Blog: PA. Starving Public Schools to Push More Profits to Cyber Charter Schools

[JPZenger]

http://foresthills-regentsquare.patch.com/articles/t-e-a-c-h-co-founder-takes-on-corbett-s-budget-394013fb

Excerpts:

"There’s money to be made shortchanging kids’ educations.... Most charters are big business-run factories with a driving purpose to lower costs and increase profits no matter what that does to the widgets ... I mean students, they produce. For instance, a 2004 study done by the Dept. of Education found that charter schools "are less likely than traditional public schools to employ teachers meeting state certification standards.” A national evaluation by Stanford University found that 83 percent of charter schools perform worse than public schools. And it only gets worse for cyber charter schools. Fewer than 20 percent of PA.’s cyber charters meet national standards for reading and math known as AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress).

But the cost is so low; the profits so high! Provide a kid with a computer and software and you’re done. Maybe you have a handful of actual living, breathing teachers on staff to provide instruction via a chat room. Compare those costs with that of public schools. Just the cost of running an actual brick-and-mortar building is more. Do these schools get less in tax revenue to support them since their costs are that much less? No. Everything left over is profit. That’s money the cyber charters can use to advertise and get more students (something public schools can’t do), money they can line the pockets of like-minded legislators with or funds that management can give to itself in the form of huge bonuses.

He knows public schools, like any other organization, can’t run effectively if they aren’t funded efficiently. And if they fail, it just proves how much we need to transform our public schools into charter schools. You can already see the massive damage he’s done with the 2011-12 budget cuts. A September study by the Pennsylvania School Administrators Association and the PA. Assn. of School Business Officials indicated that this year 70 percent of school districts increased class sizes, 44 percent of school districts reduced course offerings, 35 percent of school districts reduced or eliminated tutoring programs and 14,159 school district positions were eliminated or left vacant."

[JPZenger]

1. Another excerpt

The blogger points out that despite Corbett's claims, there is a $94 million cut to public schools in the budget.

Excerpt:

"I know my critics will say all of this is just inevitable. We can’t afford education spending. Pennsylvania has a $719 million budget deficit projected by June. True. But who makes these projections? The Corbett administration, of course. Yes, you, too, can create your own budgetary crisis at home in three easy steps: 1. make your projected revenue really high, 2. Fall short of that number and 3. Repeat every budget season. Voila! A budgetary crisis."

[JPZenger]

2. Guess who were the biggest campaign contributors in PA in 2010?

Go ahead. Guess who were the biggest campaign contributors in Pa. in 2010 during the landmark elections that gave the Republicans large majorities in the legislature and put Corbett in office?

Answer: Gas drilling companies and charter school operators

[JPZenger]

3. Opinion Piece in Phila. Inquirer today

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20120215_Corbett_to_state__Pick_your_poison.html

"The governor's spending plan does nothing to address Pennsylvania's ranking among the 10 states that spend the least on public education. But by collapsing public education line items into one final (and misleading) number, the governor claims to be giving school districts choices.

In fact, what the governor is allowing them to pick is their poison. If his budget is adopted by the legislature, middle- and low-income communities will have a greater say only about what they will cut - not whether they will cut.

School districts will have to choose among sports, arts, chemistry, and libraries. Thousands of students will lose critical tutoring services, full-day kindergarten, and other worthwhile programs currently funded by the state's Accountability Block Grants, which the governor proposes eliminating. This move alone will cost students in Philadelphia $21 million next year.

Meanwhile, the governor's budget address last week failed even to acknowledge that 70 percent of the state's school districts have had to increase their class sizes over the past year, or that scores of school districts across the commonwealth - from York to Harrisburg - are already in dire financial shape."

[Mnemosyne]

4. Thank you, JP, for all you do in this group. PA scares me more every year. n/t

[JPZenger]

5. Good new interview with President of PA. State Education Assn.

http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/02/15/rick-smith-files-living-in-the-80s-corbetts-attempt-to-send-public-education-back-25-years/

Excerpts:

"Mike Crossey: You’re 100% right. In the studies that I’ve read, one of the top one or two issues that a business looks at when it decides to move into a state or not is the quality of the education, the quality of the school districts. Governor Corbett is absolutely doing the wrong thing. He’s hurting our schools, he’s hurting our kids. And, nothing in this budget addresses how do we deal with the school districts that are on the verge of complete failure?

Chester Upland, York City, and I could probably name 20 other districts in the state of Pennsylvania that because of last year’s cuts, we were really hoping that the Governor would step up to the plate and do what was right this year: fund our schools and put back the money for the neediest students, for our minority students in those schools, for the students that have English as a second language, and provide the resources that are necessary for every child to have the opportunity to be successful and he didn’t do that.

... Not only do the charter schools get paid first, but the charter schools are the only schools in the state that did not receive a piece of the cut in funding that hit every other school district in the state this year. Because charter schools are paid on last year’s reimbursement levels. So, even though there was an $860 million cut across the board to schools in the state, the charter school’s funding this year is based upon last year’s revenue, do they didn’t receive a cut. They’re still demanding last year’s higher subsidy levels, instead of this year’s piece of the cut. So, not only do they get theirs first, but they get a bigger slice than every other child in the state."

[DebJ]

6. OMG I didn't know that about the charter schools not getting a cut.

Speechless outrage.

[JPZenger]

7. Go ahead and guess who Corbett's budget secretary used to work for?

He was the senior vice president of for-profit online cyber school corporation. Among other entities, they owned Pa. Vitual Charter School.