School Turnaround – Cloaking Inequity

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig African Americans, Charter Schools, High-Stakes Testing, School Discipline, School Finance, School Turnaround

Education Activists Converge on Presidential Debate

Today, in response to a nationwide attack on public education, supporters of high-quality, democratically controlled, neighborhood public schools are holding events at the first presidential debate in New York, demanding that the candidates respond to concerns about school privatization and unfair funding, and releasing a national public education platform.

The organizers of the debate protests belong to Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J), a national network of more than 40,000 active members of grassroots community organizations led primarily by people of color in twenty-four U.S. cities. The presidential debate events are co-sponsored by the Network for Public Education Action, a national organization led by Diane Ravitch.

Journey for Justice will host a press conference at Long Island’s Hempstead High School, sponsor a Public Education Nation meeting at SUNY Old Westbury and then hold a rally and march to Hofstra University where the first presidential debate is being held.

Journey for Justice Alliance members who march for equity on Monday are calling for a national equity assessment for public schools in the United States. Funding inequity is readily apparent in public schools in the United States—wealthy neighborhoods usually have better funded public schools—the Alliance also demands a national assessment that considers “curriculum, teacher supports, wraparound supports, student climate and community engagement.”

The Journey for Justice Alliance events at the first presidential debate on Monday in New York underscore community-based opposition to the destruction of community public schools and the rise of publicly funded, privately operated charter schools, school takeovers, and over-testing. The events surrounding the first presidential debate are the latest salvo in a black civil war between those who believe in privately operated, market based school choice and those who are are demanding high-quality, properly resourced, democratically controlled, neighborhood public schools.

Make no mistake: there is a civil war going on in the black community. On the one side are charter operators, billionaire foundations, and their acolytes who support the private control of public schools, as envisioned by economist Milton Freidman in the 1950s. On the other side are parents and other stakeholders who are demanding true equity and democracy in our public schools.

National civil rights organizations are divided over this issue. The National Urban League, United Negro College Fund, NCLR and other civil rights groups have typically aligned themselves with market-based school choice proponents. On the other side, the NAACP has passed three national resolutions critical of charter schools over the past six years (the most recent resolution critical of charter schools is awaiting a vote by the NAACP National Board). Black Lives Matters coalition, our nation’s newest national civil rights umbrella group, also released a platform of policy demands critical of charter schools this past summer.

Recently, both sides in the education civil war have focused on communicating to policymakers and the public that they are representing the interests of black families whose communities have been deliberately left behind. Last week charter school owners and their supporters released a letter saying they represent the interests of tens of thousands of black students and bemoaning the NAACP’s most recent resolution criticizing charter schools.

Market-based school choice proponents’ primary agenda has been to promote privately operated “school choice” as the fix for the education of poor children. In contrast, the Journey for Justice Alliance believes that the conversation should be refocused the inequities in our nation. In their platform, they cite lack of equity in public schools as the “major failure of the American education system.”

The Alliance’s platform calls for a moratorium on school privatization. That is also the NAACP’s position in a 2016 national convention resolution that calls for a moratorium on new privately operated charter schools.

Over the past two decades, the U.S. Department of Education has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on privately operated charter schools. The alternative vision presented by the Alliance is a federal funding request for 10,000 sustainable community schools. The Alliance’s platform also calls for an end to zero tolerance discipline policies, (also called for by the NAACP’s 2016 charter school convention resolution). The Alliance and the NAACP cite school discipline research by the UCLA Civil Rights Project that found charter schools are even worse than traditional public schools for black and brown students. The Alliance is also calling for ending mayoral school takeovers and appointed school boards and the overuse of standardized tests to justify school takeovers.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump may not have much to say on the subject, but equal access to education is a crucial to our democracy, to the American ideal of equal opportunity, and to civil rights.

Julian Vasquez Heilig is a professor at California State University Sacramento and West Coast Regional Progressive Education Fellow. He blogs about education and social justice at Cloaking Inequity.

This article appeared here first at The Progressive Magazine.

July 29, 2016July 27, 2016 brothercitizen African Americans, Charter Schools, School Turnaround, Wisdom

Are Charter Schools Neither Civil or Right? Assessing the Intersection of Voting Rights and Educational Equity

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Legislature – to the objection of many in the delegation that represented New Orleans – took control of nearly all of New Orleans’ public schools. The legislature targeted New Orleans – a predominately Black jurisdiction – for public school takeover and vested power and control of the lion’s share of the city’s public schools in the Recovery School District (RSD). The RSD was to be a statewide special school district with governance vested in non-elected officials. On these facts alone, one should question the argument that school choice in New Orleans was designed to enhance civil rights. Even assuming that a state takeover of New Orleans’ public schools would result in a world-class education for public school students in New Orleans, it is concerning that the state takeover of public schools would also replace almost all of the power that the popularly elected and predominately Black school board in New Orleans held with a new, predominately White and non-politically accountable power structure. No politician in this country would ever demand that White, middle-class parents exchange political power for the HOPE of better schools.

Recently, the Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal published a piece that I wrote addressing the intersection of the school choice movement and civil rights. The piece is titled, “Killing Two Achievements with One Stone: The Intersectional Impacts of Shelby County on the Rights to Vote and Access High Performing Schools.” The paper recounts the inseparable linkage between the right to vote and equitable access to quality educational opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities. The paper sought to evaluate the role of the Supreme Court’s most recent watershed Voting Rights Act case on educational equity. Using the states of Florida and Louisiana as case studies, the paper uncovers a troubling intersection between state takeover districts that remove electoral power from racial and ethnic minorities and the decreased likelihood that governing bodies (state takeover versus popularly elected local districts) will close charter schools. At least in the case of New Orleans, the results of this research indicate that the school choice movement may jeopardize movements towards civil rights and appears to run counter to the argument that school choice may improve accountability.

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the states of Florida and Louisiana – both formerly impacted to some extent by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – required popularly elected schools boards. State courts in both Louisiana and Florida have ruled on whether the requirement to elect school boards restricts state government officials from establishing non-elected, independent state-level school boards that are able to authorize charter schools without the approval and/or input of the popularly elected county/parish-level school boards. The state of Louisiana interpreted its constitutional mandate to elect school boards at the parish-level to require elected school boards while also allowing the state to establish other, non-elected school boards. Florida decided that all school boards in the state must ultimately be answerable to the popularly elected county-level school board. The practical implication of this difference is that the state of Florida could not by legislative fiat remove the ability of racial and ethnic minorities to control education policy and the politics of education in geographic areas where racial and ethnic minorities present in high concentrations. On the contrary, the state of Louisiana could – and did – limit the political involvement of voters who are also racial and ethnic minorities through establishing alternate school boards with more power. Moreover, the state of Louisiana could authorize school boards that are selected through means other than popular election. It is really hard to think that school choice is enhancing civil rights when, in fact, the school choice movement removes the ability of racial and ethnic minorities to participate in the election of the individuals who will most influence local education policy for the mere possibility of “improved” schools.

The various constitutional interpretations of state constitutional language matter in terms of educational equity and voting rights: quite frankly, Florida closes a higher proportion of its charter schools than does Louisiana. This doesn’t seem particularly salient until one considers the percentage of charter schools that each state labeled as low performing in the years of analysis. In Louisiana, a whopping 82% of charter schools were rated as C or below and 42% of charter schools were rated as D or below. In Florida, only 38% of charter schools were rated as C or below and 17% of charter schools were rated a D or below. Still, Florida closed down roughly 30% of its charter schools and Louisiana closed only about 17% of its charter schools. One conspicuous difference between the states of Louisiana and Florida is that all schools in Florida, including charter schools, answer to popularly elected county-level school boards. The same is not true in Louisiana: large numbers of charter schools are not accountable to popularly elected school boards at the parish-level. Instead, those charter schools are only accountable to the state of Louisiana, and one must effectively be willing and able to unseat numerous members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education or the governor to shift education policy and/or influence the politics of education. Both of these options require a statewide referendum to change local education in New Orleans (where the majority of Louisiana’s charter schools operate).

Whether the school choice movement is a civil right or civil wrong remains to be seen. It is, however, imperative that those discussing civil rights remember that access to quality education and access to the electoral franchise were components of the civil rights movement. State takeover districts, including those that seek to convert traditional public schools to charter schools, strip minority stakeholders of the right to vote in exchange for debatably “better” schools. A recent report from affiliates of Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education found that district-based reform efforts might be more fruitful than state-based takeover strategies; my work supports this notion. As the Louisiana state legislature considers whether and how to return New Orleans’ public schools to local control, I submit that the return should be immediate and should restore power to the popularly elected Orleans Parish School Board. When contrasting the states of Florida and Louisiana and the role of political accountability in education policy and the politics of education, data supports that some measure of political accountability through the electoral process may provide enhanced accountability. Is greater accountability not the goal of the school choice movement?

February 9, 2016February 15, 2016 Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig Charter Schools, School Turnaround

State Takeover Failure: Financial Mismanagement & Student Harm

Today the Center for Popular Democracy is releasing the report State Takeovers of Low-Performing Schools: A Record of Academic Failure, Financial Mismanagement & Student Harm. The report is an important compendium of information about hostile state takeovers of urban schools. The Center for Popular Democracy is,

a high-impact national organization that builds organizing power to transform the local and state policy landscape through deep, long-term partnerships with leading community-based organizing groups nationwide.

They work to,

create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy in partnership with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions. CPD strengthens our collective capacity to envision and win an innovative pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.

I was asked by the Center for Popular Democracy to write a forward for the report.

Politicians have recently focused on implementing policies to create achievement districts in cities across the country. These are districts populated by schools which are privately controlled, yet operated with public money. Achievement districts are a highly contentious, top-down down policy that essentially amounts to a hostile state takeover of local schools. In Detroit and Tennessee, achievement districts have initially impacted only a minority of schools. However, politicians are now trying to close entire districts and turn them over to privately controlled charter corporations—an approach similar to the market-led New Orleans takeover model. Top-down education “reformers” have also approached Dallas, and more recently Los Angeles, with a set of all-encompassing charter takeover plans.

Top-down education reformers have argued that students and parents should receive relief from low-performing schools. They argue that turning schools over to privately controlled charter organizations will enable school “choice” and improve educational outcomes. Does this view truly reflect reality, or is it an inaccurate and oversimplified political framing?

Thorough research and realistic data should inform our discussion about achievement districts. The report State Takeovers of Low-Performing Schools: A Record of Academic Fraud, Financial Mismanagement and Student Harm presents an alternative empirical view by collecting information from a variety of sources. The report succinctly makes the case that achievement districts have, in fact, performed poorly. The majority of data currently available demonstrates that achievement districts result in decreased student achievement with disproportionately harmful impacts on students of color, while parents still don’t have access to properly resourced high-quality neighborhood schools.

As a result, it seems clear that we must consider alternatives to the top-down state takeover approach for improving schools. It is incumbent upon us to think about community-based solutions that don’t ignore the needs that students bring to schools and the severe inequities that still plague schools located in communities of color. This report is especially valuable because it re-emphasizes the need for a culturally relevant and challenging curriculum, high quality teaching, wraparound supports, positive discipline practices, and transformational parent and community engagement. As an alternative to top-down, privately controlled state takeovers, we must get serious about investing resources in these community-based, democratic approaches to education reform.

What are the Findings?

The rapid proliferation of the takeover district as an educational panacea is alarming. In this report, we examine the record of the three existing takeover districts, and find that there is no clear evidence that takeover districts actually achieve their stated goals of radically improving performance at failing schools. We find that:

1. Children have seen negligible improvement—or even dramatic setbacks—in their educational performance.
2. State takeover districts have created a breeding ground for fraud and mismanagement at the public’s expense.
3. Staff face high turnover and instability, creating a disrupted learning environment for children.
4. Students of color and those with special needs face harsh disciplinary measures and discriminatory practices that further entrench a two-tiered educational system.

What are the Recommendations?

Instead of replicating failed statewide takeovers in an attempt to turn around struggling schools, states should pursue tested measures endorsed by educators, students, and community members, and that have been borne out by precedent. States must commit to improving outcomes at struggling schools through programs and policies that reflect the six key principles developed by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools. As articulated in The Schools Our Children Deserve, school turnaround strategies should focus on:

• Curricula that are engaging, culturally relevant and challenging;
• High quality teaching rather than high-stakes testing;
• Wrap-around supports such as health care, eye care, and social and emotional services that support academics;
• Positive discipline practices such as restorative justice and social and emotional learning supports;
• Transformational parent and community engagement—the full community should actively participate in planning and decision-making; and
• Inclusive school leadership committed to developing strategic plans that include authentic input from teachers, parents, community partners, non-instructional school staff, youth, and other stakeholders.

You can view the report here.

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December 14, 2015December 15, 2015 Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig African Americans, Charter Schools, School Turnaround

Ghastly Impact of Closing Schools on Students and Communities

A recent Capitol Hill forum on the impact of school closure held the Rayburn Congressional building demonstrated the ghastly impact of closing schools on students and communities.

The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and the Journey for Justice Alliance, sponsored a breakfast forum entitled “Closed for Learning: The Impact of School Closures” The forum focused on the impact of community school closures in low-income neighborhoods.

The purpose of the forum was to engage Congressional staff and key stakeholders in a discussion on the effects of these school closures on students, parents, and the community at-large. The event featured the perspectives of national advocates, community members, and students.

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Jon David Snyder, Executive Director, SCOPE
Judith Browne-Dianis, Co-Director, Advancement Project
Jitu Brown (moderator), National Director, Journey for Justice Alliance
Anna Jones, Parent Leader & #FightForDyett Hunger Striker, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization
Tanaisa Brown, Newark Student Union
Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor, California State University, Sacramento
Linda Darling-Hammond (moderator), Faculty Director, SCOPE
Julia Daniel, Doctoral Student Researcher, University of Colorado, Boulder
Judith Browne-Dianis, Co-Director, Advancement Project
Keron Blair, Director, The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools

We explored how Congress and federal agencies can promote alternatives to school closings that will improve student learning and support students, educators, and families in communities across the country.

My remarks focused on reviewing school closure evidence. You can watch the presentation on YouTube here:

Massive school closure is a relatively new educational policy approach. In May 2013, the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 47 elementary schools—at the time, it was the largest number of schools closed in one year by any district in the nation.

School closure has become a highly contentious issue in our society. School boards— often politically appointed and sometimes elected— have recently focused on a variety of top-down policies such as school closure.

We have even come to the point where discussions have occurred that would essentially close entire districts and turn them over to top-down, private control— similar to New Orleans. Dallas and more recently Los Angeles have considered this option.

Proponents of school closure argue that students should receive relief from low-performing schools. But it is still an open question whether school closure does what its proponents purport it to do.

I’d like to walk you through some of the more prominent research and data on school closure. I will discuss research from some of the most well-known school closure locales: New Orleans, Chicago, New York and Michigan. I will also briefly talk about research from lesser discussed school closure in Ohio and North Carolina.

I’ll begin with the minority of research that purports that there are SOME benefits of school closure.

A Journal of Public Economics study focusing only on test scores in Michigan found that achievement of displaced students improved if the closed school is low-performing. However, the study also found that students in receiving schools “suffered” academically due to the influx of students.

A Fordham Foundation study examining Ohio school closures found that test scores marginally increased for students after their schools closed. However, the National Education Policy Center’s review of the study noted that that forty percent of students in closed Ohio schools transferred to campuses that were not higher performing. NEPC noted that the Fordham study did not separately report, or apparently control for, the academic performance of students who remained in low performing schools. images

A November 2015 study of New York school closure by the New York Research Alliance found that closures had little impact on the academic outcomes of students who had attend closed schools. However, they still proffered that school closure improved graduation rates for students who would have theoretically attended the closed schools. Clearly there are too many factors to consider that could explain an increase in graduation rates for students who never even attended the closed schools.

Now for the bad news.

Research out of North Carolina showed that school closure impacts students negatively during the closure year. A study conducted by State Board of Education found that students displaced by closure experienced negative effects in the announcement year. Additionally, while 76% of student technically went to schools that were “higher” performing— only 14 percent of students transitioned to a school with a performance composite above 60 percent passing.

New Orleans and Chicago are probably THE most infamous locales where school closure has occurred en masse.

Chicago_montage First I’ll discuss Chicago. The problematic outcomes of school closure are readily apparent in the data from Chicago and has been fairly consistently bad news over time. For example, the Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for Transformative Education (CReATE) found that school closures have historically had a negative impact on children’s academic performance. Analyses of school closures in Chicago reveal that 94% of students from closed CPS schools did not go on to “academically strong” new schools. School closures have not historically resulted in the savings predicted by school officials. Closure-related costs have consistently been underestimated or understated by officials. School closures have exacerbated racial inequalities and segregation in Chicago. Approximately 90% of the school closings have impacted predominately African American communities according to CReATE’s data.

Then there is Louisiana. The locale where top-down education reformers pressed for widespread school closures after Katrina.

Have school closures spurred an education miracle 10 years after the storm?

In a recent policy brief that I authored and was released by the Network for Public Education (See the post Education reform crescendo at #Katrina10), I collected publicly available data from state and federal sources. These data show that Louisiana and the RSD are last in nearly last in nearly all educational outcomes. More than 10 years after school closure and choice arrived in New Orleans— the results from top-down reform are dismal.

Mercedes Schneider, a Louisiana teacher and blogger reported that in the summer 2013, parents were required to “choose” from almost all D and F schools when they completed the Walton Foundation-funded OneApp open enrollment form. The RSD had no A schools and only a few B schools in 2012-13. (See also the post Colonizing the Black Natives: Reflections from a former NOLA Charter School Dean of Students).

Currently, the RSD still has no A schools and only a handful of B schools.

While the Orleans Parish has mostly A and B schools (some charter, some not), the OPSB is quite small when compared to RSD. Also, many of its schools use selective admissions processes, and some of the preferable schools often had additional application criteria beyond One App as a way of pre-screening applicants. gfmbl01-custom

So essentially the New Orleans school closure model has created a market tiering of schools, like wine or ice cream aisle in a grocery store, where you can afford or get access to certain wines but maybe not others because you may not have the capitol to access or purchase the products. In the case of New Orleans, the capital for families and students is transportation, test scores and other admissions requirements.

Essentially school closure has created market segmentation in New Orleans…. where only certain students with various forms of capital can gain access to high-quality schools.

New Orleans parents, such as Karran Royal Harper, have discussed this market tiering extensively— for a decade, parents and students have only been offered mostly-low-graded school options for their children. Only a select few students gain access to the top of the market tier through selective and burdensome application process that many non-low performing schools require.

Mercedes Schneider has written that most NOLA students of color— if they remain in school— and that is a big if considering that the RSD is still last or nearly last in all student outcomes such as dropout and graduation— are essentially just shuffled from low-graded charter school to low-graded charter school.

In conclusion,

Research and data should inform our discussion about school closure. The predominance of the currently available research demonstrates that there is decreased student achievement, increased racial inequality, and parents of color still don’t have access to properly resourced high-quality neighborhood schools.

As a result, it seems clear that the data suggests we consider alternatives to the top-down school closures approach for reforming schools. There is scant evidence in the research literature that supports top-down school closure policies. I believe this is largely because school closure has been— as Jitu Brown said in his opening— a shell game that does not directly address the needs of students or the communities that they live in.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to think about community-based solutions that don’t ignore the needs that students bring to schools and the severe resource inequities that still plague in schools located in communities of color. It is my hope that the re-authorization of ESEA that will be signed today will provide momentum for a slate of community-based, democratically controlled approaches to education reform. I look forward to hearing more about community schools as one of the community-based alternatives to the recent decade of top-down reform in the next panel.

Also check out some of Cloaking Inequity’s previous posts about school closure.

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