This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, K-12 education, postsecondary educational attainment, dropouts, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, environmental issues, Ethnic Studies at state and national levels. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
Here is the truth about in-state tuition for non-citizen, resident Texans from the Center for Public Policy Priorities—otherwise referred to as "HB1403" or the "Texas Dream Act." Texas, btw, was the first state to pass this in 2001 and was followed by California AB 540 and now a good number of states have it. This is good and just policy, my friends.
Senate Bill 1819 by Senator Campbell et al. is a threat to HB 1403. Her bill mends state law so that a person
unauthorized to be present in the United States cannot be considered a resident
of this state for the purposes of receiving in-state tuition at a public
institution of higher education. Undocumented students who currently receive
in-state tuition at a public institution of higher education with at least 30
hours of credit before the 2015-16 academic year will be exempt from the
changes. This bill will get heard on April 6th, at 8AM Veteran Affairs & Military Installations-S/C Border Security Committee (which, btw, offensively frames DREAMers as a security threat!) at the Texas State Capitol in 2E.20 (Betty King Cmte. Rm.). DREAMers and allies will be coming from throughout the state to challenge this. Get your voice heard, too. I think that there will also be a 10:30AM press conference outside the hearing room, too (will confirm).
Here are the bills that were heard today in the Senate Education Committee in the Texas House of Representatives. Melinda Lemke and myself testified from a policy memorandum titled, "Will School Vouchers Benefit Low-Income Families? Assessing the Evidence" and co-authored by Dr. Huriya Jabbar, Dr. Jennifer Holme & doctoral students—Melinda Lemke, A.V. LeClair, Joanna Sanchez and Edgar M. Torres, Education Policy and Planning, University of Texas at Austin.
This policy memo provides a rigorous review of peer-reviewed research and government studies as opposed to research done by think tank organizations with a pro-voucher agenda. Here is a summative statement from my colleagues' introduction:
Wefindthattheempiricalresearchshowsthattheeffectsofschoolvouchersonstudentoutcomesgenerallyaresmallorinsignificant,anddonothavetheabilitytoclosetheracialachievementgaporgeneratelargegainsinstudentoutcomes.Inaddition,evenvoucherprogramsthattargetlow-incomefamiliesorthoseattendingfailingschoolshaveseriousaccessandattritionchallenges,callingintoquestiontheequityclaimsofvoucherproponents.Weconcludethattheresearchonvouchereffectivenessshowsmixedresults—somestudiesshowsmallpositiveeffectsonstudentachievement,andsomeshownoeffects.Overalltheseresultsdonotalignwiththestrongclaimsofvoucherproponents.Inaddition,thetake-upandattritionpatternsofvoucherrecipientssuggestthatsuchpoliciesmightnot
benefit the
mostdisadvantaged
students.
Not only does this rigorous review of vouchers suggest that we exercise caution if we are to construe this as a policy panacea, but it should also mean something to us that precious little peer-reviewed research on the matter actually exists which means that many questions about the effects of vouchers remain unanswered. It's important for us to consider all that we still do not know.
Again, from a research perspective, we do not know what happens to children after they are no longer in a voucher program. We do not know whether when voucher laws are passed, exactly how the private sector (often parochial) schools prepare to meet children's needs. What happens to those places once children that use school vouchers leave them? We do not know from a public management perspective how state administrative bureaucracies manage dollars associated with potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of children moving in and out of the public and private sector. And what costs—especially hidden ones—are associated with this specific kind of management? All else equal, it sounds like an administrative nightmare.
There are so many questions for which there exist little to no peer-reviewed data that we should exercise utmost prudence before we as a state go down this experimental path, particularly in the name of "progress," "freedom," and "choice."
Powerful
interests pushing private school voucher schemes in Texas are launching
today what might be their strongest attack on neighborhood public
schools in years. The Senate Education Committee is hearing public
testimony on three proposed voucher bills — each one of which could end
up draining billions of dollars from public education to subsidize
tuition at private and religious schools.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller will testify at the
hearing and remind senators that their responsibility under the Texas
Constitution is to fund public schools, not private and religious
schools. Yet the Legislature cut $5.4 billion from public education just
four years ago and has yet to restore all of that funding.
Each of the bills under consideration today creates a different
voucher scheme but does essentially the same thing: drain tax dollars
from funding for neighborhood public schools so that the state can
subsidize — directly or indirectly — private and religious schools.
SB 4 by state Sen. Larry Craig, R-Friendswood, and SB 642
by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, would give tax breaks to
corporations that donate to organizations providing “tuition grants” or
“scholarships” at private and religious schools. Every dollar that funds
these corporate tax loopholes would be unavailable for the state’s
cash-starved public schools.
SB 276
by state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, would create so-called
“taxpayer savings grants” that shift a large share of funding for a
public school student over to subsidizing tuition at a private or
religious school instead.
Private and religious schools getting these taxpayer subsidies would
not be subject to the same rules and regulations that govern the state’s
public schools. That means those voucher schools would not be
accountable to the taxpayers who are funding them.
Moreover, supporters misleadingly claim that these voucher schemes
will actually save taxpayer dollars or won’t take money from public
schools because private donors would be using tax credits to pay for the
vouchers. These claims are a charade. The reality is precisely the
opposite, as Kathy and other representatives of other members of the
Coalition for Public Schools will point out today.
On the heels of South by Southwest, there has been a twisted
conversation about race that Dr. Tane Ward sorts out here from his post
on his blog. It works excellently with my earlier post this morning by
Cecilia Ballí who speaks to similar issues. Austin needs to own its
racism and classism and consider how these overlap and the damage that
they are doing to communities.
It simultaneously needs to
recognize the breathtaking talent and beauty of the Latina/o and African
American cultural arts community and how preserving and improving the
very communities that have given birth to this art is not only a force
for cultural and political power for these communities, but also a
matter of self-interest to Austin's Anglo-dominant, middle- and
upper-middle class community.
The changing complexion of
Austin's future consumers of that art is an inescapable demographic
truth. Rather than trample on the aesthetic contributions of our
communities, respect and bridge building need to occur. We need
community conversations around race, ethnicity, gentrification, and the
arts so that we can develop policies and attitudes that do not bulldoze
over the ethnic, multicultural landscape that has endeared visitors to
Austin for generations.
Simply put, aside from being about
dispossession and disparagement, gentrification actually works at odds
with the very kind of identity that not only makes Austin weird (as we
pridefully say here about our city), but that also in the long run makes
it profitable, beautiful, and a world-class city that is not only rich in its diversity, but prides itself on that.
Some excellent social commentary was made
during SXSW this year, something that I would have loved to see years
ago. Someone put stickers on East Austin business replete with the COA
logo that said, “Exclusively for white people. Maximum of 5 colored
customers, colored BOH (Back of House) staff accepted.”
The satire clearly linked the historic
institutional racism of Austin with the ongoing consumer-led
gentrification and displacement on the East Side. This has stirred
discourse in the city, but to a level, which falls short of what we are
capable of. All the reaction from the media has been laughable. There is
a disturbing collective feign of ignorance floating around about the
intention and meaning of the art. Let’s not kid ourselves – it is a
pretty straightforward message about race and gentrification.
Main points aside – here are some
considerations of Stickergate before it fades into the unfashionable
fortune of having happened last week:
The flash issue obscures gentrification.
There is a lot of
gentrification happening in the city and it is partially fueled by SXSW.
It would be great to see people take more responsibility in mitigating
the negative effects that tourism and consumer-based economies have on
historic neighborhoods. I would love the same engagement on revitalizing
the East Side and holding exploitative City and capitalist practices
accountable as I do from people reacting to relatively innocuous art.
The same week, for example, a beautiful
and historic mural on East Cesar Chavez was nonchalantly painted over by
a foreign artist. The Lotteria mural is culturally significant to Cesar
Chavez as a Mexican neighborhood, but as the makeup of businesses is
changing, our culture is being erased. This was not covered on the news,
and that layer of paint doesn’t peel off quite so easily. Neither does
the displacement of thousands of people from their neighborhoods across
the country. Another example is the demolition of Piñatas Jumpolín (see Dale Dale Dale postmarked 2/23/15)
– a far worse act in terms of destruction and insensitivity, but one
that was defended and as specifically “not racist” by many.
People missed the satire.
Sadly, many people
thought the stickers were made by White supremacists and to be taken
literally. Geesh! I don’t know what to say. That would be like reacting
the Right Wing ravings of Stephen Colbert. Austin Mayor Steve Adler
called the act “appalling” and “offensive”. This comes from a mayor who
made no public comment of the demolition of Jumpolín or the destruction
of the Loteria mural. It seems like making White people uncomfortable is
a greater sin than destroying the culture and heritage of historic
Communities of Color (which is exactly the point of the stickers, so
maybe Adler is really in cahoots with the artist and is just laying the
satire on extra thick).
Others mistook the stickers to be aimed
at garnering ire toward the businesses and the city by framing them as
overtly white supremacist. This was not an attack on the businesses or
the city or the people associated with them. That some civil rights
leaders took it there was an unfortunate diversion. The point was to
imply that the City of Austin is racist as an institution, and
businesses cater to specific class groups that follow racially
segregated norms. There, that’s not so bad, is it?
People misused the concepts of racism and hate-speech.
People were really
offended by the stickers and called them racist. One business owner
called it “ hate-speech”. This messaging was also consistently and
conveniently accompanied by a message of confusion – “why would they do
it?” If you do not experience gentrification as a painful reality
resulting in the displacement of your community or understand the racist
history and current structure of our city, than you might not
understand the point here. However, your ignorance does give you the
authority to claim the status of a victim. Regardless of who owns or
runs the targeted businesses – they are profiting from a system that is
rooted in exploitation. That does not mean we hate you. Please stop
pretending that pointing out social reality is hatred because it makes
you feel guilty. Racism is real and the stickers probably reflect a
painfully accurate depiction of who patronizes these businesses.
I was so flabbergasted by the conviction
of the business owner’s whine that I thought about staging a boycott of
their business – just because they so distastefully inserted their own
self-serving grievance. Instead I decided to write this. You can thank
me later (with free cupcakes – kidding!)
The weak response from POC community leaders is inconsistent with the political history (and I’m not sure why).
Instead of Black leaders seizing the
opportunity to bring attention to the plight of their communities and
the legacies that have been mostly forgotten, Councilwoman Ora Houston,
NAACP chairman Nelson Linder and Representative Dawna Dukes all
responded with White protectionism. Completely out of touch, missing the
satire and feigning ignorance of meaning and intention, the cadre of
Austin’s old guard Black activist seemed to parrot the naiveté of the
city’s rookie mayor. How disappointing that even when the door is blown
open, these leaders failed to simply walk through it.
Each of these three community leaders has
been vocal on segregation, racism, gentrification and fair business
practices. How could they have possibly missed the satire and
the political opportunity to respond? Why when the clueless enactors of
gentrification ask “but why?” do our POC officials not have such a
simple answer? This makes the need for disruptive art/activism so
important.
Back of House comment should not be overlooked
How many Austin businesses have POC working in the kitchen and all White, or white-passing, servers up front?
If you answered “probably most of them”, you are absolutely probably right.
Racism is inequitable outcomes where
there shouldn’t be. Mexicans are not naturally just better at washing
dishes and Whites better at serving because they have fine breeding – no
one really thinks that. No one really thinks they are racist either –
but take a look in any restaurant in town and it is plain as day – real,
live racism! I’m sure there are no business policies or city mandates
for BOH/FOH racial segregation. The point is that there doesn’t need to
be. Let that soak in before reacting.
It is pretty funny
“Uh, Earth to Brint, I was making a joke, okay?”
With all the horribly racist violence
against People of Color, the cultural and historic racism in East
Austin, the racist outcomes of profit-driven exploitation and
gentrification and everything else POC deal with, can we have a simple
joke? The stickers peeled right off.
The fact a few little stickers are such a
problem for people is harsh. Lighten up. This is a long haul and there
is a lot of real work to be done to heal, undo racism and stop
gentrification. Don’t fall too hard.
It’s just a sticker – It’s not like somebody destroyed the neighborhood where you grew up.
Thanks to Native East Austinites Andrea Melendez & Estrella de Leon for your strength and inspiration for this response.
When
I moved to Austin in the fall of 2008 to teach at the University of
Texas, I was the envy of nearly everyone I knew. Wasn’t it the coolest
city in the state? The country? Quite possibly the earth?! Yet still I
was dragging my feet, which many Austinites found offensive (ever tried
arguing with one about the superiority of any other place?). I’d lived
previously in Brownsville, San Antonio, El Paso, and Houston, and I’d
visited Austin countless times as a contributor to this magazine. But
I’d always found it wanting in a way that was significant to me: it was
the first place in my home state where I was frequently aware of my
ethnic difference. Those other Texas cities had their own racial and
class problems, sure, but they all had vibrant Latino communities, and
they were cities where I could experience myself as both a Tejana and a
Texan, an American who was Latina. By contrast, sometimes when I had
lunch with my editor in downtown Austin I noticed I was the only
non-white patron in the restaurant. Things weren’t much better at UT,
where the faculty was just 5.9 percent Latino (and just 3.7 percent
African American). I had to ask myself, In a city where Hispanics made
up over a third of the residents, why were they so hard to find?
Austin prides itself on its cultural liberalism and sophistication,
but given the invisibility of Latinos, it irked me that the city was
obsessed with Latin American culture. Austin’s fixation with tacos and
migas and queso (“kay-so”) seemed to me a way for locals to fetishize a
world most of them didn’t regularly engage with. When I went salsa
dancing downtown, a few times a white guy would sashay up to me with a
sultry “ Ho-la, ¿quie-res bailar conmigo?” and I had to explain
that I spoke English. I also felt persistently overdressed. When
invitations called for “Texas chic” or “Austin cool,” I invariably wore
the wrong clothes. Once, I showed up at a beautiful Hill Country ranch
wedding in a long summer dress and stilettos when all the women were in
knee-length frocks and sandals or wedge shoes they could manage the
rocky grounds in. I’d never even worn flip-flops out of the house!
I bought a condo in southwest Austin, in a neighborhood with a nice
mix of natives and newcomers. For some reason, the area felt to me
closer in spirit to the rest of Texas. On William Cannon Drive, I could
drive a couple of miles west for lemon–poppy seed pancakes at Kerbey
Lane Cafe or east for 99-cent barbacoa tacos at Las Delicias Meat
Market. The development was still under construction when I moved in,
and a crew of strictly Mexican workers was a ubiquitous presence during
the first months I lived there. It was from them I learned about the
great Austin divide and began to understand why I rarely saw any Latinos
or blacks. A long-standing east-west geographic rift shapes race and
class relations in the capital to this day. The workmen lived on the
east side of I-35, where the city’s biggest concentration of minorities
resides (Latinos make up 35 percent of Austin’s population, blacks 8
percent). The west side of I-35 was mostly white. This was where they
came to work, and they literally kept their heads down while they did
so. Was the state’s most progressive city also its most segregated?
Austin’s geographic divide has a specific legal past. As I came to
learn, African Americans had been living throughout the city in the
early 1900’s, until a 1928 city plan proposed concentrating all services
for black residents—parks, libraries, schools—on the East Side to avoid
duplicating them elsewhere (this was in the time of “separate but
equal”). Racial zoning was unconstitutional, but this policy
accomplished the same thing. By 1940, most black Austinites were living
between Seventh and Twelfth streets, while the growing Mexican American
population was consolidating just south of that.
For years Austin has held the dubious distinction of being the only
major city in the country clinging to an outmoded model of elective
representation that all but ensured its racial exclusivity would
persist. Since 1953, members of the city council have been elected on an
at-large basis, which means that residents vote for individuals to
represent the city as a whole, not their own neighborhoods. Because
levels of voter participation, not to mention money, are unequal from
neighborhood to neighborhood, this has perpetuated a serious imbalance
in who holds and influences power. In the past forty years, half the
city council members and fifteen of seventeen mayors have been from four
zip codes west of I-35, an area that is home to just a tenth of the
city’s population. The few have been governing the many.
The roots of this system are shameful. Until 1950, the system was
straightforward: the top five vote-getters on a single ballot would
become council members and select the mayor themselves. In 1951, a black
candidate, Arthur DeWitty, then president of Austin’s NAACP chapter,
came in sixth, which alarmed the city’s white business establishment.
The system was rejiggered to create designated seats, or “places,”
requiring more than 50 percent of the vote to win, a majority no ethnic
candidate could achieve at the time. Not until twenty years later, in
1971, was an African American elected to the council, followed by the
first Latino in 1975.
At that point, forced to acknowledge the slowly growing political
clout of minorities, the city’s establishment came up with an informal
“gentleman’s agreement”: one spot on the council would be reserved for
Latinos (Place 5, although later it became Place 2) and another spot
(Place 6) for blacks. Though nothing prevented minority candidates from
running for another place, they generally complied with the rule, since
to do otherwise would disrupt the system, making victory unlikely. To
date, no Latino or black has held a different seat.
UT-Pan
American students attended 'Latino Day of Advocacy for Educational
Equity and Opportunity at the Capitol.' (Photo: Roberto Calderon)
Over the weekend of February 26-28, students and faculty involved in
the University of Texas-Pan American’s Mexican American Studies program
attended the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Tejas
Foco (NACCS) conference in Houston, Texas.
Throughout the weekend students and faculty facilitated and attended
several research presentations as well as engaged with community efforts
for social justice. While at the conference we learned that there was a
statewide neglect of funding MAS in higher education and that in only a
few weeks a day of advocacy at the Capitol would take place addressing
issues of educational equity for Latina/os.
On March 16, 2015 approximately 50 students representing the UTPA
Mexican American Studies Club (MASC), Bilingual Education Student
Organization (BESO), La Unión de Pueblo Entero (LUPE) and the Minority
Affairs Council (MAC) attended the Latina/o Education Day of Advocacy at
the Capitol in Austin. Through the assistance of the Mexican American
Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the Hispanic Senate Caucus,
and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, students were bused to the
Capitol to participate in a press conference by the Latina/o Education
Task Force, rally their support, and meet with legislators.
Our effort as students was advocating for the Latino/a Education Task
Force agenda, in particular greater funding of MAS in higher education.
However, our Valley contingency focused primarily on permanently
funding the MAS Center, the Bilingual Studies Center, and the
establishment of a department of MAS at the new UT-Rio Grande Valley.
MAS has existed at UTPA since 1971, yet still exists today as only a
program and not a department. UTRGV has promoted itself as a bilingual
and bicultural intuition which boasts a Latina/o population upwards of
90 percent. However in the UTRGV Legislative Appropriations Request
there exists no special requests to fund MAS.
Today only a single MAS department exists in the state. In order to
develop politically conscious and socially aware Latina/o leaders it is
imperative to fund not only a MAS Center, but also a department in the
Valley. We believe we have the potential to become the premier MAS
department in not only Texas, but in the nation. Our sentiments were met
with vocal support from our legislators. This support is additional
affirmation to our ontological vocation of preserving our history and
determining our future.
To not create a MAS department after 45 years of existence is to say
that the study of the Mexican American experience is of little value.
Who will be the legislator to champion our cause? Or will it be the
student activism, as it was in 1971, that brings the permanent funding
of a center and the rightful establishment of a department dedicated to
the study of our Mexican American communities?
One thing is for certain, we will not stand idly by while crossing
our arms as our heritage and culture escapes yet another generation.
Nuestra Educación Es Nuestra Lucha.
Editor’s Note: The main photo with this story was provided by
Roberto Calderon of the UT-Pan American Mexican American Studies Club.
It was taken on the south steps of the state Capitol on March 16, 2015.
Important read. Folks need to wake up to how the charterization of public education amounts to a feeding frenzy for the hedge fund managers that are profiting off taxpayer's dollars for a very poor return on investment even as they are simultaneously de-democratizing public education. Key quote:
Too bad the kids in charter schools don’t learn any better than those in plain-vanilla public schools. Stanford University
crunched test data from 26 states. About a quarter of charters
delivered better reading scores, but more than half produced no
improvement, and 19% had worse results. In math, 29% of the charters
delivered better math scores, while 40% showed no difference, and 31%
fared worse. Unimpressive, especially when you consider charter schools can pick
and choose their students — weeding out autistic kids, for example, or
those whose first language isn’t English. Charter schools in the
District of Columbia are expelling students for discipline problems at
28 times the rate of the district’s traditional public schools — where
those “problem kids” are destined to return.
We as a society will be paying the cost of this "de-form" for decades if we as a public don't get involved. Stop complaining about public schools and get involved. Run for office. Talk to your board members. Attend board meetings. Exercise your democratic rights; don't forfeit them to a business or corporation. Be an agent of change and help preserve our democracy. -Angela
On
Thursday, July 25, dozens of bankers, hedge fund types and private
equity investors gathered in New York to hear about the latest and
greatest opportunities to collect a cut of your property taxes. Of
course, the promotional material for the Capital Roundtable’s conference
on “private equity investing in for-profit education companies” didn’t
put it in such crass terms, but that’s what’s going on.
(Getty Images via @daylife)
Charter schools are booming. “There are now more than 6,000 in the
United States, up from 2,500 a decade ago, educating a record 2.3
million children,” according to Reuters. Charters have a limited admissions policy, and the applications can
be as complex as those at private schools. But the parents don’t pay
tuition; support comes directly from the school district in which the
charter is located. They’re also lucrative, attracting players like
the specialty real estate investment trust EPR PropertiesEPR+1.89% (EPR). Charter schools are in the firm’s $3 billion portfolio along with retail space and movie megaplexes. Charter schools are frequently a way for politicians to reward their
cronies. In Ohio, two firms operate 9% of the state’s charter schools
and are collecting 38% of the state’s charter school funding increase
this year. The operators of both firms donate generously to elected
Republicans The Arizona Republic
found that charters “bought a variety of goods and services from the
companies of board members or administrators, including textbooks, air
conditioning repairs and transportation services.” Most charters were
exempt from a requirement to seek competitive bids on contracts over
$5,000 In Florida, the for-profit school industry flooded legislative
candidates with $1.8 million in donations last year. “Most of the
money,” reports The Miami Herald, “went to Republicans, whose
support of charter schools, vouchers, online education and private
colleges has put public education dollars in private-sector pockets.” Among the big donors: the private equity firm Apollo GroupAPOL+3.8%,
the outfit behind the for-profit University of Phoenix, which has
experimented with online high schools. Apollo dropped $95,000 on Florida
candidates and committees. Lest you get the idea charter schools are a “Republican” thing,
they’re also favored by big-city Democrats. This summer, 23 public
schools closed for good in Philadelphia — about 10% of the total — to be
replaced by charters. Charters have a history in Washington, D.C., going back to 1996. And they were favored by Arne Duncan when he ran Chicago Public
Schools. Today, he’s the U.S. secretary of education. In 2009, Duncan
rolled out the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative,
doling out $4.4 billion in federal money to the states — but only to
those states that lifted their caps on the number of charter schools. Too bad the kids in charter schools don’t learn any better than those in plain-vanilla public schools. Stanford University
crunched test data from 26 states. About a quarter of charters
delivered better reading scores, but more than half produced no
improvement, and 19% had worse results. In math, 29% of the charters
delivered better math scores, while 40% showed no difference, and 31%
fared worse. Unimpressive, especially when you consider charter schools can pick
and choose their students — weeding out autistic kids, for example, or
those whose first language isn’t English. Charter schools in the
District of Columbia are expelling students for discipline problems at
28 times the rate of the district’s traditional public schools — where
those “problem kids” are destined to return. Nor does the evidence show that charters spend taxpayers’ money more efficiently. Researchers from Michigan State and the University of Utah studied charters in Michigan, finding they spent $774 more per student on administration, and $1,140 less on instruction. About the only thing charters do well is limit the influence of teachers’ unions. And fatten their investors’ portfolios.
In part, it’s the tax code
that makes charter schools so lucrative: Under the federal “New Markets
Tax Credit” program that became law toward the end of the Clinton
presidency, firms that invest in charters and other projects located in
“underserved” areas can collect a generous tax credit — up to 39% — to
offset their costs.
So attractive is the math, according to a 2010 article by Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News, “that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.”
It’s not only wealthy Americans making a killing on charter schools.
So are foreigners, under a program critics call “green card via red
carpet.” “Wealthy individuals from as far away as China, Nigeria, Russia and
Australia are spending tens of millions of dollars to build classrooms,
libraries, basketball courts and science labs for American charter
schools,” says a 2012 Reuters report. The formal name of the program is EB-5, and it’s not only for charter
schools. Foreigners who pony up $1 million in a wide variety of
development projects — or as little as $500,000 in “targeted employment
areas” — are entitled to buy immigration visas for themselves and family
members. “In the past two decades,” Reuters reports, “much of the investment
has gone into commercial real estate projects, like luxury hotels, ski
resorts and even gas stations. Lately, however, enterprising brokers
have seen a golden opportunity to match cash-starved charter schools
with cash-flush foreigners in investment deals that benefit both.” So how can you, as a retail investor, grab a piece of this? How can
you reclaim some of your property tax dollars from the fat cats? As with many other instances of “extraction”… good luck. Sure, you could buy shares of the aforementioned EPR Properties.
Unfortunately, you’re buying strip malls and ski parks along with
charter schools. It’s not a “pure play.” The
history of publicly traded charter school firms is limited and ugly.
Edison Schools traded publicly from 1999-2003. During that period, it
reported one profitable quarter. Shares reached nearly $40 in early
2001… only to crash to 14 cents. “There’s a risk to taking education to Wall Street,” says Education Week
— “one that helps explain why so few publicly traded companies cater to
the educational needs of students in elementary, middle and high
school.” That risk is spotlighted by the only pure play currently trading on a
U.S. exchange. In December 2007, just as the “Great Recession” got
underway, K12 Inc. went public under the ticker symbol LRN. It has proven, at best, a trading vehicle. K12 Inc.” Share prices hit nearly a four-year low in December 2012 when The New York Times
published an expose on a K12 online charter school venture. Nearly 60%
of its students are below grade level in math, and 50% in reading.
One-third don’t graduate on schedule. The story also revealed CEO Ronald Packard collected a salary in 2011
— $5 million — nearly double that of the previous year. And that his
bonus is linked not to student performance, but to enrollment. It’s a lot easier to escape this sort of scrutiny if your charter
school venture is privately held — or, in the case of EPR, mixed in with
other ventures that have nothing to do with education. Well, I tried.
“I spend a great deal of time, money
and resources looking for new investment ideas that you, dear reader,
can act on independently,” I wrote in my Apogee Advisory, early in 2012… “Sometimes what I find instead is outrage.”
For now, the big money in
charter schools is confined to those on the inside. In late 2010,
Goldman Sachs announced it would lend $25 million to develop 16 charter
schools in New York and New Jersey. The news release said the loans
would be “credit-enhanced by funds awarded by the U.S. Department of
Education.” Of course.
Senator
Jose Rodriguez outlined reasons why SB185, the so-called “sanctuary
cities” bill, is bad public policy. While it’s been delayed, chances are
it will be brought back up by the committee.
This bill, a rehash of legislation that was defeated in 2011,
is simply bad policy and bad business. I’ve summarized six major points
that illustrate why it’s such a time-waster for a Legislature that has
important business to take care of — budget and taxes, education
funding, access to health care and other key governance issues.
1. It seeks to solve a non-existent problem.
There is no indication that local law enforcement needs this authority,
which is reserved exclusively for the federal government, to keep
communities safe. Quite the opposite, as point number two illustrates. I
find this particularly ironic given that it’s being put forth by
representatives who claim they are for small government.
2. It harms public safety. In 2011,
this legislation was overwhelmingly opposed by county sheriffs and
police chiefs. El Paso County Sheriff Wiles spoke out against this
legislation because as he stated it would undermine his ability to work
with immigrant communities and effectively combat cartel activity.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo and many others made similar comments.
3. It’s bad business for Texas. Similar
legislation in Arizona cost $5 million in lost taxes from SB 1070 and
$135 million in lost economic output. We can’t afford to lose current
business or future investors. It also does not make sense to drive
workers away from labor-intensive but critical sectors such as
construction and agriculture.
4. It targets children. While SB 185
exempts school officials, it includes school peace officers. I’m not one
who thinks it makes sense to punish children who are in our
communities, regardless of documentation, by pushing them out of school
and into the streets.
5. It has legal implications that don’t
appear to have been thought through. It will inevitably lead to racial
profiling. It is likely to lead to violations of the Equal Protection
Clause, the Supremacy Clause and the Fourth Amendment. In fact, the
issue already came up in El Paso County, where the El Paso County
Sheriffs Department was sued for pulling passengers off a bus and asking
them their immigration status; the lawsuit was settled when the department agreed to establish a written policy and train its officers.
Further, it places schools in an untenable position: If their peace
officers do not ask immigration questions they could lose state funding,
and if they do ask they could be sued in federal court.
6. It hurts families. So called
“sanctuary cities” policies have the potential to divide mixed-status
families in Texas. Leading faith leaders opposing this legislation in
2011 including the Catholic Conference of Bishops, the Christian Life
Commission, Texas Impact, the National Council of Jewish Women, the
Anti-Defamation League, Evangelical Pastors, and numerous other
religious orders and clergy members.
Only a few days ago, President Obama, in his Selma
speech, reminded us of one of our country’s enduring sources of
greatness, immigration. The United States of America still is the
world’s greatest destination for those yearning to breath free. We need
to fix our system to reflect that reality, not punish those who have
risked everything to be here.
SB 185 is the "show me your papers" bill. Sounds like SB 1070 in Arizona, right? Yes, this bill reflects the political will of the bigots in our state and state leadership.
The hearing where this will be heard begins at 8am on Monday morning March 16th at the Texas State Capitol as follows:
COMMITTEE: Veteran
Affairs & Military Installations-S/C Border Security
TIME
& DATE: 8:00 AM, Monday, March 16, 2015
PLACE: E1.016 (Hearing Room) CHAIR: Senator Brian Birdwell
I know that lots of folks are out on Spring break —and that's exactly when so many of the truly toxic and/or racist bills surface—because legislators that are zealous to railroad an agenda know that the community is either out of town or distracted by SXSW.
If you happen to be around, please make your way to the Texas Capitol on Monday morning and participate in the Texas Latino Advocacy mobilization, and the Texas AFT rally from 12:15-1:00PM on the South steps of the Texas State Capitol , too (see earlier post) to exercise your constitutional right to assemble and protest this injustice—and to advocate for adequate and equitable school finance, as well, while you're at it.
Senator José Rodriguez lays out here why this bill is both bad policy and inhumane. -Angela
Equitable school funding is one of the most important civil rights issues of our times—in terms of both adequacy and equity. This must further be understood in the context of a growth in child poverty, the attacks on the teaching profession to "teacher-proof" our schools, and our current high-stakes testing context that shames and blames schools and in so doing, paves the way for charters, vouchers, and marketization.
Pennsylvania
Gov. Tom Wolf (D) talks to fifth-graders during a visit to an
elementary school in Bellefontaine, Pa., on Monday, March 9. According
to new federal data, Pennsylvania’s state and local per-pupil spending
in its poorest school districts is 33 percent lower than per-pupil
spending in the state’s most affluent school districts, the highest
differential in the country. Wolf has promised to increase state
education spending and to address inequities. (AP Photo/Centre Daily
Times, Nabil K. Mark)
Children who live in poverty come
to school at a disadvantage, arriving at their classrooms with far more
intensive needs than their middle-class and affluent counterparts. Poor
children also lag their peers, on average, on almost every measure of
academic achievement.
But in 23 states, state and local
governments are together spending less per pupil in the poorest school
districts than they are in the most affluent school districts, according
to federal data from fiscal year 2012, the most recent figures
available.
In
some states the differences are stark. In Pennsylvania, per-pupil
spending in the poorest school districts is 33 percent lower than
per-pupil spending in the wealthiest school districts. In Vermont, the
differential is 18 percent; in Missouri, 17 percent.
Nationwide,
states and localities are spending an average of 15 percent less per
pupil in the poorest school districts (where average spending is $9,270
per child) than they are in the most affluent (where average spending is
$10,721 per child).
“What it says very clearly is that we have,
in many places, school systems that are separate and unequal,”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview. “Money by itself
is never the only answer, but giving kids who start out already behind
in life, giving them less resources is unconscionable, and it’s far too
common.”
In Pennsylvania, for example, millions of dollars in
state budget cuts to education during the past several years have
contributed to a funding crisis in Philadelphia, a high-poverty district
where many schools don’t have full-time counselors or nurses, and where
parents contribute funds to help buy such essentials as paper.
A
spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) did not respond to
requests for comment about the disparities. Wolf was elected in November
2014 after making education a central platform in his campaign,
promising to increase state spending on schools and to address
inequities. Wolf recently proposed spending an additional $2 billion on
public schools during the next four years and has been touring the
state’s public schools. A spokesperson for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D)
also did not respond to request for comment.
Bill
Talbott, of Vermont’s state education department, said that the federal
findings are “contrary to what we believe,” pointing to an independent evaluation
of the state’s school finance system that found “virtually no
relationship between wealth (measured by both district property wealth
and personal income) and spending levels.”
Talbott said state officials couldn’t pinpoint the reasons for the two different findings on short notice.
In
general, wealthier towns and counties are able to raise more money
through taxes to support their schools than poorer localities can. Many
states have developed school-finance systems that send extra dollars to
poorer areas in an attempt to mitigate those inequities. But the state
aid is often not enough to make up the difference.
Federal
spending — including through Title I, money meant to bolster programs
for poor children — is serving as an equalizer, according to the federal
data. When federal dollars are included, just five states are spending
less in their poorest districts than in their wealthiest. Nationwide,
the average disparity drops from 15 percent to less than 2 percent.
But
federal spending was never intended to equalize funding for poor
children, Duncan said. It was meant to add more money for students who
need more services.
“The point of that money was to supplement,
recognizing that poor children and English language learners and
students with disabilities come to school with additional challenges,”
Duncan said. “This is about trying to get additional resources to
children and communities who everyone knows need additional help.”
In
23 other states, students in the poorest school districts are getting
more state and local tax dollars per pupil than students in the most
affluent districts. The differences are biggest in Indiana and
Minnesota, which respectively spend 17 percent and 15 percent more in
their poorest districts than in the most affluent.
Federal
spending boosted expenditures in the poorest districts significantly in
both Indiana (25 percent more than affluent districts) and Minnesota (21
percent more than affluent districts).
The
graph below shows funding differences between school districts for each
state, with the ability to look at just state and local funds and also
funding that includes federal dollars.
How spending differs between the nation's poorest and most affluent school districts
Negative percentages mean that students
in the state's poorest school districts get fewer dollars per pupil than
students in the state's most affluent districts. Positive percentages
mean that students in the poorest districts get more dollars per pupil.
Three states (Colorado, Iowa and Utah) provide essentially the same
funding for the poorest and wealthiest school districts, with
differentials of less than half a percent. The federal analysis does not
include Hawaii or the District of Columbia, since in each of those
jurisdictions a single district comprises more than half of the student
population.
The National Center for Education Statistics released
the data on its Web site last month. The figures are based on poverty
data from the U.S. Census Bureau and financial information reported by
school districts.
The data sheds light on the wide variation in
education spending among states as Congress is trying to rewrite the
main federal education law, No Child Left Behind.
Much of the
debate about the law has centered on its standardized testing
requirements, but teachers unions and many advocates and Democrats see
the law as the federal government’s most powerful tool to improve equity
among schools.
The Obama administration wants Congress to add
another billion dollars to Title I, a $14 billion program. The National
Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, wants the
law to require schools and districts to publish an “opportunity
dashboard” that would shed light on how much access children have to the
kinds of resources many parents want, including arts and sports
programs, nurses and counselors, and advanced coursework.
House
Republicans included neither of those proposals in their bill to rewrite
the law, the Student Success Act, legislation that the Obama
administration has said would devastate schools in the poorest
communities.
The House began debate on its version of the
rewritten legislation last month, but postponed a floor vote. The Senate
has plowed ahead with bipartisan talks between Sen. Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate education committee, and Sen.
Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the committee’s ranking member.
Alexander
and other Republican leaders in Congress want to shrink the role of the
federal government, giving states far more latitude to decide how to
spend federal dollars and address struggling schools. But many Democrats
and civil rights groups want the federal government to have more
control in order to ensure equity among schools and students, arguing
that some states, if left to their own devices, would ignore the needs
of poor and minority children.
Alexander also is pushing for a
policy called “Title I portability,” which would allow federal Title I
dollars to follow low-income students as they move from school to
school. The Obama administration and many Democrats, including Murray,
argue that such a policy would exacerbate funding inequalities between
the poorest and wealthiest communities.
Asked to address the
concerns about civil rights and Title I portability in light of the new
federal data showing spending inequities in poor school districts, a
spokeswoman for Alexander said that conversations between Alexander’s
and Murray’s staff continue. “This is one of several questions staff are
addressing together,” she said.
The Senate education committee is expected to mark up a bipartisan draft during the week of April 13.
Rep.
John Kline (R-Minn.), the chairman of the House education committee,
previously responded to criticisms of the House bill and its inclusion
of Title I portability with this statement:
“The Student Success
Act offers states and families new opportunities to rescue children from
failing schools. Encouraging good schools to serve more low-income
students is the right thing to do. Ensuring low-income children receive
the best possible education and their fair share of federal assistance
is the right thing to do.” This post has been updated.
K12 Inc.” 
