Democrats Want Government Watchdog to Sniff Around Virtual Charter Schools

Democrats Want Government Watchdog to Sniff Around Virtual Charter Schools

Education Week logoTwo Democratic senators have asked the Government Accountability Office to look into how full-time virtual charter schools work and their results.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, expressed concerns about the virtual charters’ student-teacher ratios, students’ performance compared to their peers in traditional public schools, and their transparency when it comes to issues like executive pay and advertising.

“Accountability models, funding formulas, and attendance policies were created for brick-and-mortar schools, and yet, state funding and accountability policies have not kept pace with the growth of virtual charter schools,” Brown and Murray wrote to the agency.

Virtual charters have been going through a very difficult stretch. There’s intense skepticism about their performance and management practices. In Brown’s own state of Ohio, for example, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow disintegrated after a lengthy court battle over its claims about student enrollment. (Brown and Murray mentioned the ECOT fallout in their letter). Cyber charters in states like Georgia and New Mexico have also struggled to stay open.

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Betsy DeVos Shifts School Choice, Privacy Offices at Education Department

Betsy DeVos Shifts School Choice, Privacy Offices at Education Department

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team are moving forward with parts of a department-wide reorganization proposal unveiled earlier this year, including elevating the office charged with helping to advocate for the private school community within the federal bureaucracy, and changing the way privacy policy is handled.

The office of nonpublic education, which was previously part of the soon-to-be-defunct office of innovation and improvement, will now report directly to the office of the secretary. DeVos is a longtime advocate for vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and other forms of private school choice.

That move and other reorganization changes were first reported by Politico. Education Week logo

The remainder of the office of innovation and improvement will be moved to the broader office of elementary and secondary education, Education Week reported earlier this year.

DeVos is also planning to move the department’s budget office, which she has reportedly sought to eliminate, into a new office of finance and operations. That office’s other jobs will include finance, accounting, budgets, contract management, personnel, business data analysis and more.

And she will make changes to the way privacy policy is handled within the department. The department will continue to have a chief privacy officer, who will be housed in the office of the chief information officer. The chief privacy officer will be in charge of privacy legislation, privacy safeguards, and information collection and clearance. Subject matter experts in the family policy compliance office will provide student privacy technical assistance, and investigate Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act violations, said Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the agency.

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Five Things to Watch for When Betsy DeVos Makes Rare Visit to Capitol Hill

Five Things to Watch for When Betsy DeVos Makes Rare Visit to Capitol Hill

Education Week logoThe secretary will speak to lawmakers on the House education committee about the “policies and priorities” of the U.S. Department of Education. Compared to her predecessors, DeVos hasn’t been on Capitol Hill a lot during her roughly 16 months as education secretary, at least in terms of public appearances: She’s testified before spending committies three times, and once to the Senate education committee for her rocky confirmation hearing in January 2017. Tuesday’s hearing would be the first time she’s testified before the House committee that deals with K-12 issues.

DeVos has met privately a few times recently with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. But education committee lawmakers haven’t had the chance to ask DeVos detailed questions in public about her track record. In fact, on Friday, House committee Democrats sent out a fact sheet pointing out that her predecessors spent significantly more time testifying to Congress over comparable periods of time. In former Secretary Arne Duncan’s first 15 months, for example, he testified to Congress nine times.  

With a big House election in November coming up, Dems on Tuesday might be particularly eager to trip DeVos up during her testimony and spin what they see as embarassing sound bites into campaign ads.

So what might lawmakers ask DeVos? Democrats in particular will have pointed questions for her in the name of opposition party oversight; here are a few prominent items that might come up…

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Betsy DeVos Wants to Direct Federal Funds to School Choice, STEM, Workforce Readiness

Betsy DeVos Wants to Direct Federal Funds to School Choice, STEM, Workforce Readiness

Education Week logoU.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will give applicants for federal grants a leg-up if they are planning to embrace things like school choice, STEM, literacy, school climate, effective instruction, career preparation, and serving military-connected children and students in special education.

That’s according to the final list of Education Department priorities slated for publication in the Federal Register on March 1.

If the list looks familiar, it’s because it hasn’t gone through substantial changes since DeVos first outlined her proposed priorities back in October. DeVos made some tweaks based on more than 1,000 outside comments.

The department gives away at least $500 million in competitive-grant money every year. Every administration sets “priorities” for that funding. These matter because applicants that include one or more of those priorities in a grant proposal are more likely to get money. The priorities are one of the few vehicles DeVos—or any secretary—has for pushing an agenda without new legislation from Congress…

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Trump’s 2019 Budget Proposal and Education: What to Watch

Trump’s 2019 Budget Proposal and Education: What to Watch

Education Week logoPresident Donald Trump is expected to release his latest federal spending wish list on Monday. And the U.S. Department of Education may not fare well.

The proposal could include a billion or two more in cuts than last year’s budget pitch, which sought to slash more than $9 billion from the department’s nearly $70 billion budget.

This is going to be a confusing year because Congress still hasn’t finalized last year’s spending plan, for fiscal year 2018, which started on Oct. 1 and generally impacts the 2018-19 school year. Congress recently passed legislation extending funding for all programs at fiscal year 2017 levels.

Trump’s newest proposal, though, will lay out his administration’s asks for fiscal year 2019, or the 2019-20 school year for most programs.

The president’s budget is almost always dead-on-arrival in Congress, which is already poised to reject many of the cuts Trump proposed last year, including getting rid of the $1.1 billion 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

But budgets are a clear signal of the administration’s priorities. So what should you look for in this one? Here’s a quick rundown…

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Betsy DeVos: Rethinking K-12 Education Is About More Than Private School Choice

Betsy DeVos: Rethinking K-12 Education Is About More Than Private School Choice

Washington — A charter network that puts a premium on social-emotional learning. Public school districts that have improved their graduation rates through a focus on personalized learning and technology. A faith-based organization that exposes students to work-based learning experiences while they earn a high school diploma.

These are all educational institutions that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos highlighted Tuesday in a wide-ranging summit about how to “Rethink K-12 Education.” Also on hand: representatives from other charter networks, home schools, religious schools, and public school districts that have tried out new models, such as museum schools.

“This is not a conversation about school choice,” DeVos told reporters after the event wrapped up at U.S. Department of Education headquarters. “This is a conversation about doing what’s right for individual students. And it’s pretty clear from all of the participants today that we have innovation going on in traditional public schools. We have innovation going on in private schools and charter schools and home schools. And the focus really of the conversation is doing what’s right for students and looking for new ways to break down barriers to those opportunities for students.”

Big prevailing themes of the day included empowering children to take charge of their own learning, preparing teachers to offer students a more customized approach, and helping charters and other schools that offer a different approach to partner with traditional public schools…

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OPINION: Vouchers in Ohio Help Students Who REMAIN in Public School, and Harm Those Who Use the Vouchers to Attend Public Schools!

OPINION: Vouchers in Ohio Help Students Who REMAIN in Public School, and Harm Those Who Use the Vouchers to Attend Public Schools!

The Fordham Institute is one of the major backers of ‘choice’, vouchers, and charter schools — and of defunding public schools. So it’s quite a surprise when they publish a major study showing that students who use vouchers actually do WORSE than their peers who remain in the public schools.

You are probably thinking that I am joking or exaggerating.

No.

I will quote from the executive summary:

EdChoice improved the achievement of the public school students who were eligible for the voucher but did not use it. 

The students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools. The study finds negative effects that are greater in math than in English language arts. Such impacts also appear to persist over time, suggesting that the results are not driven simply by the setbacks that typically accompany any change of school.

Let us acknowledge that we did not expect—or, frankly, wish—to see these negative effects for voucher participants; but it’s important to report honestly on what the analysis showed and at least speculate on what may be causing these results.

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