Category Archives: Education

A parallel state school system that we have no control over. —Christie Davis

A local middle school teacher spelled out problems with the charter school referendum: no local control over creation or operation of the charter schools it would authorize; money siphoned off from existing local schools; and charter schools actually perform worse than traditional public schools anyway.

Christie Davis, a teacher at Hahira Middle School, speaking at the Lowndes County Tea Party monthly meeting Thursday, pointed out it’s not just the preamble to the referendum that’s misleading. The actual wording of the referendum is also misleading:

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?

She remarked:

It sounds very good that we should say yes. It’s very misleading. And the reason why it’s misleading is totally purposeful. It says something about local communities. We already have that right in our local community, our local boards, to go ahead and implement a charter school, if we see the need. However, they put it in there so that voters that don’t really know what’s going on think they’re helping our local schools by voting yes. However, by voting yes, it will be funding a parallel state school system that we have no control over.

Here’s the video:

A parallel state school system that we have no control over. —Christie Davis
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2012.
Thanks to Diane Cox, President, Lowndes County Tea Party, for the invitation.

She also got into the financial aspects:

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The charter school amendment is about control —Dr. Troy Davis @ LCDP 2012-09-10

Lowndes County Schools Assistant Superintendent Troy Davis gave his personal opinion: “it’s about control”. The charter school amendment on the November ballot is not about charter schools, which any community in the state can create now. It’s about control by the state of local schools and resources.

Dr. Davis pointed out Georgia already has 350 charter schools, up from 160 three years ago. All but 19 were established and agreed upon by local communities. There’s a successful one in Berrien County, established by the Berrien County school board. The process to create more is in place in every community. If we wanted one in Lowndes County, all it would take would be for one of the two school systems (Lowndes or Valdosta) to approve one.

He suggested looking at the sources of funds for Families for Better Schools, which is backing the amendment. Top of the list is a Wal-Mart heir. (It’s Alice Walton. Dr. Davis deferred to Al Rowell for that information, and that’s also where I heard about Alice Walton. And as I discovered, the Walton Family Foundation put in much more than that last year.) He noted the bulk of the rest comes from for-profit school operators. (They include K12 Inc. of Virginia.)

He noted that the state of Georgia just passed this fiscal year the third largest budget in the history of Georgia, $19.1 billion. Yet the public schools have been cut $6.6 billion (apparently since 2002). And the Lowndes County school system lost nearly $8 million last year, and $43 million in the past 10 years. So he asked:

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Our south Georgia school tax dollars would go to Virginia rich people —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on K12 CEO Packard: $5M in 2011, up 36% -jsq

Keep in mind that this company is based in Virginia, so our tax dollars from say, South Georgia meant for our school teachers, administraters, supplies, and educating our students, would go to bolster the economy in Virginia and line the pockets of the very rich. Meanwhile we have to raise taxes to simply educate the students attending our public schools. This is clearly NOT a plan to ‘improve academic achievement’ as the preamble boldly lies.

The preamble is boldly inaccurate and completely biased. The wording added to the question on the ballot implies that the amendment would improve student achievement and parent involvement. My stars, what breathing individual doesn’t want those things.

Facts are that by some measures charter schools perform 3% worse than traditional public schools. We would hope that schools where parents have to sign a commitment of parent involvement would have superior parent involvement. Might I just add that students can be kicked out of charter schools and all students are educated in the Traditional Public School setting as per our Georgia constitution.

The ‘biased and inaccurate’ wording in the preamble to the charter schools question is not found in HB 1162, the law that allowed this question to be placed on the ballot. It is not in HB 797, the law thaw would be enacted should the amendment pass. NO the wording that is on the preamble comes straight out of ALEC documents, which are the equivalent of ‘legislation for Dummies’ with a particular slant as you might imagine.

-Karen Noll

Bill Moyers on ALEC

Bill Moyers takes on ALEC.

Posted yesterday On Bill Moyers’ website, ‘United States of ALEC’ Video Previews

This week, Moyers & Company (check local listings) presents “United States of ALEC,” a report on the most influential corporate-funded political force most of America has never heard of — ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.

He said more on Huffington Post Wednesday,

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K12 CEO Packard: $5M in 2011, up 36%

Does your school superintendent get paid $5 million a year? Ronald J. Packard, CEO of K12 Inc., the second biggest donor to the pro-charter school amendment campaign, does. Is that where you want your tax dollars to go?

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Executive Profile, Ronald J. Packard CFA, Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director, K12, Inc. K12 CEO Packard made $551,539 in salary in 2011, but was awarded other compensation totaling $5,002,933. Which is even richer than the approximately $3,266,387 total compensation private prison company CCA’s CEO Damon Hininger got in 2010, which, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, apparently only went up to 3,696,798 in 2011.

According to Emma Brown for the Washington Post 9 December 2011, K12 Inc. chief executive Ron Packard paid $5 million compensation package in 2011,

That’s nearly twice the $2.67 million Packard earned in 2010. It includes $551,000 in cash, $4.2 million in stock awards and about $290,000 in other compensation.

Packard’s pay reflects a new employment agreement negotiated in September 2010 and good until 2014. The company had $522 million in revenue in 2011, up nearly 36 percent percent from the year before.

“We determined that these awards were necessary and appropriate to retain Mr. Packard as our Chief Executive Officer and in recognition of Mr. Packard’s leadership and performance over the term of his employment with the Company,” the filing said.

Do we want our tax revenue going to retain K12 Inc.’s CEO? What if we retain our local schools instead? After all, it’s dubious that charter schools would be any better Continue reading →

Walton Family Foundation granted $1.05 million towards GA charter schools in 2011

The total amount of Walton family affiliate money backing the Georgia charter school referendum is far larger than Alice Walton’s $250,000.

In the Walton Family Foundation’s list of 2011 Education Reform Grants, there are two Georgia organizations:

Georgia Charter Schools Association Inc. 700,000
Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. 350,000

GCSA has made the news quite a bit lately, and its name makes its purpose pretty clear. According to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), GCSA is a NACSA member. You remember NACSA, the organization that Zaid Jilani discovered was an ALEC member, and that bailed out of ALEC two days later. That was in May 2012, after the Georgia legislature passed the bill putting the charter school referendum on the ballot.

Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. (GFERC) is slightly less obvious. According Continue reading →

For-profits are chomping at the bit to take Georgians for a ride. —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on Outside money fueling charter school amendment referendum. -jsq

For-profits are chomping at the bit to take Georgians for a ride. It is expected, as per, John Barge, Superintendent of Georgia schools, that the charter school commission that this amendment would allow can cost us $430million in 5 years. This amendment has absolutely NOTHING to do with school achievement and everything to do with shareholders and profits. Vote NO on amendment #1 and vote NO to higher taxes and vote NO to bigger government, OH and vote NO to lining the pockets of millionaires with our tax dollars!!

-Karen Noll

-jsq

Class action lawsuit against second largest donor to GA charter school referendum

K12 Inc. of Virginia has a class action lawsuit against it, as well as allegations of lack of effectiveness of its courses. K12 is the second biggest contributor to the Georgia charter school referendum which would privatize Georgia’s public schools. Shades of CCA desperately offering 48 states to privatize their prisons! And we know there’s a connection: ALEC helps push both private prisons and privatization of public schools. We didn’t fall for ALEC’s privatized prisons: let’s not fall for ALEC’s privatized schools.

Emma Brown wrote for the Washington Post 31 January 2012, Shareholder lawsuit accuses K12 Inc. of misleading investors,

A shareholder in Virginia-based K12 Inc. has filed a lawsuit against K12 Inc. CEO and Founder Ronald J. Packard, named in class action lawsuit the virtual-schools operator in federal court, alleging that the firm violated securities law by making false statements to investors about students’ poor performance on standardized tests.

The class-action complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, also accuses K12 of boosting its enrollment and revenues through “deceptive recruiting” practices.

Herndon-based K12 is the country’s largest operator of full-time public virtual schools, a growing sector in which students as young as five learn at home via computer.

The lawsuit comes after a spate of national news stories — including in The Washington Post — raised questions about the effectiveness of virtual schools, K12’s in particular. The firm’s stock has since plummeted.

There’s more in the article, and in the actual Harry T. Hawks, K12 Inc. executive vice president and chief financial officer, named in class action lawsuit Class action suit against K12 Inc. Named in the suit are Ronald J. Packard (K12 Inc’s CEO and Founder) and Harry T. Hawks, executive vice president and chief financial officer, both pictured here.

-jsq

Outside money fueling charter school amendment referendum

Why does Alice Walton want, to the tune of $250,000, for Atlanta to be able to force charter schools on local areas that don't want them?

Wayne Washington wrote for the AJC 14 September 2012, Outside money pours into Georgia for charter amendment fight,

Out-of-state money is fueling the campaign of a group trying to convince Georgia voters to change the state constitution so more charter schools can be approved.

Families for Better Public Schools has raised $486,750, campaign disclosure forms show. About 96 percent of that money has come from donors outside of Georgia.

Donors include Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, politically well-connected law firms and for-profit companies that are operating charter schools in Georgia.

Here's the Georgia campaign finance report for Families for Better Public Schools, which shows Alice Walton of Bentonville AR in for $250,000, K12 Inc. of Herndon VA in for $100,000, Charter Schools USA of Ft. Lauderdale FL in for $50,000, also J.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies, both of Grand Rapids MI, each in for $25,000. That's $450,000 from those five biggest donors, all out of state.

What about opposition money; where's it coming from?

A coalition of groups opposing the amendment, Vote Smart, has raised $80,951, mostly from traditional school officials like teachers, principals and superintendents who say more charter schools and more state money for them would threaten the funding of already cash-strapped traditional public schools.

So we have big out-of-state money funding demolishing our public schools, and public school people spending some of what little money they have defending them. I know which side I choose. Which side are you on?

Do we want to turn our public schools into private corporate fiefdoms? If not, vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

Q: Why are so many states pushing charter schools now? A: ALEC

Michigan, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, plus Georgia. Why are so many states attempting pro or con charter school referendums this year? Because many states have a push for charter schools, especially Louisiana. Where’s that coming from, at the same time in so many states? ALEC, that’s where.

Ed Anderson wrote for The Times-Picayune 12 January 2011, Gov. Bobby Jindal says charter school proposal is based on Florida initiative,

Jindal said his proposal will be fashioned on a Florida law known as “Charter-Schools-in-the-Workplace Initiative” which also has been introduced in 14 other states.

Excuse me? Which “also has been introduced in 14 other states”? Then it’s not just a Florida law, is it? And who introduced it?

Mattreichel wrote for FireDogLake 5 April 2012, Jindal Puts Louisiana’s Schools Up for Sale: ALEC’s Education Reforms Rammed Through

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