David Safier

by David Safier

People don't like vouchers. Voucher initiatives have been voted down every time they've been presented to voters. Arizona's two voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits and Education Savings Accounts, were passed by our conservative state legislature, and that's true in other states as well.

Big money conservatives like vouchers, so they keep pumping more money into the idea. Here's the latest. The Walton Family Foundation — the WalMart fortune — is putting $6 million into the Alliance for School Choice, a pro-voucher lobbying group working in Arizona and a bunch of other states, doubling the group's budget. For the Waltons, $6 million barely counts as lunch money. Their foundation is one of the financial pillars of the conservative "education reform" movement, and many, many millions more go into supporting charter schools as well as efforts to promote vouchers.

Let's connect a few dots. The head of Alliance for School Choice is headed by Betsy DeVos of the Amway fortune. She also founded the American Federation for Children (AFC), a conservative pro-charter/voucher/privatization organization. The AFC is joined at the hip to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a PAC that works to elect Dems in Democratic-heavy districts who support the privatization agenda, including vouchers. DFER opened a branch in Arizona this spring and along with the AFC has thrown its support behind three Democratic legislators: Sen. Barbara McGuire (LD-8), Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19) and the recently appointed Sen. Carlyle Begay (LD-7).

by David Safier

It's been more than two years since a tsunami caused six reactor meltdowns and massive radiation leakage at the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, and the place is still being held together with chewing gum and bailing wire. The reactors are in critical condition, one mishap or geological event away from a second disaster that could be worse than the first.

Surprisingly, no one is spending much time blaming the problems at Fukushima on the undereducated Japanese who weren't able to avert the disaster or fix the problems once they occurred, and we don't hear much about Japan's government being inept. Because, well, we're talking about Japan, not the U.S. Everyone knows Japan's schools are wonderful. In the recent international tests, they scored 4th in Reading, 4th in Science and 7th in Math, unlike the failing schools in the U.S. that came in around 20th place overall. And, well, those Asian countries know how to get things done, unlike our inept, debt-riddled, bureaucracy-laden, Kenyan/socialist-run U.S. government.

But for a moment, let's play the blame game, like it might be played by conservatives if this were a U.S. problem, complete with bold, underlined, all-caps pronouncements.

According to an AP story, Japan lacks decommissioning experts for Fukushima:

JAPAN HAS TO IMPORT EXPERTS TO DECOMMISSION FUKUSHIMA!! EXPERTS FROM THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE!!

Japan is incapable of safely decommissioning the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant alone and must stitch together an international team for the massive undertaking.

Imagine if the U.S. lacked the expertise to handle its technological messes and had to bring in people from other countries. That would be one more incontrovertible proof that our schools are failing.

by David Safier

An article in today's NY Times, via the Texas Tribune, discusses the way charter schools, which are funded with taxpayer dollars, hide much of their financial information from the public. The poster child: BASIS, which recently opened a San Antonio branch. BASIS's Texas application is online, but much of the application is blacked out because the charter schools are run by Basis.ed, a private, for profit corporation, and, according to the application, much of the material is "Confidential/Proprietary Information and/or Confidential/Financial Information."

It's an important story about how nonprofit charter schools like BASIS funnel most of their taxpayer dollars to for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs), also referred to as Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), where it is hidden from public scrutiny. The publicly traded corporation, K12 Inc., which runs virtual schools including Arizona Virtual Academy, is another prime example, and there are many more.

The story of the redacted BASIS application in Texas started right here. It was first reported by Ann-Eve Pedersen on the monthly cable access show she and I do, Education: The Rest of the Story. In her segment debunking the conservative myth that the business model will improve education, she displayed the BASIS application, which looks like an FBI file where entire pages are blacked out. I used her information to write the post, BASIS Charters' educational trade secrets. Some people in Texas who are concerned about the proliferation of Arizona charters like BASIS and Great Hearts in their state saw the post and the video, relayed the information to Morgan Smith, a Texas Trib reporter, and she used it as part of her article.

by David Safier

Positive comments about TUSD's new Supe H.T. Sanchez have been coming from nearly all corners. It's been amazing to hear such uniformly upbeat appraisals for any part of TUSD, which tends to be Bad Rap Central in the Star and among detractors on the right and the left. Now we hear another encouraging voice: Board member Mark Stegeman.

Stegeman has made reasonably positive comments about Sanchez from the time he was voted in as the new superintendent, even though Stegeman was the only No vote. But in his latest constituent newsletter, Stegeman goes farther in praising Sanchez.

What TUSD does need and has sorely lacked — for far too long –is careful decisions and strong management execution, week in and week out. . . .  From what I have seen, the quality of decisions has improved significantly since Dr. Sanchez arrived. This may be partly because Dr. Sanchez, who had a thin track record for managing a district as complex as TUSD, at least had more prior experience running a large organization than did other recent superintendents. Not only management execution but also the flow of creative ideas have improved since his arrival. If this trend continues, then the long run benefits will be enormous.