Charter Schools & "Choice": A Closer Look

By Valerie Strauss
"Virginia-based K12 Inc. is the largest operator of for-profit charter schools in the country and is a national leader in running online full-time public schools in numerous states. The company, based in Herndon, has long been a target of critics who have questioned the quality of its schools as well as its spending and lobbying practices — and now, the company will face new questions, this time from stockholders.

At a meeting scheduled for Thursday, shareholders are going to ask for a vote on whether the company should be required to publicly disclose details about its lobbying efforts in various states. The Arjuna Capital shareholder resolution asks that K12 prepare an annual report showing:

 
1. Company policy and procedures governing lobbying, both direct and indirect, and grass-roots lobbying communications.

2. Payments by K12 used for (a) direct or indirect lobbying or (b) grass-roots lobbying communications, in each case including the amount of the payment and the recipient.

3. K12’s membership in and payments to any tax-exempt organization that writes and endorses model legislation.

4. Description of the decision-making process and oversight by management and the board for making lobbying payments.

At its annual meeting in December last year, investors voted down the company’s plan for executive pay based on a recommendation from Glass Lewis & Co., a governance advisory firm.  Glass Lewis has  endorsed the stockholder initiative being submitted on Dec. 15 at this year’s annual K12 meeting, as has proxy adviser firm Institutional Shareholder Services"....

The new shareholder effort is being led by Bertis Downs,  a public school advocate in Athens, Ga., who spent his career providing legal counsel and managing the rock group R.E.M., and who bought K12 stock a few years ago. Asked why he is taking this action, Downs said in an email:

"My motivation in filing for this disclosure of K-12’s lobbying activities stems from my overall curiosity and interest as a parent and a shareholder in knowing more about what lobbying is done, whether through ALEC or directly, that leads to the so-called “education reform” laws being passed all over the country. How much does the company spend and how do they spend it and what results do they get for it? And is any of that good for meaningful teaching and learning in our schools? And is it good for the company and its shareholders?"

K12 is one of a number of education companies that have been attempting to exert influence on education policy in states. Their efforts come at a time when corporate school reformers have supported the expansion of online education for students from kindergarten through college. In Florida, for example, legislators passed a law requiring all students to take at least one online course to earn a high school diploma.

Virtual schools as a whole are often cited for poor academic performance. A 2015 national study found that students in these schools who receive no instruction from an “in-person teacher” showed academic results in math equivalent of what would be expected if a student skipped 180 days of school. The deficiency in reading was reported to be the equivalent of 72 days of school.

Virtual schools and their operators say that they often cater to students who struggle in traditional settings and that results should not be expected to be the same as traditional schools.

Education Week said in a recent report:

Despite more than a decade of state investigations, news media reports, and research that have documented startling failures and gross mismanagement in full-time online schools, the sector — dominated by two for-profit companies — continues to expand, spreading into new states and enrolling more students.

Virtual charter schools, which collectively receive more than $1 billion in taxpayer money each year, are rarely shut down.

One big supporter of virtual education is Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire tapped by President-elect Donald Trump as his nominee for education secretary.
Her husband, Dick DeVos, listed on a financial disclosure form in 2006 that he and his wife owned K12 stock. The nonprofit organization she runs, the American Federation for Children, lists K12 on its website among organizations that support school choice.

Enrollment at the schools K12 manages almost quadrupled from 2008 through 2015, according to Bloomberg, reaching more than 120,000, about one-third of students enrolled in full-time online schools.

K12 — which receives most of its funding from public funds used to pay for the virtual schools to operate — “runs effective lobbying efforts in more than 20 states,” according to Education Week. That includes Indiana, where it spent, since 2007, nearly $1 million lobbying Indiana lawmakers and donating to their campaigns and political parties since 2007.

A Mercury News investigation published in April revealed how California’s online charter schools — run by K12 —  have “a dismal record of academic achievement” but have won more than $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years. In July, California’s attorney general announced that his office had reached a $168.5 million settlement with K12, and the 14 affiliated nonprofit schools known as the California Virtual Academies that it manages, over alleged violations of California’s false claims, false advertising and unfair competition laws.

K12 is a member of the American Exchange Legislative Council, known as ALEC, a controversial group that advances model legislation about numerous issues, including at least 139 bills to promote private for-profit education models since 2013.

K12’s stock price has gone up and down in recent years. According to Bloomberg News, “K12 shares have tumbled by two-thirds since reaching a near-record high in September 2013,” but it has rebounded some from its low.

Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, said in a statement:

“K12 would probably get failing marks on its results, but it absolutely flunks when it comes to transparency.  K12 is dependent on taxpayer dollars, yet there is neither transparency nor accountability to taxpayers, students, or investors.  The academic outcomes are troubling, and investor returns have suffered.  Shareholders need to understand how K12 is using investor dollars to lobby for what appears to be a failing business model.”

The full text of the Arjuna Capital shareholder resolution is available online at http://arjuna-capital.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/K12-Lobbying-Proposal-2016.pdf."...

For original post, see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/14/virtual-school-operator-k12-faces-challenge-from-stockholders-demanding-transparency/ 

ALEC's Legislative Agenda on Privatization

"On American Legislative Exchange Council task forces, corporate lobbyists and special interests vote as equals with elected representatives on templates to change our laws, behind closed doors with no press or public allowed to see the votes or deliberations. Several pieces of ALEC "model" legislation would privatize public functions such as child support services, foster care, adoption services, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, prisons, schools, and government laboratories. Through privatization schemes to outsource traditional governmental functions, taxpayer dollars are diverted from the building of public assets and institutions to create long-term revenue streams for corporations. Privatization has resulted in the loss of public sector jobs that have been crucial to the growth of the middle class, and instead has created a system that favors lower wage jobs and new profit centers for CEOs and investors.

Privatizing Government Services Affecting Children

• ALEC's "Privatization of Child Support Enforcement Services" allows a state to give for-profit or other corporations new streams of tax dollars to manage child support enforcement services.
• ALEC's "Privatization of Foster Care and Adoption Services" allows a state to give for-profit or other corporations contracts to receive streams of tax dollars to manage foster care or adoption processing, including assessing prospective parents' marital status, income, and religious beliefs.
  
  

Privatizing Medicare, Social Security, and Relief Programs

• ALEC's "Resolution Urging Congress to Create Private Individual Medical Accounts" proposes to privatize Medicare by permitting the creation of individual medical accounts. It is doubtful that such accounts would be able to cover the cost of necessary medical care for seniors, and this bill would probably serve as a tax shelter for the wealthiest few.
• ALEC's "Resolution Urging Congress to Modernize the Social Security System with Personal Retirement Accounts" advocates for the privatization of Social Security through the creation of personal retirement accounts.
• ALEC's "Privatization of Welfare-to-Work Programs Act" privatizes the Welfare-to-Work programs to corporations regardless of the effectiveness of any public agencies on training and employment.
  
  

Privatizing Prisons

• ALEC's "Private Correctional Facilities Act" would allow any unit of government to contract with a for-profit corporation to imprison Americans accused or convicted of violating criminal laws.
• ALEC's "Housing Out-of-State Prisoners in a Private Prison Act" allows a private prison operating in one state to contract with another state to hold prisoners without the consent of the local government in which the private prison is located.
• ALEC's "Prison Industries Act" allows correctional boards to oversee low-wage prison labor that competes with other companies.
  
  

Privatizing Education

• ALEC's "Education Enterprise Zone Act" creates a voucher program to subsidize private schools with taxpayer money.
• ALEC's "Education Accountability Act" allows a state to override the elected school board, declare schools "educationally bankrupt," and divert funds to private schools.
• ALEC's "Parent Trigger Act" would allow a small group of parents to close public school for current and future students, and turn the school into a charter school or require the state to use taxpayer dollars for vouchers to subsidize private tuition.
• ALEC's "Charter Schools Act" would allow for the state to grant charters to create and operate schools outside of traditional public schools, while also exempting these charter schools from state laws that apply to public schools.
• ALEC's "Next Generation Charter Schools Act" allows state taxpayers to subsidize charter schools that compete with public schools, while exempting charter schools from complying with many legal standards and requirements that govern public schools.
• ALEC's "School Board Freedom to Contract Act" encourages school boards to contract with for-profit corporations for services being provided by schools."...
  
  

...for more, see In the Public Interest's July 2012 report, Profiting from Public Dollars: ALEC’s Privatization Agenda.

For the "ALEC Exposed" page from the Center for Media and Democracy, please see: 
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_%26_Privatization 

For full post, click on title above or here: 

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35144-cashing-in-on-kids-172-alec-education-bills-push-privatization-in-2015 

By Brendan Fischer and Zachary Peters, PR Watch

"ALEC's agenda would transform public education from an accountable institution that serves the public into one that serves private, for-profit interests. (Photo: School Money via Shutterstock; Edited: LW / TO)

Despite widespread public opposition to the corporate-driven education privatization agenda, at least 172 measures reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bills were introduced in 42 states in 2015, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org and PRWatch.org. (A PDF version of this report may be downloaded here.)

One of ALEC's biggest funders is Koch Industries and the Koch brothers' fortune. The Kochs have had a seat at the table - where the private sector votes as equals with legislators - on ALEC's education task force via their "grassroots" group Americans for Prosperity and their Freedom Partners group, which was described as the Kochs' "secret bank."

The Kochs also have a voice on ALEC's Education Task Force through multiple state-based think tanks of the State Policy Network, ALEC's sister organization, which is funded by many of the same corporations and foundations and donor entities.

ALEC's Education Task Force is also funded by the billionaire DeVos family, which bankrolls a privatization operation called "American Federation of Children," and by for-profit corporations like K12 Inc., which was founded by junk-bond king Michael Milliken.

ALEC's education task force has pushed legislation for decades to privatize public schools, weaken teacher's unions, and lower teaching standards.

ALEC's agenda would transform public education from a public and accountable institution that serves the public into one that serves private, for-profit interests. ALEC model bills divert taxpayer money from public to private schools through a variety of "voucher" and "tuition tax credit" programs. They promote unaccountable charter schools and shift power away from democratically elected local school boards."...

****

..."Other Koch-ALEC Educational Priorities in 2015

Other ALEC-influenced bills introduced in 2015 include legislation to:

• Promote the creation of taxpayer-subsidized charter schools through the Next Generation Charter Schools Act, introduced in three states - Maryland, Utah, and West Virginia - which exempts charter schools from complying with the legal requirements that govern traditional public schools, such as teacher qualification standards. This legislation also creates an appointed, state-level charter school authorizing board, safeguarding charter schools from local accountability.
• Shield charter schools from democratic accountability through bills such as The Innovation Schools and School District Act, introduced in three states - Connecticut, Mississippi, and Texas. This legislation removes local accountability by giving state-level officials - rather than elected local school boards - chartering authority for schools that do not follow the legal obligations of public schools, including possibly waiving provisions of teacher collective bargaining agreements.
• Send taxpayer dollars to unaccountable, for-profit online school providers through the Virtual Schools Act, introduced in five states (Alabama, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Virginia), the Statewide Online Education Act, introduced in three states (Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia), and the Course Choice Program Act, introduced in five states (Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin). These bills promote an education model where a single teacher remotely teaches a "class" of hundreds of isolated students working from home. The low overhead for virtual schools certainly raises company profits, but it is a model few educators think is appropriate for young children. Even the Walton Family Foundation, no friend to public schools, has documented the failure of online schools in 2015.
• Allow schools to revoke tenure for teachers through the Great Teachers and Leaders Act, introduced in three states - New Mexico, New York, and Oklahoma. This bill allows these schools to let go of teachers, despite seniority or contracted tenure, and purports to base these decisions on "performance," mostly measured through "student growth."
• Limit teacher tenure through the Career Ladder Opportunities Act, a version of which was enacted in Idaho, which modifies teaching contracts and pay scales to base them upon teaching "performance," potentially demonstrated in part by student test scores.
• Create mandated curriculum supporting ALEC's rhetoric about "federalism" in the Founding Principles Act, introduced or expanded in six states - Arkansas, Georgia, Michigan, New York, South Carolina, and Texas. This bill requires the teaching of a semester-long course on the "philosophical understandings" of America's founders that appears geared toward indoctrinating children with conservative views.
• Require the government to facilitate and fund sending students to any school in the state through The Open Enrollment Act, introduced or expanded in three states - Arkansas, Florida, and Rhode Island. These "open enrollment" programs are an alternative to voucher programs and have a similar fiscal impact on state education budgets.

Drivers of the School Privatization Agenda in ALEC

Some of the interests funding ALEC and driving the effort to undermine universal public education include:

The Kochs' Americans for Prosperity (AFP) group. AFP has long been a member and funder of ALEC's education committee and has been active in promoting ALEC policies in the states, lobbying in favor of measures like vouchers in Wisconsin and holding rallies in Oklahoma to support the Special Needs Scholarship Act. AFP has also launched "issue ads" to support ALEC modeled school reforms.

Members of the State Policy Network (SPN) are also key drivers of the ALEC agenda in the states. SPN is a network of state-based "mini-Heritage Foundations" that provide academic cover and the appearance of local grassroots support for ALEC policies - even though the groups are working in a coordinated fashion. For example, SPN affiliates like Colorado's Independence Institute, Arizona's Goldwater Institute, Florida's James Madison Institute, and others are part of the ALEC Education Task Force. SPN was created to help ALEC's national agenda look local, as CMD has documented.

K12 Inc., the nation's largest provider of online charter schools, in which low-paid teachers manage as many as 250 students at a time and communicate with their pupils electronically. The corporation, co-founded by famed Wall Street junk bond king Michael Milliken, is on the ALEC Education Task Force and its lobbyist Lisa Gillis has Chaired ALEC's Special Needs Subcommittee. On top of other studies showing that full-time virtual schools are not appropriate for most children, the conservative Walton Family Foundation commissioned a study from Stanford University in 2015 which found that, over the course of a school year, students in virtual charters learned the equivalent of 180 fewer days in math and 72 fewer days in reading than their peers in traditional charter schools, on average.

The 501(c)(4) American Federation for Children and its 501(c)(3) wing the Alliance for School Choice are key drivers of the school privatization agenda in ALEC. The groups were organized and are funded by the billionaire DeVos family (heirs to the Amway fortune); Richard DeVos has received the ALEC "Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award" and Betsy DeVos chairs AFC. AFC's top lobbyist at ALEC is disgraced former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, who was convicted of three felonies for misuse of his office for political purposes and banned from the state Capitol for five years (though the charges were later reversed and dropped as part of a plea deal).

The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, one of the top school privatization funders in the country, has spent more than $31 million promoting "school choice" nationwide between 2001 and 2012. For decades, Bradley has also been a major ALEC funder bankrolling ALEC operations and key reports. The foundation has over $800 million in assets and has been headed for many years by Michael Grebe, Governor Scott Walker's longtime campaign co-chair (he is retiring in mid-2016)."...

For full post, click on title above or here: 

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35144-cashing-in-on-kids-172-alec-education-bills-push-privatization-in-2015 

Selected quotes from full article (link above/below).
 

"Versions of this story were co-published with The Daily Beast and the Raleigh News & Observer.

In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group's education agenda. The first — and it turns out, only — stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington.

Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the state's minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the school's operations. 

But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group. The school's founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Kochs' free-market ideals.  His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits."...

* * * 

..."Charters are privately run but government-funded schools that are supposed to be open to all. Policymakers and many parents have embraced charters as an alternative to poorly performing and underfunded traditional public schools. As charters have grown in popularity, an industry of management companies like Mitchell's has sprung up to assist them.

Many of these companies are becoming political players in their states, working to shape the still-emerging set of rules charters must play by. A few, including Mitchell's company, have aligned themselves with influential conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-supported American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
 

This new reality — in which businesses can run chains of public schools — has spurred questions about the role of profit in public education and whether more safeguards are needed to prevent corruption. The U.S. Department of Education has declared the relationships between charter schools and their management companies, both for-profit and nonprofit, a "current and emerging risk" for misuse of federal dollars. It is conducting a wide-ranging look at such relationships. In the last year alone, the FBI sent out subpoenas as part of an investigation into a Connecticut-based charter-management company and raided schools that are part of a New Mexico chain and a large network of charter schools spanning Illinois, Indiana and Ohio."

Two of Mitchell's former employees told ProPublica they have been interviewed by federal investigators. Mitchell says he does not know if his schools are part of any inquiry and has not been contacted by any investigators.

To Mitchell, his schools are simply an example of the triumph of the free market. "People here think it's unholy if you make a profit" from schools, he said in July, while attending a country-club luncheon to celebrate the legacy of free-market sage Milton Friedman.
 

It's impossible to know how much Mitchell  is taking home in profits from his companies. He's fought to keep most of the financial details secret. Still, audited financial statements show that over six years, companies owned by Mitchell took in close to $20 million in revenue from his first two schools."...

*** 

For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.propublica.org/article/charter-school-power-broker-turns-public-education-into-private-profits 

by Julian Vasquez Heilig, guest blogger

The wealthy have poured millions of dollars into “school choice” causes over the last decade. Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates, the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using venture philanthropy and the political process to press for top-down neoliberal school reforms focused on private control and privatization in the United States. Recently, the Koch brothers and others have targeted their millions on the Latino community via Libre.

Libre was founded in 2011 and claims to be a “non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization that advances the principles and values of economic freedom to empower the U.S. Hispanic community.” Media Matters reported that Libre’s senior staff are almost all Republican Party campaign veterans and has been backed over $10 Million in Koch funding— suggesting that Libre is neither non-partisan nor grassroots.

In their op-eds placed in newspapers in states where the Latino population is substantial, Libre representatives make simplistic— yet convincing— claims about the benefits of school “choice” for underserved communities of color. The predominance of the peer-reviewed literature does not support the grandiose claims that Libre makes and instead demonstrates that school choice, on average, does not produce the equity, social justice or student success that proponents spin."...

For full post, click on title above or here:

http://educationvotes.nea.org/2016/01/29/latino-students-parents-should-beware-school-choice-panacea/