Vitti should really just stop talking.

I am beginning to think it might be pathological.

This is what he said about the administrative transfers from the QEA schools that have led to the surpluss list being bigger than ever.

“Now, is the time to try to create a group of individuals who are deeply committed--and with either high level potential talent or proven talent--to work in these schools as we face these new (Florida) standards,” Vitti said.

http://news.wjct.org/post/nearly-500-duval-teachers-awaiting-word-fall-positions

A few questions come to mind. The teachers there weren't deeply committed? They all just sucked? And now we're sending them to better performing schools? Won't that hurt those schools and kids?

The truth is those teachers don't suck. They were put in impossible positions and often denied proper support and in many instances leadership. Despite that they performed admirably and I shudder to think where their kids would be with out them.

I also weep for the teachers going in because if they don't get academic and behavioral support they will be out the door in a few years replaced by the next group of high flyers. 

In the meantime Vitti should tone it down a bit or at least think before he speaks. 

Education Reformers attack the messenger

In the last week I have been threatened to be taken to court by a charter school company, for allegedly making things up and called a liar by Jeb Bush’s web site.

http://www.jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2014/07/charter-schools-usa-threatens-to-sue.html

http://www.jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2014/07/education-matters-flubs-first-and.html

The thing is I neither lied nor made things up and I had plenty of sources from main stream sources and often quotes from the people, who said I was lying and making things up, themselves, to back me up.

So why would they go to such lengths to deny the things they have said and done and to attack the messenger? Because they can is the obvious answer, they think if they threaten or belittle I’ll stop or others will dismiss and it’s easier to do that than answer legitimate questions or admit there may be flaws in their game.

I imagine they have to create a mindset for themselves where they may actually think they are doing the right thing to ease their conscious when they cash their huge paychecks. So when people question or disagree they become outraged and lash out kid of like how children unable to control themselves do.

This is the crazy thing, I’m not Woodward or Bernstein here, I am not sifting through people’s trashcans. If I can’t find it on google then there is a better than good chance I can’t find it. Furthermore where I have strong opinions about public education making things up hurts my argument, it’s not like google doesn’t exist after all and people won’t be able to tell. There is a huge difference between me writing things they don’t like and writing things that are false.

In a way it makes me feel confident that the pendulum will swing back to public education. The corporate reform movement is like a three-legged stool. One leg is the money they have, the second if their cherry picked facts and the third is the cognitive dissonance they create for themselves so they can justify their position and no movement can last long with those three things supporting them

Catholic School Principal lives in a bubble.

Todd DeClemente the principal of Cathedral Parish School says my school is great so all schools that take vouchers are too, or that is his gist anyways. 

http://staugustine.com/opinions/2014-07-05/public-funding-private-schools-makes-sense#.U7sJZfldWSo

But is that really true?

When I spoke with the states expert on vouchers he said there were some really great private schools that take vouchers, mostly religious, but some really poor ones too. This goes to my chief complaint about vouchers, the lack of accountability, it’s almost as if the state has no interest in weeding out the bad apples and Mr. Declemente who wrote the piece supporting Catholic schools apparently doesn’t either. 

DeClemente may indeed be in charge of some great school but how many of the 1,500 schools that take vouchers are? Nobody knows and the state, which is all about accountability for public schools, isn’t trying to find out.

The bottom line is if we are going to use public money to finance private schools at the very least we should set minimum standards for teacher certification and curriculums, we should have oversight about how the money is being spent and the schools should be accountable for their results. I really don’t think that is asking too much and if these schools want public money, if Mr. Declemente wants the public to give him money he and they should be willing to agree.

And the fact that he and voucher proponents fight tooth and nail against accountability and minimum standards should really tell you all that you need to know.

Charter Schools USA CEO makes ten million dollars a year... or does he! (rough draft)

Or does he?

I wrote a piece last week where I surmised he makes 3.6 million dollars or more. I came about this after reading a piece about how some NYC charter school operators take home 70 dollars per students. I then multiplied 70 times the amount of students in CUSA schools.

The truth is how much he makes is a guarded secret akin to Jiff peanut butter or Bush’s baked beans secret formulas. I asked the lawyers of CUSA who objected to what I wrote how much he made promising to fix it if I was wrong and was told it was none of my business.

But isn’t it my business and your business and everyone’s business? Since CUSA is paid by the public to operate charter schools shouldn’t we know how much the CEO, the other executives and their lawyers are paid? Am I being unreasonable here?

Also what’s the big deal, are they ashamed about how much they make are they doing something illegal? If not then why not put it out there. 

I don’t know how much he makes but what I do know is he lives in a 1.8 million dollar house and he sends his children to an exclusive and expensive private school and that he owns or owned an expensive yacht.

I also know that my superintendent who is in charge of nearly two and a half times schools and students, makes 275k, lives in a 250 thousand dollar house and sends his kids to public school. I know because he is required to fill out a financial affidavit and I looked it up. Why doesn’t the CEO of CUSA who also makes his money off the public have to do the same?

Education Matters flubs First and Second amendment, but that doesn't mean vouchers still aren't a bad deal in Florida

I did it and I feel like a moron for doing so. I did it in a St. Augustine Record op-ed about vouchers. In the piece I wrote, First, let’s forget how vouchers obliterate the Second Amendment, as 90 percent go to religious schools. 

http://staugustine.com/opinions/2014-07-05/voucher-expansiion-again#.U7qOiPldWSo

I obviously should have written the First amendment.

That should be the end of the story but Redefined Ed took offence to my piece, first noting my mix up above but then going on to say:  The author of a column to which he was responding is back with another item that flubs basic facts, confuses the First and Second Amendments, and makes false allegations about Step Up For Students, which helps administer the program and co-hosts this blog. –

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/07/florida-roundup-charter-schools-private-schools-facilities/#sthash.QfrMFasv.dpuf

In my voucher piece I also wrote:  Finally, voucher expansion means giving more money to Step up for Students, which admitted it keeps the numbers on its waiting list on the back of an envelope and who has given public money to legislators in an effort to get even more public money. Why isn’t this organization under investigation or indictment?

I guess those are the false allegations they say I made up but of course I didn’t.

Here is a piece in the Washington Post about how their wait list doesn’t even exist

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/29/long-waiting-list-for-florida-vouchers-doesnt-actually-exist/

followed by a piece from the horses mouth (ReDefined Ed) saying they did their wait list calculations on the back of an envelope.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/03/genuine-surge-scholarship-applications-florida/#comments

Finally here is a Tampa Times piece showing a video where they admit lobbying for more public money by giving campaign donations. Friends this is something the legislature who despite being big friends of vouchers found so unappealing they put restrictions on this year.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/voucher-advocates-take-heat-over-2011-video/2170798

The truth is from time to time I am going to mess up. Sometimes they will be innocent inverting a word here or there like with first and second and other times I am going to be just plain out wrong, running with something that seems solid before I get all the details but at the end of the day I am going to try really hard to get it right and what I did get right is vouchers as they are done now are just a bad deal for Florida. 

The local media is letting our ESE kids down

Our local media is just now covering an investigation into the services our ESE students have been receiving. I however have been covering it all year.

 http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/12/ese-students-in-duval-not-getting.html

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/09/is-ed-white-high-school-violating.html

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/09/is-principal-chris-jackson-of-ed-white.html

I have to say I like what WJCT  and Rhema Thompson are doing and I think Denise Amos Smith is a great step up from what the TU used to do, though she has been MIA for over a month now but overall our education coverage is terrible and that does both our kids and our city a disservice.

Florida's new test, same as the old test

By Greg Sampson
Got this tidbit in my email:

The New Mexico State Procurement Office on Wednesday denied a protest by the American Institutes for Research, which had delayed contract work to develop the assessment for next year. The work can now proceed.

Mitchell Chester, the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education for Massachusetts and Chair of the PARCC states Governing Board issued the following statement:

"This is great news for New Mexico and all of the PARCC states. We have been confident from the start that New Mexico conducted a fair and open request-for-proposals process, and this decision confirms that. It also allows us to get back to the work started by states and strengthened by thousands of teachers: developing a new generation of high-quality assessments designed to better measure whether students are on track for college and careers. PARCC is not a product that states have chosen to buy; it's an assessment system they have worked to build together. Our states and schools are moving forward in their decision and implementation processes."

Hanna Skandera, New Mexico's Secretary of Education, issued the following statement:

"We're grateful to see a resolution that prioritizes New Mexico's students as well as those in other states. As we've said from the start, this has been an open and fair process with the singular goal of improving student achievement in New Mexico.

"The State Purchasing Agent saw this protest for exactly what it is when he said: 'No vendor, including AIR, has any right to substitute its own views and business policy decisions for any state agency.' "

Non-profit or for-profit, it’s all the same. Keep flying those hurricane flags, Florida, as we enter into the FLAIR era (Florida American Institutes of Research test.) BTW, did you know PARCC has hired Pearson for the actual administration of their tests?

Charter Schools USA shares an Office with non-profit Renaissance Charter schools

They insist they go out of their way to separate the finances: 

http://www.floridatrend.com/article/15060/jonathan-hage?page=3

"Edward Pozzuoli, the attorney for Charter Schools USA, says there is “no direct or indirect connection at all” between the boards and the company. The relationship between Renaissance and Charter Schools USA has been “fully vetted” by tax lawyers, Pozzuoli says. The shared mailing address is a 'small office for mail purposes.'"

Holy appearance of impropriety Bat Man!

Since Renaissance only contracts with CUSA the relationship probably isn't as distant as the lawyer claims, what nobody goes to lunch with each other, I mean they are sharing an office for goodness sakes. The thing is everybody knows about their relationship. Everybody knows Renaissance goes out and gets the charters and then hires CUSA to manage them, so why the threats to sue if I mention it? 

Maybe it is because where their practices are legal, to ordinary folk they seem sketchy and them threatening to sue every time it comes up doesn't help their case either.

Charter Schools USA threatens to sue Education Matters… AGAIN!

I received a rather nasty letter from the Firm (yes straight out of a John Grissom novel) where among other things they said I should be ashamed to be an educator. I’m not. I reached out to the firm to work with me to make sure what I was writing was correct but as of now they haven’t gotten back to me. One of the things they said I got wrong was reporting the charter school at Regency had been protected by the states rule stopping schools from dropping more than one letter grade, but if you go to  http://schoolgrades.fldoe.org/
then click school grades basic information on schools and scroll down to charter school at Arlington you can see I was both right and wrong.

My error was I referred to the school as the charter school of regency not Arlington but I hope you can forgive me as I have always felt regency and Arlington were synonymous. Though you can see that the school received a grade of D and was protected by the rule. I am trying to include a screen shot but thus far it is outside my capabilities.

Here is another article about it too. http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-04-02/story/jacksonville-charter-school-gets-go-ahead

The second thing they complained about was I said there was one stop shopping between Renaissance charter schools a non-profit and Charter schools USA. Here is the thing Renaissance Schools shares a mailing address with Charter Schools USA, and right there on CSUSA's website regarding a school in Doral, it says that Renaissance Schools are part of the Charter School USA "family" Further, all of Charter Schools USA's Jacksonville locations are operated by Renaissance. It is logical and quite reasonable to conclude that the companies have a close relationship. The fact that they "have been vetted by tax lawyers" as separate entities may indicate that their finances are not co-mingled and that the companies have been careful to stay separate on paper. That doesn't mean that there is not a close business relationship. The phrase "one-stop shopping" references the shared address. 

I hope I cleared those things up but before I get into the things that they did not complain about let me say my whimsical language non-withstanding I don’t think Charter Schools USA is doing anything illegal. On the contrary I believe they are playing the system (one I believe their campaign contributions helped create) like a virtuoso and they obviously have some high priced lawyers to help them. 

The following are the things they did not complain about from my original post.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2014/06/sherry-hage-stands-up-for-her-man-and.html

The charter for the Charter School at Mandarin was given to the Renaissance Charter School group who then contracted with CUSA to run the school and their construction arm Red Apple to build it which they started to do before it was even officially approved.

They may have known it was a certainty what with Jacksonville's school boards friendliness to charters, though that did not stop CUSA and its Lawyers from hedging its bets and donating thousands to Mandarin’s school board representative, Jason Fischer.  

Nobody on the Charter School at Mandarin’s board is from Jacksonville and its sister school the Charter School at Regency would have been an F school this past year if it wasn’t protected by states rule that schools can drop only one letter grade. A rule co-created by Gary Chartrand the local businessman who brought the KIPP charter school to town who likewise has benefited from the rule.

I mention these two things because similar things happened in Orange and Hillsborough counties and they are fighting in the courts against the expansion of CUSA in their school districts. They have to fight in the courts because despite their objections Gary Chartrand and the state board of education, none of who are true educators, but consists of a citrus grower, grocer and cable TV executive instead, rubber-stamped the approval of the charter schools. 

So much for local control right?

Jonathan Hage the CEO of CUSA and husband of the executive that wrote the Sun Sentinel, even though he lives in Florida and does the vast bulk of his business here has registered the company in Delaware where CUSA operates zero schools. Then even though he only operates 58 schools with a little over 50,000 students, he lives in a 1.8 million dollar house, and sends his children to an exclusive private school.

The three closest schools to where the new charter will open up were all A schools last year so there was hardly a need to rescue kids from failing public schools.
 

Finally CUSA is a big player in the lobby game sending thousands of dollars to mostly republican legislators. My main problem with this is they undoubtedly use public money because remember they get their money from the public, to lobby for more public money.

They complained about none of those things, which I presume I got correct. Leaving only if they own a yacht or not, his salary and a joke comparing them to a Colombian money launderers all things I would be more than glad to clear up once they get back to me.

When I finally get to talk to a member of the “Firm” if they can show me my errors I will be glad to publish a retraction about the things I omitted above from the original post but I will do so not because they threatened me (again) but because it is important to me that I get things right. 

DCPS says TFA gets no favors.

After an appearance on first Coast Connect where superintendent Vitti said Teach for America is the same as regular teachers (they are not) a reader posed a few questions that I forwarded to the District. They responded with incredible speed but to be honest their answers created even more questions such as right now since we are under a hiring freeze is TFA on hold and how are TFA members ever hired if they go through the normal hiring process. Here are the questions and answers.

1.       There was a heavy surplus of teachers this Spring. Were TFA teachers protected from surplus or, as some of the most inexperienced teachers, were they surplused according to seniority like everyone else?  TFA teachers are district teachers and are governed by the CBA like all other teachers.  This includes surplus and RIF criteria.  There are no special rules for TFA teachers regarding surplus. 

2.       If TFA teachers are in the surplus pool, will they be placed first? Or will DCPS proceed strictly according to seniority? See # 1 above.

3.       If a RIF (reduction in force) takes place, are TFA teachers subject to RIF? Or will teachers with more seniority be RIFFed to preserve a place for them? See # 1 above. We do not anticipate a RIF at this time.

4.       DCPS has entered into a contract to increase the number of TFA teachers it will accept a minimum of 100 teachers for the next three years.  If DCPS does not have 100 positions available, will DCPS tell TFA sorry, we can’t take them, or will it RIF existing teachers to make room?  DCPS will not hire new hire candidates, including TFA, until surplus candidates are placed.

5.       Even if DCPS doesn’t RIF existing teachers, will TFA applicants be hired before applicants with a four-year degree from an accredited teaching college? No.  TFA candidates are new hire candidates and are interviewed for selection by principals with other college of education and alternative certification applications.