funded by AmeriCorps, a federal program which gives grants to pay for those tutors' housing).

- The teachers who work at TV are much younger and more likely to be white than the Newark Public Schools (NPS) teaching corps. They are also, on average, far less experienced, and also less likely to hold a standard teaching certification.

- The students at TV schools are less likely to be Limited English Proficient (LEP) than NPS students, and less likely to have a special education need. Economic disadvantage is more mixed: Great Oaks students are less likely to qualify for free lunch than NPS students, but TEAM-KIPP's FL percentage is near the median for Newark schools, and Discovery's is the highest in the city.

- The taxpayers are heavily subsidizing this project, through a series of tax credits, government bonds and loans, and government grants. All of the charter school lease payments are made with public monies, as are the payments for Great Oaks's tutors' housing.

- Which means that substantial public monies are flowing to a privately held facility, even as public facilities serving the same purpose are neglected. The taxpayers are essentially subsidizing the development of private property that devalues their own capital.

All of this begs the question: is Teachers Village worth it? Is this the best use of government monies to further interests of both the citizens and the students of Newark?

I leave it to others to weigh in on whether Teachers Village is a good example of urban development. But as an education researcher, I have serious concerns about the long-term effects of Teachers Village on both the schooling Newark children receive, and the financial health of the city's public school system. And, as always, I'm left to wonder...

Did anyone think about any of this before giving the project the green light?

Teachers Village Ground Breaking, 2012

In attendance:

Newark Mayor Cory Booker

Newark Deputy Mayor Adam Zipkin

Newark Councilman Darrin Sharif

US Congressman Donald Payne Jr.

NJ Governor Chris Christie

Joseph DiVincenzo, County Executive of Essex County

Ron Beit, founding partner and CEO, RBH Group

Nicholas Berggruen, founder and president, Berggruen Holdings

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs

* As always: Bruce is my advisor in the PhD program at Rutgers GSE.

Corporate Education Reform Gets a Stranglehold On the Media

Fortune magazine has a big, new article about the Common Core State Standards out this week. I first got wind of it from Julie Borst, who was as stunned as I was at the hubris of this quote from Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson:

“I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer,” said Tillerson during the panel discussion. “What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation.” 

The Exxon CEO didn’t hesitate to extend his analogy. “Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?” American schools, Tillerson declared, “have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.” [emphasis mine]

You read that right, folks: Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson thinks students are "products" that he gets to "consume." Any idea that the American education system might have a purpose other than producing human "products" for corporations is not even worth considering.

This is the sort of thinking that leads corporations like Exxon to have such regressive records on things like LGBT rights and workplace safety and climate change and environmental protections. It's the sort of thinking that justifies insanely low taxes on those same corporations. It's the sort of thinking that rationalizes salaries for their CEOs that are so large they become disconnected from the reality of the American middle class. It's the sort of thinking that normalizes the wholesale buying of our political system.

But it's also the sort of thinking that has seeped into mainstream media reporting on education. Schools, you see, aren't the bedrocks of democracy, which requires a well-educated, well-informed electorate capable of critical thinking. Schools aren't civic institutions around which out society organizes itself. Schools aren't even places where individuals go to realize their potential.

No, schools produce a product: workers. And if the product isn't "good" enough -- or, just as important, cheap enough -- "consumers" of workers like Rex Tillerson feel they have every right to demand that schools start making the "products" with the "quality" they and their shareholders crave.

It's a bizarre way of looking at children, particularly for those of us who spend our days teaching them. But if you can get past your nausea, Tillerson's quote is actually quite instructive: this really is how the corporate world thinks about education.

Which means that when a reporter like Peter Elkind -- whose article doesn't include even one quote from an actual educator or pedagogy researcher -- focuses solely on how education policy is viewed through the lens of corporate leaders, it's not a surprise that he is encumbered by a framework that doesn't even address some of the core issues in contemporary education policy.

Instead, he writes paragraphs like this:

For decades, CEOs have bemoaned the state of U.S. education—with justification. American 15-year-olds ranked 27th out of 34 industrialized countries in math, and 17th in reading in the most recent international tests. Colleges complain that significant percentages of their entering freshmen require a remedial course. Businesses say they can’t find enough skilled U.S. workers.

Had Elkind broadened his sources, he would have learned that each of these assertions is open to substantial challenge:

- Even if we set aside the serious concerns about the PISA test's validity and selective sampling, it is arguably an indicator more of societal inequity than educational effectiveness.

- The college remediation rate is not solely affected by the effectiveness of the K-12 system. Further, the system for targeting students for remediation is wide open to critique.

- Even the vaunted STEM graduates are having a hard time finding jobs. The problem for business may well be that they don't want to dip into their huge profits and start spreading them around to their workers.

Now, you may agree with the above; maybe you don't. But if you read Elkind's article, you won't even get an idea that there is a debate over any of this; that's because his guiding thesis -- that American education serves American business -- doesn't allow for any counter-narratives that challenge the premises of corporate-style education reform.

This is why Elkind sees the battle over the Common Core as a fight between the corporate right and the libertarian/social conservative right. Those with well-informed, substantive criticisms of the Common Core aren't actually included in his piece, because their objections are not germane to a worldview that sees education as nothing more than a tool used in the service of capitalism.

Again, you may or may not agree with these critiques of the Common Core, but the argument over the educational value of the standards isn't the issue for Tillerson and his fellow CEOs. They need their workers, they need them cheap, they need them competent, and they need them now. That's the framework Elkind operates from -- a framework that has no need for an exploration of why there has been such a pushback against the sort of education "reforms" that have been funded by Tillerson and Bill Gates.

Let me be clear: without question, there has been a loud, sustained outcry against the Common Core from the Tea Partyin' right. Largely, this protest has been ill-informed; I'd be the last person to defend anything Glenn Beck or Gayle Ruzicka had to say about, well, anything.

But when Elkind conflates their objections to the Gates/Tillerson style of "reform" with those of Glenda Ritz -- the state superintendent of schools in Indiana who defeated reformy poster boy Tony Bennett -- he does his readers a real disservice. The fact that Elkind can't even mention Ritz by name, let alone describe her rather complicated views of the Common Core, shows how little interest he has in telling his story with even a small amount of nuance.

That lack of curiosity leads Elkind to pen passages like this:

Every president since Reagan has flailed at this issue. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton convened special education panels and launched commissions in unsuccessful attempts to establish voluntary national standards. Finally, the Clinton administration was able to pass a watered-down initiative that required states to adopt standards and tests—but left them entirely up to individual states. 

Most established tragically low expectations. President George W. Bush’s 2002 education reform, “No Child Left Behind,” only worsened this problem. It set the impossible requirement that 100% of students be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014, and punished schools that weren’t making adequate progress. 

To bring themselves closer to 100%, many states simply lowered the score needed to pass their tests. The result: In 2007, Mississippi judged 90% of its fourth graders “proficient” on the state’s reading test, yet only 19% measured up on a standardized national exam given every two years. In Georgia, 82% of eighth-graders met the state’s minimums in math, while just 25% passed the national test. A yawning “honesty gap,” as it came to be known, prevailed in most states. 

Finally, in April 2009, organizations representing state governors and education chiefs agreed to develop a single set of rigorous standards: the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The ambition was to make all children “college- and career-ready,” with the same expectations in Mississippi as in Massachusetts. The standards would spell out what students should learn at each grade level, without dictating curriculum or how it would be taught. They would be accompanied by tough new standardized tests to measure progress in meeting the benchmarks. The tests were the hammer to drive improvement and provide accountability. The goal was universal acceptance. This would allow comparisons among states, help the children who move annually to a new state stay on track, and permit sharing of education ideas, textbooks, and teaching materials. [emphasis mine]

In Elkind's world -- the world informed by Gates and Tillerson -- the primary difference between Massachusetts and Mississippi is in their standards. If we just force Mississippi to set its sights as high as Massachusetts', everything will fall into place.

Except, as I've shown before, the notion that standards by themselves can induce better performance from students on tests is simply not supported by the facts. Yes, there's little doubt some states set their standards low. But this wasn't done arbitrarily: many of these states set low standards to cover up the fact that their states weren't willing to pony up the money necessary to equalize education funding between affluent and impoverished communities (even Arne Duncan has started to figure this out).

At the risk of oversimplifying: Mississippi is much worse at distributing resources for education than Massachusetts. In addition, Mississippi has a much higher child poverty rate than Massachusetts. The effect of poverty on school outcomes is not subject to debate; why, then, doesn't Elkind address it in his article? Go ahead: search his post for the word "poverty." See what comes up.

While you're at it, see if you find any mention of the fact that the majority of America's states are providing less funding to public schools than they were before the last recession. How, exactly, are schools supposed to achieve the allegedly higher standards of the Common Core without even the funding they got under their old standards?

Maybe you think our schools are wasting money and have all they need to be awesome, in spite of the fact that many aren't even funding their own laws when it comes to school funding. OK -- I think you're totally misguided and the facts are completely in my favor, but fine, we can debate. But not if you're in Peter Elkind's world -- the issue doesn't even come up.

I know I'm going to piss off some people by saying this yet again -- and that includes some people I genuinely respect. But the debate about the Common Core is largely superfluous. Yes, we need well-written, rigorous standards that are developmentally appropriate. I have my doubts as to whether the Common Core standards are the ones we want (pi introduced in Grade 7? Seems late to me...), but, as I've said before, I'm not the guy to lead that discussion (I wish others shared my humility).

But there is no point in implementing any standards if we're not willing to:

1) Pay for schools that can implement them.

2) Reconfigure our society so all children arrive at those schools with full bellies, good health care, and adequate community infrastructure so they are ready to learn.

Rex Tillerson is willing to spend money to run commercials during the Masters tournament to promote the Common Core. Is he willing to change US law so Exxon can be taxed at rates that provide enough funds to address America's 22 percent child poverty rate?

According to Elkind, Tillerson was willing to threaten state legislatures with the withdrawal of his company if they didn't get in line with the Common Core. Is he willing to write letters threatening to pull Exxon out of states that don't follow their own laws when it comes to ensuring adequate and equitable school funding?

If journalists like Peter Elkind were willing to open up their contact lists to people other than CEOs and right-wing think tanky types, perhaps they'd think to ask folks like Tillerson these rather basic questions.

Rex says: "Hey, Pete -- GREAT article!'

ADDING: Corporations exist solely through the grace of the American electorate. I think it's more than fair to say that Tillerson has it backwards: we allow Exxon-Mobil to exist to serve us. And if they are producing a defective product, we have the right to demand that they stop.

ADDIGN MORE: Here's America's Principal™, Carol Burris:

Dear Mr. Tillerson,

Please leave our children alone. We do not need you to develop them as products. They are neither kerogen nor shale.

Your Dickensian thinking has been “outed” and this holiday season, you are as welcome as the ghost of Christmas past. The common-folk for whom the Core you adore was designed, do not like it—only 24 percent of public school parents want it used in their school. And they certainly do not like to hear their children referred to as “defective products.” Mr. Tillerson, you have made the mommies and daddies mad.

I understand their reaction must confound you. In a world in which your corporation has been declared a person, one might mistake human children for products to consume. When we humanize the inanimate, it is easy for the humanity of the animate to slip away.

But let me make this clear — our children are not products for your purchase. You, and the captains of industry (or whatever you call yourselves this century), are not “the customers.” School is not a training camp to work on oilrigs, to pump gas or design lubricants. There is just enough democracy left to make students know they have choices, and more than enough parental commonsense left to know that community control of schools is slipping away.

We are so sorry to disappoint.

Yep.

Jazzman Christmas Music Festival!

It's the N annual Jazzman Christmas Music Festival! Starting with America's greatest composer, Duke Ellington.



"I pay more to hear my band than anybody."

Bill Evans next, with huge props to Williams Hughes for the transcription.



Booker T & the MGs lay down the Christmas groove.



A little different take from Mandy Patinkin. I didn't "get" him years ago, but I've really come to appreciate his voice over the years.



How about some Aaron Neville?



The Kinks were a bunch of smartass punks long before anyone had heard of the Beasties or Green Day.



When I was 16 I was obsessed with Keith Emerson.



Then I found out who he listened to. There's an incredible/horrible story about Emerson and Smith meeting I can't find on line; I'll keep looking.



Ah, the '80's.



Some Handel, of course. Bo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...



It's the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, which would never have been as great as it is without the music of Vince Guaraldi.



Have an un-reformy Christmas, everyone. Back soon with more scatterplots...