[News] Betsy DeVos pushing Puerto Rico to close, privatize, add charter public schools

[Anti-Imperialist News]

theintercept.com 
<https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/puerto-rico-schools-betsy-devos/>


  Betsy DeVos is Helping Puerto Rico Re-Imagine Its Public School
  System. That Has People Deeply Worried.

Rachel M. Cohen - February 22 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Puerto Rico, in_ the midst of the chaos and instability following 
Hurricane Maria, is moving quickly forward with plans to institute a 
wide swath of education reforms, with the help of the aggressively 
ideological federal education department, helmed by Education Secretary 
Betsy DeVos.

Puerto Rico’s governor and education secretary have expressed openness 
to the concerns raised by parents, teachers and community members, and 
stress they are not looking to implement an extreme version of 
privatization. Yet at the same time, they have stoked fears by pushing 
forward a notably vague charter law that does little to address what 
people are most worried about. This “trust us” mentality has not been 
helped by the engagement of DeVos, nor by Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s recent 
visit to a notorious charter chain in Philadelphia last week — a prime 
example of the kind of low-performing, fiscally reckless charter that 
school advocates warn about.

At a time when the island is starved of investment and inching slowly 
through a storm recovery, many Puerto Ricans worry that the government 
is treating this more as an opportunity to disrupt education, rather 
than stabilize it — while also potentially opening the doors for 
supercharged corruption.

Puerto Rico’s public school system remains severely ravaged since 
Hurricane Maria, the Category 4 storm that tore through the island in 
late September. “The recovery has gone very slowly,” said Aida Díaz, 
president of the island’s 40,000-member teachers union, the Asociación 
de Maestros de Puerto Rico/. /“We still have hundreds of schools without 
electricity, internet, and many of our teachers and students are having 
classes just half-day.”

    “We still have hundreds of schools without electricity, internet,
    and many of our teachers and students are having classes just half-day.”

Rosselló delivered a televised address in early February announcing a 
package of educational reforms he’d like to bring to the island – 
including charters, vouchers for private schools, and the first pay 
increase for teachers in a decade. Puerto Rico teachers earn on average 
$27,000 a year, and would see increases of $1,500 under the governor’s 
proposal. “The current educational system does not respond to what is 
needed to train our students to succeed in a world that’s ever more 
competitive and complex,” Rosselló declared 
<https://www.elnuevodia.com/english/english/nota/readgovernorrossellosmessageaboutatotaleducationsystemreform-2396099/>.

Rosselló’s big announcement came on the heels of aseparate plan 
<http://www.primerahora.com/noticias/gobierno-politica/nota/quiereaeducacionporellibro-1265575/>he 
outlined in January, to close 305 of Puerto Rico’s 1,100 public schools. 
Rosselló said these closures would lead to an estimated $300 million in 
savings by 2022 – and by extension help the island recover from Maria 
and its long-term debt crisis. Puerto Rican citizens have long worried 
thegovernment’s interest 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/puerto-rico-debt-schools-close.html>in 
shuttering schoolswould be a first step 
<https://theintercept.com/2017/11/08/puerto-rico-schools-system-with-post-katrina-new-orleans-as-the-model/>on 
the road to privatization.

While Rosselló’s televised address garnered a lotof national attention 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-puertorico-debt-education/puerto-rico-governor-announces-public-education-overhaul-idUSKBN1FP2RV>, 
little has been paid to the 136-page bill 
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4385416-Puerto-Rico-School-Legislation.html> 
that was introduced several days later, and the vocal debate it has 
sparked within the territory.

Who helped craft the bill is not entirely clear.

Díaz, the teachers union president, told The Intercept that her members 
played absolutely no role in drafting the proposals. “They didn’t 
consider us, they didn’t invite us, we didn’t participate,” she said.

Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president for the National Alliance of Public 
Charter Schools, told The Intercept they “were not deeply involved in 
the bill drafting at all” but that they did have some conversations with 
people in Puerto Rico’s education department about charter legislation 
and how other states have handled certain issues. Ziebarth added that 
while his organization has not done a deep analysis of Puerto Rico’s 
bill, he thinks “it provides a good start for getting charters up and 
running.”

DeVos and her federal education department have certainly been involved. 
DeVos’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Jason Botel has been in “close 
communication” with Puerto Rico’s Education Secretary Julia Keleher for 
months since the storm, and in a blogpost published in January, 
Botelwrote 
<https://medium.com/after-irma-and-mar%C3%ADa-island-education-weathers-the/to-rebuild-rethink-and-renew-3a51755b8857>, 
“We look forward to supporting students, educators and community members 
as they not only rebuild what’s been lost, but also improve, rethink and 
renew.”

In an interview with The Intercept, Keleher, Puerto Rico’s education 
secretary, said that a local law firm helped them craft the bill, two 
law firms from the mainland that had experience working with charter 
schools, and a team from the federal department of education. “We did 
have a series of technical assistance from the U.S education 
department,” she said. “They didn’t comment on the bill but they did 
help us think through it, and helped us define what we thought should be 
the final set of things to include.”

In November, Rosselló tweeted pictures of a meeting he and Keleher held 
with DeVos and her staff, noting they were “itemizing the areas that 
need the most attention in order to restore our education system.”

The Department of Education did not return The Intercept’s request for 
comment, but earlier this month DeVostold a group of reporters 
<https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2018/02/08/devos-strikes-a-softer-tone-096814>that 
she was very encouraged by Puerto Rico’s leadership for embracing school 
choice after the hurricane. She praised its approach for thoughtfully 
“meeting students needs … in a really concerted and individual way.”

In November, In the Public Interest, a research and policy organization 
focused on privatization and contracting, submitted a request under the 
Freedom of Information Act to the Department of Education requesting all 
communications between Jason Botel and Julia Keleher between July 1 and 
mid-November, and all emails sent or received by Botel during that 
period that mention charter schools or Puerto Rico. The Education 
Department confirmed receipt of the FOIA request a week later, and 
granted the group’s fee waiver request on January 12. Shar Habibi, the 
research and policy director at In The Public Interest, told The 
Intercept they’re still waiting to receive the records.

_One controversial aspect_ of Puerto Rico’s proposed legislation is its 
language to allow multiple charter school authorizers. Authorizers are 
entities – such as school districts, state commissions or nonprofits – 
that grant charter schools the right to exist. They are also then 
responsible for ensuring that the schools produce sufficient academic 
results and comply with relevant laws and regulations. If a school fails 
to do so, an authorizer is supposed to revoke the school’s charter and 
shut them down. The quality of charter school authorizing ranges widely 
throughout the United States.

Section 13.04 of the bill states that either Puerto Rico’s education 
department or a Puerto Rican university can authorize charter schools. 
This language has raised concerns that Puerto Rico will open the 
floodgates to many charter authorizers like in Michigan – a state that 
has earned a reputation for having notoriously lax charter oversight. 
The more there are, the easier it is for bad charters to shop around 
<http://www.qualitycharters.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Authorizer_Shopping_Lessons_Ideas.pdf>for 
an authorizer that will let them stay open.

Karega Rausch, the interim CEO of the National Association of Charter 
School Authorizers, told The Intercept that their group does not have a 
hard-and-fast rule, or even guiding data, on the number of authorizers a 
jurisdiction should have – but they have observed that the overall 
quality of a charter sector can be “diluted” in places with too many 
authorizers. (Places like D.C., New Jersey and Massachusetts have just 
one charter authorizer, while states like Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota 
have many.)

Keleher, Puerto Rico’s education secretary, said she expects the 
legislation to be amended to allow for just one authorizer. “I think 
we’d want to stay away from having two based on what we understand as 
effective practice,” she said. The island’s senate is still holding 
public hearings on the bill.

Multiple news outlets this monthreported 
<http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2018/02/challenges_facing_charter_schools_in_puerto-rico.html>that 
Puerto Rico aims to start with 14 charter schools, two in each of the 
island’s seven provinces.

Keleher told The Intercept that this has never been a formal plan, and 
her off-the-cuff remarks were interpreted by the media as something she 
never intended. “People were asking me how many we would have, so I was 
trying to answer the question and suggested maybe two per region,” she 
said. “The next thing I know people are asking me where I’m going to get 
these 14 [charter] applications. I just said that number because two per 
region seemed reasonable to manage, so I thought it was a number that 
could help calm people down.”

Keleher says the department has no plans to do what New Orleans did 
following Hurricane Katrina, and that it should develop a formula to 
limit the number of charter schools in Puerto Rico. But, she said, that 
formula needs to be flexible and should be handled by education 
department after the law is passed. “If the schools are super successful 
and more people want them, we should allow that up to a point,” she said.

The proposed legislation would also allow for the creation of virtual 
charters in Puerto Rico – a particularly contentious type of online 
school, evenamong school choice supporters 
<https://www.the74million.org/article/study-online-charter-schools-not-making-the-grade/>. 
(DeVos is abig proponent 
<https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/08/education-betsy-devos-online-charter-schools-poor-results-243556>of 
virtual charters, and a former investor in them herself.)

    The proposed legislation would also allow for the creation of
    virtual charters in Puerto Rico — a particularly contentious type of
    online school, even among school choice supporters.

Keleher acknowledged the concerns around virtual charters, but says she 
remains optimistic about their potential. “I’ve taught in online 
classrooms,” she said. “It requires discipline and fidelity, and it may 
not be right for everyone.” She emphasized the importance of providing 
“options,” which she said could help bring new infusions of funds to the 
island. “If you look at what the president is prioritizingin his new 
budget 
<http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/02/trump_education_budget_2019_5_percent_cut_school_choice_push.html>, 
there’s a lot of emphasis on educational options,” she said.

In general Keleher advocates for an approach that leaves the charter law 
fairly vague (or as she calls, it “flexible”) so that her department can 
then craft regulations as it sees fit.

“We don’t want the law to be so tied to the reality of today,” she said. 
“We want to make it function as a lever to get the [education] 
department to behave in a way that we will produce strong results.” She 
pointed out that their last education law was incredibly detailed, “but 
very poorly implemented” and so this time they tried to go in the 
opposite direction. “We want to be sure that the system is responsive, 
rather than every time you want to adjust your program you have to amend 
your law,” she said.

The idea of creating an ambiguous law understandably has not eased much 
anxiety amongst Puerto Rico residents concerned about the pitfalls of 
school choice.

Even Ziebarth of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools says 
it’s better to put more into the charter law than less. “We tend to try 
to get as much into the law as we can, and while some decisions make 
sense left to regulation, I think if they have a chance to pass a strong 
charter law that’s better,” he said. “I think we know enough about what 
the fundamentals should look like – particularly around flexibility, 
accountability and funding – that they can put that in statute now and 
not go back later and deal with it.”

Ziebarth adds that especially if Puerto Rico is considering going down 
the road of virtual charter schools, the island should include their six 
policy recommendations 
<https://www.publiccharters.org/sites/default/files/migrated/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Virtuals-FINAL-06202016-1.pdf>. 
“They should definitely not repeat the mistakes that others have made in 
that area,” he said.

Vouchers for private schools are included in the education reform bill, 
but they would likely not be implemented until after charter schools get 
started. Kelehertold The 74 
<https://www.the74million.org/post-maria-puerto-rico-looks-to-charter-schools-vouchers-as-part-of-new-education-reform-strategy/> 
that given their budget situation, “it’s not something we can execute 
right now for obvious reasons.”

In 1994, back when Rosselló’s father, Pedro Rosselló, was governor, 
Puerto Rico’s Supreme Courtstruck down a proposal 
<http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/05/us/voucher-plan-for-students-is-struck-down.html>to 
establish a school voucher program. Puerto Rico’s leadership believes a 
series of court decisions issued over the past two decades, including 
from the U.S. Supreme Court 
<https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-06-26/private-school-choice-advocates-cheer-us-supreme-court-ruling>, 
have now paved the legal path for them to move forward with school 
vouchers.

_A recent trip_ taken by Rosselló has exacerbated concerns that he is 
not seriously grappling with the risks of his proposed education reforms.

Last week he visited an ASPIRA charter school in Philadelphia, and 
tweeted out after his visit that it represents an “excellent charter 
school model.”

But just two months ago Philadelphiavoted to close two 
<http://www.philly.com/philly/education/src-votes-to-shut-a-troubled-philly-charter-starts-process-for-2-more-20171214.html>ASPIRA 
charter schools for their low academic quality, as well as a host of 
financial scandals and mismanagement issues. For years there have been 
concerns that ASPIRA was self-dealing with public funds, and the 
situation was difficult to track because each ASPIRA charter is 
structured as an independent nonprofit, despite all sharing the same 
board of trustees through their parent organization. “It’s very 
difficult to follow the financial trail when there are so many 
complicated, connected entities, and money flowing throughout them,” 
said an official working in the Philadelphia School District officialin 
2014 
<https://whyy.org/articles/aspira-charter-provider-on-thin-ice-philly-school-district-says/>. 
A former accounts payable coordinator at ASPIRA alsofiled a federal 
whistle blower lawsuit 
<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160104_A_former_principal_alleged_charter_operator_misused_federal_funds.html>in 
2014, alleging that the charter operator misappropriated more than $1 
million in federal funds. The employee charged that ASPIRA made 
“repeated false representations” to the U.S. and state Departments of 
Education “in an effort to defraud the United States of taxpayer 
dollars, under the guise of providing quality education to some of the 
nation’s neediest students.” ASPIRA dismissed the charges as politically 
motivated. Then in 2016 news emerged that ASPIRA’s CEO had paid a top 
employee$350,000 
<http://www.fox29.com/news/local-news/fox-29-investigates/fox-29-investigates-aspiras-350k-sex-harassment-case-payout>in 
a sexual harassment settlement. Another former senior employeefiled a 
lawsuit 
<http://www.philly.com/philly/education/former-academic-leader-sues-aspira-says-she-lost-her-job-for-backing-sexual-harassment-claim-20170901.html>claiming 
she had been wrongfully terminated for helping her colleague file that 
sexual harassment complaint.

Díaz, the teachers union president, told the Intercept that Rosselló has 
been unresponsive to their concerns.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said 
Puerto Rico’s governor should be ashamed of himself. “He pretends that 
he’s a Democratic governor, but his playbook on schools is right out of 
Trump and DeVos,” she told The Intercept. “He won’t even tell the people 
of Puerto Rico what he’s doing as he secretly travels to an ASPIRA 
charter for a tour.” Weingarten says his behavior is “just baffling” and 
“one wonders who he is listening to.”

Keleher, for her part, emphasized that she’s trying to be very 
transparent and accessible with Puerto Ricans to discuss the reforms. 
This week her departmentorganized a forum 
<http://www.elvocero.com/educacion/educaci-n-realiza-conversatorio-sobre-las-escuelas-charter/article_7d3f4b44-165e-11e8-8070-fbbb2aa43cca.html>and 
last week shemet with parents 
<https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2018/02/18/padres-cuestionan-reforma-educativa-ante-keleher.html>from 
each region of the island.

“The governor appointed me and I am fully accountable to the people,” 
she said. “You can like my decision or not but I think I’m responsible 
for showing you how I got my decision, and at the end of the day I have 
to take the hit.”

    “He pretends that he’s a Democratic governor, but his playbook on
    schools is right out of Trump and DeVos.”

Still, the education secretary’s engagement with the public hasn’t 
always gone smoothly. Last week during a union-sponsored Q&A, Keleher 
abruptly stormed out 
<https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/nota/juliakeleherexplicaporqueabandonolaasambleademaestros-2399580/>when 
one teacher said the education secretary should return when she’s more 
prepared to answer their questions.

“Before this bill we were working together, we understood each other, 
and we agreed on many things,” Díaz told The Intercept. “But right now 
communications are stopped, I don’t think [the government] wants to 
understand our point of view.”

Indeed the question of whether charter schools in Puerto Rico would be 
unionized remains an open one. The proposed legislation says nothing 
about it. Most states do not require charter teachers to be in unions – 
indeed being union-free is seen by many charter advocates as a key 
characteristic of the model – but a few states, including Maryland and 
Hawaii, require it.

Keleher told The Intercept that they are staying intentionally “silent 
on the union issue” though she’s “not adamantly opposed if in the 
context of Puerto Rico” unionized charters seem like the best way to do 
it. She said, though, that if charter school operators want to come and 
oppose doing so with a unionized staff, she “would also understand and 
respect that” and she’s “very much in a 
let’s-see-what-makes-the-most-sense” position.

The last time Puerto Rico passed major education reforms was in the 
1990s, and some elements of the controversial bill have attracted 
support from union members. Aside from the $1,500 pay hikes, Díaz says 
her union also likes the new procedures outlined around making school 
budgeting more transparent, and creating regional education offices.

“But the rest of the bill is unacceptable to us, and we cannot support 
it,” she said. For now the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Ricowill 
continue mobilizing against the charter and voucher proposals, and 
Díaz said they are also going to start more vocally championing for 
public schools that provide robust wraparound social services.

“These kids and their parents have been traumatized,” said Weingarten. 
“Let’s try to create some stability in Puerto Rico after this terrible 
storm.”


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