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Charter Schools

The Theft Of Education: FBI Raiding Charter Schools Across Country

August 21, 2014 Ruth Conniff, www.truth-out.org , , ,
There's been a flood of local news stories in recent months about FBI raids on charter schools all over the country. From Pittsburgh to Baton Rouge, from Hartford to Cincinnatti to Albuquerque, FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents and making arrests leading to high-profile indictments. "The troubled Hartford charter school operator FUSE was dealt another blow Friday when FBI agents served it with subpoenas to a grand jury that is examining the group's operations. When two Courant reporters arrived at FUSE offices on Asylum Hill on Friday morning, minutes after the FBI's visit, they saw a woman feeding sheaves of documents into a shredder."—The Hartford Courant, July 18, 2014 "The FBI has raided an Albuquerque school just months after the state started peering into the school's finances. KRQE News 13 learned federal agents were there because of allegations that someone may have been taking money that was meant for the classroom at the Southwest Secondary Learning Center on Candelaria, near Morris in northwest Albuquerque ... "—KRQE News 13, August 1 2014

Teachers Protest Gates Foundation

June 28, 2014 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
A group of teachers is holding a rally Thursday evening in Seattle to denounce education reform measures they say have been an attack on public education and let corporate interests and high-stakes testing trump real student learning. The target of their protest: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whom the teachers say has used its monetary power to push corporate reforms and is symbolic of measures—like Common Core Standards and over-testing—that don't let educators be the decision makers of education policies. The action, organized by the BadAss Teachers (BATs) of Washington, whose vision is to "educate teachers, parents, students and communities on the long term consequences of current education reforms," begins with a rally and will lead to a march to the Gates Foundation headquarters. Julianna Dauble, full-time teacher in Renton, Washington and organizer of the action, told Common Dreams that the Gates Foundation "bought us Common Core," in addition to promoting other things like charter schools, increased testing and Race to the Top, without a democratic process that involves consulting teachers.

Charter School Funds Ads To Hide Truth

June 27, 2014 Eclectablog, www.eclectablog.com , , ,
It’s Day Four of the explosive Detroit Free Press exposé of Michigan charter schools and also Day Four of the National Heritage Academies complete takover of the websites of Detroit’s two biggest newspapers with a monstrous ad buy. NHA is Michigan’s largest for-profit charter corporation. Like yesterday, when you open the webpages of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News today, you’re greeted with an overwhelmingly large NHA banner ad. If you have your browser set for normal view (I zoomed out to grab this screen shot), the ad takes up well over three-quarters of the window. It’s a big damn ad. My friends at Progress Michigan did some research and found that the typical price for just one day of this type of advertising is $37,500. Multiply that by four days at two newspapers and NHA has spent roughly $300,00, over a quarter million dollars, on this ad campaign. And it’s only Wednesday. And the Free Press charter school series runs through Sunday.

De Blasio Quietly Adds Hundreds Of Millions For Charters

May 19, 2014 Sally Goldenberg, www.capitalnewyork.com , ,
When Mayor Bill de Blasio held a news conference on Monday touting his recent educational budget commitments, he highlighted additional money he will spend on arts programs ($20 million), after-school activities for middle schools ($145 million) and his signature proposal, universal pre-kindergarten ($300 million). He did not mention the multi-million-dollar boost for charter schools. Tucked in a 291-page document related to the Fiscal Year 2015 budget he unveiled on May 8 are two increases to charter schools: $26.9 million for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and an extra $219.7 million for next year. Those figures reflect spikes from the preliminary fiscal plan he unveiled in February. That brings the total amount his administration plans to spend on charters in FY2015 to nearly $1.3 billion, up from $1.06 billion this year. His budget spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, attributed the growing cost to higher tuition and expanded enrollment in both fiscal years, in part due to the mayor's decision to allow 14 charters approved under his predecessor to move into existing public schools next year. Since the preliminary budget was released on Feb. 12, enrollment in the city's 183 charters has increased by 1,073 students for FY2014 and 4,487 students for FY2015, Spitalnick said.
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