Showing posts with label Raymond Lambert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raymond Lambert. Show all posts

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Analysis on outsourcing, Ohio included

Another article about outsourcing.  Follow the money.  Is this the best we can do for Ohio?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/c/c9/Outsourcing_Report_Oct_2014.pdf


Some analysis on school boards. 

From a prior post:  Traditional school districts, in most cases, employ qualified professionals to manage finances, develop curriculum and ensure that applicable laws are followed. Charter schools are, by philosophy, less traditionally structured.

Ohio could do a lot to head off charter-school problems by reforming the process by which they are created.

A key weakness has been the lack of any way to hold accountable those charter-school sponsors who don’t act as watchdogs over the schools they sponsor. Weak Ohio law allows blatant conflicts of interest — for example, nothing bars sponsors, the supposed watchdogs, from selling services to the schools they are supposed to be holding accountable"

“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.

The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.

In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”


Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) once had this to say about boards.
“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”

“ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”




"Ohio’s charter schools, which are publicly funded, are

supposed to be subject to periodic state audits and held to


performance standards by the sponsoring organizations

that contract with operators.

 
But governing boards may not be as independent as they

ought to be, as a 2014 investigation by the Akron Beacon

Journal found. White Hat shares legal representation with

 

the boards of many of the charter schools it has contracts

with.

149 And a number of board members have admitted

that they were recruited by White Hat, a clear conflict of

interest.

In a revealing statement, Maggie Ford, chief academic

officer at White Hat, told the

Beacon Journal, “Sometimes

we have one or two people that would like to start a school,

and they don’t have enough for an entire board. So they

want to, they talk to, other board members or ask us to

help recruit board, um, recommend board members.”

 
In effect, the boards at many “nonprofit” charter schools

were hand-picked by White Hat, which contracted with

those same boards to operate the schools."

Combine a couple of hand-picked board members and combine that with a couple of well-meaning but unqualified parent board members and you have a serious but profitable governance situation. Again, where is the independence?

Keep in mind that a billion dollars has been transferred out of the public schools to charter schools in Ohio.
I  note that the folks who set up Connections Academy board are former White Hat employees.  I suspect that many of the same management people take what they learn to set up a new charter that primarily benefits their interests.  I would submit that the boards are handpicked rubber stamps with little actual power.

 

Monday, July 7, 2014

Secret to a good school? School boards?

Cui Bono (who profits)

A recent article indicates that a good school board make the difference in performance.

http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1350/The-secret-to-good-schools-might-surprise-you.html#kmFZI51zT3Df3rPj.03

"The report also found that when board members were professionalized, underwent professional training and in some cases even earned a salary, students performed better. "

It suggests that the timing of elections matter.  "It matters, for example, when elections are held. Holding elections at the same time as state and national-level elections, the authors found, correlates to standardized student proficiency test scores 2.4 points higher than a comparable district that has off-cycle elections."

Compare this to the system now employed by Ohio charter schools.  Who appoints the boards?  The sponsor or the charter school.  There are no elections!  Simplifies your board selection and business model.

What is the main focus of the board?  I would suggest that it is selected for self-preservation of the school management and the jobs and profits it generates for its management.  It is an unpaid job.  The charter schools can and do act like a personal, but funded by taxpayers, business.

SO how does this work in practice?  A recent prime example of this in action.  The Horizon and Noble academies were recently raided by the FBI.  Who selected the board?

"A chain of 19 publicly funded Ohio charter schools, founded by Turkish immigrants, is taking the position that the United States lacks a qualified pool of math and science teachers and is importing perhaps hundreds of Turks to fill the void.

The schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens — a new twist in Ohio’s controversial charter-school movement.

In addition, the Horizon and Noble academies, run by Chicago-based Concept Schools, are related through membership, fundraisers and political giving to the nonprofit Niagara Foundation, which provides trips to Turkey for state, local and federal lawmakers.

Among those touring Turkey has been State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, a Clarksville Republican on the powerful finance and appropriations committee and considered to be a leading candidate for House speaker next year. He was joined on the trip by at least four other state legislators and local government leaders from his area in southwest Ohio.

There have been other trips from Ohio, and in Illinois, there are allegations that state officials who took trips showed favoritism in disbursing public dollars to Concept schools.

Public records show that since late 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor has allowed 19 of these schools in Ohio to hire 325 educators almost exclusively from Turkey.

However, as early as 2002, state audits found thousands of public dollars “illegally expended” to finance the U.S. citizenship process for Turkish employees — some fresh out of college with no classroom experience and broken English. Help with legal and immigration fees also extended to their children and families, including the spouses of directors.

The auditor also cited suspect wire transfers, totaling $36,000, and checks made out to “cash” to repay personal loans issued by individuals in Istanbul, Turkey."

Complete article here:

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-taxpayers-provide-jobs-to-turkish-immigrants-through-charter-schools-1.501940?localLinksEnabled=false#.U7ngdZ1rYfM.facebook

Quote from Denis Smith from an earlier blog post.
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/25/denis-smith-of-ohio-who-governs-charter-schools/


“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.

The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.


In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”

Raymond Lambert School Leader of the Year by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS)  and now with Ohio Connections Academy, formerly with WhiteHat once had this to say about boards. 
“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”


“ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”

This is an expensive experiment.



Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Virtual Drop out Schools

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/successful-dropout-schools-are-turning-from-white-hat-computer-model-1.491112

Cui Bono (who profits)
Again, profits over results and students.

"With computers replacing teachers and a school day shortened to four hours, the model was profitable.

Funding was and is given on a per-pupil basis. Within a year of opening, enrollment at Bowery Street swelled to 2.5 times the building’s occupancy limit by serving students in shifts and assuming a high rate of absenteeism, according to an administrator who now operates a competing educational management company.
“Students are overenrolled for each session due to the high absence rate, which is not unexpected for this at-risk population of high school dropouts,” David Stiles told the school’s board in 2000. Stiles has since parted ways with White Hat. He now works for Cambridge Education Group, a subsidiary of a Florida company that operates Invictus High School in Cleveland and Towpath Trail in Akron, among other schools.
In 2010, a Florida school district investigated a Life Skills facility, which it sponsored. The investigation found that White Hat over-reported 37 students to the state, which overpaid the company $101,000."

Now Pearson wants into this profitable action by setting up their own drop out schools with the assistance of ex- White Hat employees such as Ray Lambert.

Friday, May 9, 2014

E-Schools, Charter Schools and Governance


The E-schools themselves are set up as nonprofits.  The nonprofits are run by an unelected board.  The K-12’s and Connection Academy’s of the world set up the board. The board agrees to contracts with K-12,  OHDELA or Connections Academy without competitive bidding.

The structure encourages malfeasance and the siphoning of profits to the parent companies.  For all intents and purposes the E-Schools run the boards.  The boards depend on the E-schools for the information to manage the school.  The board members are not paid.

An excellent article by Denis Smith here :


“All control and direction for the school comes on high from corporate, and such constructs as school governing boards and local governance amount to distractions. Clearly, local control is an oxymoron to the Dennis Bakkes of the charter school industry.

The memo also makes it clear that no autonomy is expected of the boards which are chosen mostly by the company’s regional managers. While the best of our nation’s schools usually feature a collaborative model where teams of teachers work with school administrators, privatization of public schools that are operated by national chains seems to come only with a top-down approach, and any semblance of a governing board to provide guidance and oversight for the school’s operations is not to be tolerated in Bakke’s world.

In Ohio, the Revised Code treats a charter school as a school district, with its own treasurer, chief administrative officer, and governing board. But state law also allows great latitude regarding the operation and governance of the school, and current law requires that each school have a minimum of five board members, with no other qualifications stated in the law.”

Denis Smith was a consultant with the Ohio Department of Education and reviewed Ohio Charter schools.  His commentary is available through Diane Ravitch's Blog.  http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/25/denis-smith-of-ohio-who-governs-charter-schools/


Raymond Lambert of Connections Academy once had this to say about boards.  I understand that he has set up many boards in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

“I wonder why people sit on Boards? Is it a cheap self esteem boost?”

 
 “ I often think the many Boards I have seen are lead around by the nose anyway.”

 

I know that the superintendent of Ohio Connections Academy, Marie C. Hanna, recruited her close friend and former neighbor, Pamela S. Bowers, to sit on her board.  Independent?  Objective?

 
Combine a couple of hand-picked board members and combine that with a couple of well-meaning but unqualified parent board members and you have a serious but profitable governance situation.  Again, where is the independence?

Keep in mind that a billion dollars has been transferred out of the public schools to charter schools in Ohio.