Headlines
PA: Big money behind pro-voucher attack on lawmaker?
MI: Charter schools spend more on administration than public schools
MI: Public safety, transit cuts in Detroit budget proposal
MD: Mount Vernon Square privatization approved by Baltimore
CO: School funding: Stop giving away public assets
PA: Big money behind pro-voucher attack on lawmaker?
A flyer attacking State Rep. James Roebuck for opposing school vouchers is hitting mailboxes throughout his West Philadelphia district. “James Roebuck blocked kids from attending the schools of their choice,” is printed in big red letters above an unflattering photo of Roebuck with his mouth hanging open…”It’s obviously a really slanted piece. I don’t support vouchers. I do support school choice,” says Roebuck. “What we need to do is open up more options for students within the existing public school system so we don’t divert money out of the system to the benefit of some kids and not the many.”
Pro-voucher activists are spending big money to fund Roebuck’s challenger, Penn alum Fatimah Lorén Muhammad. The pro-voucher group Students First, according to state campaign filings, has donated $25,000 to Muhammad’s campaign. The mailer, however, was sent out by a third-party group called Public Education Excellence…Students First once again has big plans to support pro-voucher candidates across the state and has so far spent a whopping $590,682 in 2012…Hedge fund dollars notwithstanding, polls show that most Pennsylvanians oppose school vouchers. Philadelphia City Paper
MI: Charter schools spend more on administration than public schools
While charter school advocates criticize public school bureaucracies as bloated and wasteful, it turns out that charters spend more on administration and less on instruction than traditional public schools, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar. The study, which examines school spending in Michigan, found that charter schools spend nearly $800 more per pupil on administration and $1,100 less on instruction, said David Arsen, MSU professor of education and lead researcher on the project. The study controls for factors such as funding levels, student enrollment and school location.
..The study doesn’t examine the reasons for the discrepancy in spending. But Arsen said it’s likely related to the fact that 84 percent of traditional public schools’ expenditures are related to personnel costs – mostly salaries and benefits – thus driving instructional costs up. When it comes to administration costs, charter schools dedicated more than $500 per pupil to general administrative services such as paying organizations to run the school. Michigan State University News
MI: Public safety, transit cuts in Detroit budget proposal
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s administration calls them essential core services, but the budget proposal presented to the City Council on Thursday doesn’t spare public safety, transit or lighting from cuts, possible privatization or major restructuring. That means Detroiters would be likely to feel the effects of the city’s first budget proposal under a consent agreement that requires officials to balance the budget and begin to pay off long-term debt. Wage cuts for police officers and firefighters and further reductions to the city’s struggling bus system were among the biggest cutbacks proposed Thursday in Detroit’s $1.2-billion 2012-13 budget. Detroit Free Press
MD: Mount Vernon Square privatization approved by Baltimore
As expected, the Board of Estimates signed off yesterday on an agreement to place management of Mount Vernon Place and the Washington Monument into private hands…But the privatization agreement – in particular a proposal by the group’s architect to cut down many of the park’s existing trees – remains the subject of intense criticism in some quarters. “It was a done deal at the Board [of Estimates],” Mount Vernon Place resident Arthur Kutcher told The Brew, explaining why he thinks most critics skipped the meeting. Another opponent of the Conservancy’s plan, Hugh C. Ronalds, said residents should oppose the city’s agreement not just because of the tree-cutting but because the public-private partnership sets “a bad precedent.” “There is no oversight – this private group has a free hand to do whatever they want,” said Ronalds who, together with Kutcher, has sent an op-ed on the subject to The Brew. Baltimore Brew
CO: School funding: Stop giving away public assets
When your grandpa volunteered to build the local school and your parents volunteered on school committees, they never thought that school district assets would be given away in the hundreds of millions of dollars to private, for-profit/for-gain companies, but that is exactly what is happening. And, as a by-product of that financial transfer, control of these half-billion dollars each year is transferred from public to private interests. Public educational assets are transferred to private interests in two ways: conveying operational funds and conveying real estate interests…Few constraints on spending priorities exist except for maintaining fiscal solvency. The second transfer of taxpayer assets to private interests is that of real estate in school privatization. When the $400 million to $600 million (Colorado State Treasurer) in existing state-backed real estate bonds for charter schools are paid-off with tax-dollars, a process taking place continuously over the years, these publicly-paid-for buildings will belong to the private-corporations of charter schools, and, when they are sold, the equity will belong to the charter schools’ owners, not to taxpayers (Colorado State Treasurer). The charter school owners can keep this half-billion dollars or disburse it as they like. When these billions of dollars leave public control and are controlled by corporations, they no longer are constrained to serve the needs of public school children. Instead, the half-billion dollars per year in operating funds constitutes a slush fund to be spent as for-profit and for-gain private businesses determine. The Denver Post