But some SBOE members and Texas Education Agency staff have been less thrilled by some details of Deion Sanders’ charter school plans, and a review of the application by the Texas Independent revealed portions of the document are identical to plans developed by other schools.

The National Football League Hall of Famer’s proposal is for twin charter campuses in Dallas and Fort Worth, offering a mix of academics, sports and leadership training, which he has said is an extension of his TRUTH program for youth sports. A three-year-old nonprofit called Uplift Fort Worth was created to sponsor the school.

While the board gave its go-ahead in September, SBOE member Michael Soto (D-San Antonio) wasn’t impressed by what he saw in Sanders’ presentation. “I have no idea what the applicant plans to do in the classroom,” Soto said before the vote, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Since then, other questions have arisen about some of the school’s financial arrangements — deals that would help its top officials profit from the school’s fundraising and property rental.

As the SBOE meets again in Austin this week, Soto told the Texas Independent he still has concerns about the rigor of the school’s academic plans, and has more questions he plans to raise with TEA staff.

A review of Prime Prep’s charter application by the Texas Independent has also revealed striking similarities between language in its plans — its “vision statement” and its plan for gifted and talented education — and existing language from charters and traditional public schools across the country.

Officials at the TEA and a state charter school association told the Independent that while new charters often consult other schools’ applications, borrowing language wholesale from other schools is not typical.

Despite early concerns, board was enthusiastic

NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, in a KDAF-TV report on his new charter school.

Even in the SBOE’s September meeting, members looked past other possible causes for concern on the way to approving Prime Prep’s application. Beyond Soto’s concerns about vague academic plans, some members were worried by its plans to use the online curriculum CSCOPE — a product that has been dogged by complaints, though it’s used by three-quarters of Texas’ school districts.

SBOE member Pat Hardy (R-Weatherford) told the Star-Telegram after the meeting that “she shared the concerns [about CSCOPE] but felt comfortable enough with the academic plans to vote to approve the academy.”

Even before the board took its vote, SBOE member David Bradley (R-Beaumont) told the Houston Chronicle he was impressed by Sanders’ proposal. “He assembled a first class management team and their presentation was flawless,” Bradley said.

Sanders and one member of the school’s management team, D.L. Wallace, also offered assurances that a 2010 lawsuit over a separate venture of theirs shouldn’t be a factor in the board’s decision.

That complaint alleges that through a company called PrimeTimePlayer, Wallace, with Sanders’ help, sold parents space in a book promoting high school student-athletes to college recruiters — a book, the suit says, was never published.

It also says Wallace tried to sell investors on a $25,000 buy-in on a deal that would net them $174,600 from a “revenue sharing agreement” for property to be leased to a new charter school.

Though the case is still open, Wallace told the Star-Telegram in September that the suit is “frivolous and has no merit.”

An October report by KDAF TV in Dallas said Sanders and Wallace had already lined up 2,000 students on a waiting list for the school, which would operate on a $10 million annual budget — much of that in outside donations. “We expect to get crazy, and get really big, really fast,” Wallace told the station.

“We met with Van Heusen, we met with Procter & Gamble,” Sanders said. “We met with the NFL on assisting us with our endeavors, and they turned a cartwheel.”

More questions about ties to PrimeTimePlayer

Over one month later, though, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Texas Education Agency staff had more questions about PrimeTimePlayer — which, according to Prime Prep Academy’s application, would be contracted to handle sales and marketing for the school.

Prime Prep’s application describes the corporate enthusiasm for the school’s concept, recalling a meeting Sanders hosted before this year’s Super Bowl in Arlington, including representatives from the NFL, Major League Baseball, Campbell’s Soup, Pepsi and Under Armour, among others. “All in attendance agreed that such an initiative has the ability to enhance the educational landscape for families in the inner city with limited options,” the application says.

And as the Statesman reported, a contract included with Prime Prep’s application said that as PrimeTimePlayer wrangled donations to augment state funding for Prime Prep Academy, it would get a 10 percent cut of the money for its troubles.

The fact that Wallace and another woman, Chazma Jones, are officers with both Prime Prep Academy and PrimeTimePlayer, was a red flag for the TEA and for Eric Dexheimer, the reporter who broke that story.

An attachment to Prime Prep’s application details the corporate donations already pledged to Sanders’ school, which total over $185,000, including large donations from Walmart and Bank of America.

Prime Prep Academy, according to its plans filed with the state, would also pay its rent to a company called Pinnacle Commercial Property Group — $5,000 a month in its first year, increasing to $9,500 a month in its third year. The Statesman uncovered another conflict there: “Secretary of State records show the company’s directors as of May 2011 to be Damien Wallace and Chazma Jones,” it reported.

“They didn’t initially reveal all the connections there,” TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe told the Statesman. She and Wallace told the paper that both PrimeTimePlayer and Pinnacle’s contracts had been removed; the property for the school will be given as a gift to Prime Prep.

But the application apparently still includes another PrimeTimePlayer project, an online student portal called PTP Study Hall, “fully integrated online software that has been tested and proven to increase proficiency on standardized tests, improve study habits and enhance the learning process,” the application says. “Designed especially to suit the diverse learning needs of 21st century youth,” the software includes practice SAT, ACT and TAKS tests.

(The URL given on the application, “ptpstudyhall.com,” directs to a blank default page.)

PrimeTimePlayer apparently sells monthly subscriptions to its online study hall for $19.95, but Prime Prep’s application doesn’t address whether students, or the school, will pay to use the service.

Repeated requests by the Texas Independent for Wallace and Jones to comment went unreturned. Ayana Young, a spokeswoman for Sanders and the school, did not reply to questions sent Friday. A TEA spokeswoman was unsure whether staff had requested details about access to the online portal.

Application includes language identical to other schools

The conflicts of interest were uncovered by TEA only after the SBOE approved Prime Prep’s charter, but Soto is concerned by the school’s “incredibly vague” academic plans, and told the Texas Independent he’s been getting concerned calls about the school.

Soto said he was unfamiliar, though, with another possible concern: that where Prime Prep’s plans do get specific about academics, the language is nearly identical to wording developed by some other schools.

For instance, Prime Prep’s “Vision Statement” given in its application begins (with emphasis added):

The vision of Prime Prep Academy is to provide exceptional opportunities for academic achievement, intellectual growth, artistic fulfillment, physical development, moral awareness, and community responsibility; resulting in well-educated, respectful leaders.

Greenhill School, a 61-year-old private school in a North Dallas suburb, includes the following in its mission statement:

As the region’s first co-educational independent school, Greenhill School provides exceptional opportunities for academic achievement, intellectual growth, artistic fulfillment, physical development, moral awareness, and community responsibility.

Prime Prep’s vision statement goes on:

Leaders are identified by their moral character and intellectual qualities. Prime Prep Academy will nurture the intellectual capacity of students with a foundation in reading, writing, science, technology and mathematics. Problem-solving and cognitive development will be heightened through the teaching of mathematics and scientific methods.

Here, again, the language is already being used, this time by Vision Charter School, an Idaho school that opened in 2007, which includes the following on the “About” page of its website:

Leaders are identified by their moral character and intellectual qualities. The Vision Charter School will nurture the intellectual capacity of our students with a foundation in reading and writing. Problem-solving and cognitive development will be heightened through the teaching of mathematics and the scientific method.

On page 21 of its application, Prime Prep outlines plans for its gifted and talented program:

Prime Prep Academy will offer a talented and gifted program designed to elicit higher level thinking. The talent and gifted program will be used to identify and nurture gifted potential among young learners. The problem-solving skills, thinking processes, and student products resulting from this program will provide observable evidence of a student’s ability to think and reason on advanced levels.

The program is structured around a five-stage model which provides students opportunities to connect content to prior knowledge, engage in new ideas, use thinking skills to consider possibilities, reflect on new learning, and connect the lesson to future learning.

This time, the language appears to originate with a public school district, Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, where the gifted and talented program is described like this:

In kindergarten through grade six, the critical and creative thinking lessons are designed to elicit a higher level thinking response. These lessons can also be used to identify and nurture gifted potential among young learners. The problem-solving skills, thinking processes, and student products that result from these lessons provide observable evidence of a student’s ability to think and reason on advanced levels.

Each lesson is structured around a five-stage model which provides students opportunities to connect content to prior knowledge, engage in new ideas, use thinking skills to consider possibilities, reflect on new learning, and connect the lesson to future learning.

In both cases, the sections go on to detail the same step-by-step process for instruction. Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman declined to comment on the similarities, but did confirm the language was developed by district staff.

‘Never a good idea to cut and paste’

Debbie Ratcliffe, the TEA spokeswoman, said she wasn’t aware of the language similarities in Prime Prep’s application, but that borrowing some inspiration wasn’t unheard of. “It wouldn’t surprise me if a charter did some things similar to public schools,” she said.

“Unlike journalism or legal writing, the education industry is very collaborative,” said Denise Pierce, the Texas Charter School Association’s vice president for member services. “They’re always out there trying to say, ‘Do this in your classrooms, this is what gets results for our kids.’”

“By and large, most of the charter applicants do write their own original applications,” added Josie Duckett, TCSA’s vice president for public and government affairs. She said her group does pass around sample charter applications that have been approved in the past, though Prime Prep isn’t a member of their group and didn’t attend their training sessions.

“It’s never a good idea to cut and paste, but it is a good idea to have an idea of what is the correct tone, and what did the last group of recipients write in their approved applications,” Duckett said.

Soto said the charter school system should be about systematic innovation, but the approval process has opened the door to a patchwork of operators across Texas. “There’s no real logic that I can identify for how individual campuses fit into a local or a state education landscape,” Soto said.

“Charters are by statute supposed to be innovative, and they’re supposed to be models for what’s new and interesting in education,” he said, “and for mission statements to repeat what can be found elsewhere, that seems not to jive with the very purpose of charters.”

Prime Prep Academy charter application

Image from the Louisiana Department of Education

As reported by TAI last Thursday, Roemer received $20,000 in donations from East PAC last week, one of the four “Big PACs” affiliated with The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), an organization claiming to promote the“free-enterprise system.”

The campaign gift appeared to exceed state limits on electoral contributions by $10,000; State campaign financial reports indicate the Roemer campaign returned that same amount on Friday.

Chris Sommers, Director of the Louisiana Campaign Finance Division within the Louisiana Board of Ethics, told TAI the Roemer campaign “realized [the $20,000] as soon as it happened.” Pressed for the date campaign officials first notified her over the excess amount, Sommers said she could not say.

TAI attempted to reach the Roemer campaign by contacting the number made public through state financial disclosure forms but was greeted by Mr. Roemer at Roemer Robinson Melville And Company, a venture capital firm. The candidate asked to speak to us at a later time.

Roemer, the son of former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, narrowly missed earning the majority vote in an Oct. 22 election that would have resulted in his outright taking the BESE seat — instead receiving 45 percent of the vote. Donald Songy finished second with 28 percent. A run-off between the two is scheduled for November 19.

While Roemer’s fundraising far exceeded that of his opponents in the BESE seat election, as previously reported by TAI, his supporters are aggressively raising money on his behalf.

A Louisiana Republican group affiliated with Gov. Bobby Jindal is asking supporters to help raise $200,000 for the Roemer’s reelection.

An e-mail attachment directs users to the 2011 Republican Victory Fund donation page. Contribution requests range from $5,000 to $100,000. Those limits are defined by state laws that say individuals can contribute up to $5,000 to a candidate per election — or up to $100,000 to a Political Action Committees (PACs) over a four-year period.

Filings after October 11 show Roemer added an $16,149.48 from state Republican Party contributions, plus an additional $53,500 from other sources.

Songy, meanwhile, has added $5,000 to his campaign purse strings following donations from a local SEIU chapter and the Louisiana affiliate of the National Education Association. The available records as of last week on Songy indicate his campaign has raised $13,830.00. Roemer’s earnings total $222,125.50, based on last week’s figures.

Yet state campaign finance records also show Roemer has spent less than $25,000 since January of 2010 through last week on his reelection effort. In the same period, Songy spent just over $6,400 on campaign expenses.

Roemer’s membership on BESE has been a source of rancor for groups opposing his unabated support for charter schools. Roemer’s sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS). The group advocates for expanding charter schools in the state and loosening restrictions on teacher tenure. In 2008, the state’s top ethics committee ruled Caroline Roemer cannot appear before BESE, but LAPCS is not restricted. Chas Roemer was not asked to recuse himself from hearings when LAPCS is present, though sections 1112 and 1120 of the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics indicate that he should.

A look at BESE meeting minutes in January of 2011 reveals (PDF) Chas Roemer voted on renewing the charters of multiple charter schools (Type 5 Charter Schools) that are members of the charter school association his sister leads. Some of those include the McDonogh schools, which belong to the KIPP and Algiers charter school networks.

A review of state financial reports by The American Independent found that East PAC, one of the four “Big PACs” affiliated with The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), an organization claiming to promote the“free-enterprise system,” made the donation to Roemer on Monday.

Image from the Louisiana Department of Education

Alainna Giacone, communications director for the Louisiana Board of Ethics, the body that regulates election campaign finance, told TAI: “The campaign finance chart limits the amount Big PACs contribute per election to no more than $10,000.”

The contributions were made ahead of November 19 run-off elections pitting Roemer against Donald Songy, a former educator and parish superintendent. The election results will determine whether Gov. Bobby Jindal will enjoy a “pro-reform” majority on the school boards sympathetic to expanding charter schools and weakening teacher tenure rules.

Giacone said The Board of Ethics will likely not take up the issue until December during its monthly meeting.

“Once we receive notice of a report for a possible violation, then it will be put on the docket,” she said. Giacone pointed to state laws indicating that the candidate and the PAC can face anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 in fines for the violation.

Roemer, the son of former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, narrowly missed earning the majority vote in an Oct. 22 election that would have resulted in his outright taking the BESE seat — instead receiving 45 percent of the vote. Songy finished second with 28 percent.

While Roemer’s fundraising far exceeded that of his opponents in the BESE seat election, as previously reported by TAI, his supporters are aggressively raising money on his behalf.

A Louisiana Republican group affiliated with Gov. Bobby Jindal is asking supporters to help raise $200,000 for the Roemer’s reelection.

Friends of Bobby Jindal circulated an e-mail on Wednesday that read, in part:

“This is a must win race.  We will need to raise $200k quickly to wage a strong campaign for Chas [Roemer] and provide him the support he needs to win election in 4 weeks.  Winning this last BESE race will give us a pro-reform majority on the BESE board, giving the Governor and strong partner in reforming our education system so every child can attend a good school and receive a great education.”

An e-mail attachment directs users to the 2011 Republican Victory Fund donation page. Contribution requests range from $5,000 to $100,000. Those limits are defined by state laws that say individuals can contribute up to $5,000 to a candidate per election — or up to $100,000 to a Political Action Committees (PACs) over a four-year period.

Friends of Bobby Jindal, however, is not a registered PAC. It cannot raise money but does not violate state laws soliciting on behalf of groups like The Republican Victory Fund.

On a comprehensive campaign finance filing dated October 11, Roemer’s records show he collected $117,250 to Songy’s $965.

Chris Sommers, Director of the Louisiana Campaign Finance Division within the Louisiana Board of Ethics, told The American Independent, “Certainly the Republican Party can spend unlimited amounts of money; however, just from what I have seen, solicitations aren’t often made in this way.”

Filings after October 11 show Roemer added an additional $16,149.48 from state Republican Party contributions, plus an additional $53,500.

Songy, meanwhile has added $5,000 to his campaign purse strings following donations from a local SEIU chapter and the Louisiana affiliate of the National Education Association. The available records on Songy indicate his campaign has raised $13,830.00. Roemer’s earnings total $222,125.50

Yet state campaign finance records also show Roemer has spent less than $25,000 since January of 2010 on his reelection effort. In the same period, Songy spent just over $6,400 on campaign expenses.

“Customarily, there isn’t a lot of money spent on these elections,” Sommers said, referring to BESE seats. “There is definitely more financial activity compared to before in connection with those races.”

Many corporate interests have backed Roemer.

LABI, made up of four regional PACs (West PAC, East PAC, North PAC, and South PAC) that each gave Roemer  $10,000, also through East Pac contributed an additional $20,000 on Monday. The state Republican Party gave nearly $34,000. While Gov. Jindal, who needs a two-thirds majority in BESE to have his choice for state superintendent of public schools appointed, donated to Roemer $5,000 through his campaign committee. His father Buddy Roemer has donated $10,000, spaced over the two campaign periods.

Roemer’s membership on BESE has been a source of rancor for groups opposing his unabated support for charter schools. Roemer’s sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS). The group advocates for expanding charter schools in the state and loosening restrictions on teacher tenure. In 2008, the state’s top ethics committee ruled Caroline Roemer cannot appear before BESE, but LAPCS is not restricted. Chas Roemer was not asked to recuse himself from hearings when LAPCS is present, though sections 1112 and 1120 of the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics indicate that he should.

A look at BESE meeting minutes in January of 2011 reveals (PDF) Chas Roemer voted on renewing the charters of multiple charter schools (Type 5 Charter Schools) that are members of the charter school association his sister leads. Some of those include the McDonogh schools, which belong to the KIPP and Algiers charter school networks.

The Educational Policy Improvement Center, the research center that released the study, selected (.pdf) comparison standards from California, Massachusetts and Texas, as well as the Knowledge and Skills for University Success and the International Baccalaureate program.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers for K-12 education.

The Standards Initiative helps “teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge” in “postsecondary education and the workforce,” and is not “the first step toward nationalizing education.”

As of October, 44 states have adopted the common core standards. The Florida Department of Education approved the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts and Mathematics in July 2010.

The Florida Education Association — the union that represents teachers and school support professionals — writes that “the standards, developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and education experts, establish clear and consistent goals for learning that will prepare our children for college and the workforce.”

According to Education Week, the study

comes on the coattails of an increasing push at the federal level to ensure students are leaving high school ready for college. The Obama administration’s recent waiver plan for the No Child Left Behind Act frees states from some of the law’s accountability requirements if they adopt standards for college and career readiness. A bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whose current version is the NCLB law, also makes that a priority.

David T. Conley, lead researcher on the report, told the publication: “There’s a big danger if you look at these standards as everything you need to know to be ready because it’s not. If you think they’re the perfect measure, they’re not.”

Conley added: “The common-core standards are a step in the right direction, but we still need more information on what makes a student college- and career-ready and still have a way to go toward creating stronger standards and assessments than [evaluating a student] by a cut score on a test.”

The amendment would remove a ban on taxpayer funding for religious groups. Amendment 7 is set to appear on the 2012 ballot.

Educators, religious leaders and civil liberties advocates filed the challenge to the amendment this past July. Among the groups opposed to the amendment is the the Florida Education Association (FEA). The group said in a statement announcing their challenge to the law that the current “no-aid” provision “protects the religious freedom rights of all Floridians by barring taxpayer-funded aid to religious institutions.”

“This is a shady way of opening the door for school vouchers for all,” said FEA President Andy Ford. “Throughout the nation, voters have repeatedly rejected voucher initiatives, which would weaken our public schools. The leadership of the Legislature realized this, so they approved an amendment whose ballot title, ‘Religious Freedom,’ and summary are misleading.”

Rabbi Merrill Shapiro filed a lawsuit with Americans United for Separation of Church and state — along with other religious leaders in the state. Shapiro has expressed concern over the effect the law would have on the sovereignty of religious groups. He explained to The Florida Independent that bigger problems will arise down the road, when religious institutions are further entangled with the government. ”It’s a thicket they can’t get out of,” Shapiro warned. “Once you take that money, the government can make stipulations.”

The Anti-Defamation League is also “acting as legal counsel to a group of Floridians who today filed a lawsuit seeking the removal of Amendment 7 from Florida’s November 2012 ballot.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida released a report arguing that state legislators “misled” the public by saying the original funding ban was a historically bigoted law aimed at keeping public funds away from Catholics.

The lawsuit filed by the FEA and others also goes after a provision in this year’s new and controversial elections law that makes it harder for groups to challenge ballot measures. According to the groups’ statement announcing the legal challenge, the lawsuit “also challenges another piece of legislation passed by the legislature this year that provides that the state attorney general may rewrite a ballot title or summary if the court removes it from the ballot.”

The ACLU of Florida joined the lawsuit against the measure and said in a statement yesterday the amendment would “remove Florida’s historic ban on taxpayer funding of religious groups (the ‘no-aid’ provision) and instead create a virtual mandate for religious groups to receive state funds.”

“The ACLU, Florida Education Association and other organizations oppose the amendment and are expected to argue that the title (‘Religious Freedom’) and drafted summary are misleading and the amendment should be blocked from the 2012 ballot,” the group’s recent statement says.

The PAC in question, Alliance for Better Classrooms, spent at least $300,000 in contributions on behalf of generally pro-charter, anti-teacher-tenure and anti-union candidates running for positions on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

The elections were this past Saturday, and though a couple of races are still inconclusive, state campaign finance reports show the business lobby, buttressed by Bloomberg dollars, far outspent groups aligned with teacher union positions.

Voters also re-elected Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to a second term, whose likely selection for the state superintendent of education is John White, current superintendent of New Orleans-dominated Recovery School District and former deputy school chief of New York City’s public school system. RSD has overseen the aggressive closure of schools in New Orleans which has led to the city leading the nation in the percentage of charter schools that make up its school buildings — around 70 percent.

Mayor Bloomberg has been a staunch supporter of charter schools, and White helped the mayor roll out his reform-styled education plans in New York.

Interestingly, the largest Bloomberg Trust donation occurred four days before the election; other smaller $5,000 donations from the Trust came through even closer to the day voters headed out to the polls.

BESE officials work part-time and are unpaid, but implement the laws the state Legislature passes and preside over the Louisiana Department of Education. In recent years, BESE has become a battle ground for business-backed reform candidates, moderates, and progressives who seek to curb or protect teacher tenure laws and the presence of charter schools.

Implications and the money

The implications of this election are at first glance not deserving of the big money coming from the likes of an organization bearing the billionaire mayor of New York City’s name. But the 11-member BESE determines whether the politically conservative education reforms taking place in Louisiana will continue at an even greater pace, and whether big-business groups sympathetic to the now re-elected Gov. Jindal can have even greater sway in the state’s education system.

Alliance for Better Classrooms is backed by Lane Grigsby, founder and Board chairman of Cajun Contractors, Inc., a successful construction firm that in the last two years alone was awarded $300 million in civil projects from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A Times Picayune article indicates Cajun Contractors earns $400 million a year.

Also behind the PAC is Mike Wampold, a construction developer whose company builds luxury residential and large commercial properties.

Grigsby has gone on record complaining about teacher tenure in the Pelican State, saying not enough teachers have been let go. In the same Times Picayune article, the semi-retired businessman stressed performance is improved through competition, something of a rallying cry for education reformers who seek to buffer public education with a free-market sheen.

In total, Alliance for Better Classrooms donated $300,000 to what they call “pro-reform” candidates. The PAC received large donations from a few individuals and companies: $90,000 from Cajun Industries; $100,000 each from Grigsby’s wife Barbara Grigsby and the Bloomberg Trust; $25,000 from ISC Constructors; and four $20,000 donations from private citizens, including lawyer Michael C. Moran and Todd W. Grigsby, the elder Grigsby’s son.

Reform-style candidate, backed by business lobby, under scrutiny for loose ethics

Chas Roemer, son of former governor Buddy Roemer, is a BESE member squarely in the reform camp who benefited from the business community’s financial largesse.

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), a self-proclaimed promoter of the “free-enterprise system” that benefits the business community, set up four regional PACs (West PAC, East PAC, North PAC, and South PAC) that each gave Roemer, an incumbent, $10,000. The state Republican Party gave nearly $34,000. Gov. Jindal, who needs a two-thirds majority in BESE so that his choice for state superintendent of public schools is appointed, gave Roemer $5,000 through his campaign committee.

Roemer’s membership on BESE has been a source of rancor for groups opposing his unabated support for charter schools. Roemer’s sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS). The group advocates for expanding charter schools in the state and loosening restrictions on teacher tenure. In 2008, the state’s top ethics committee ruled Caroline Roemer cannot appear before BESE, but LAPCS is not restricted. Chas Roemer was not asked to recuse himself from hearings when LAPCS is present, though sections 1112 and 1120 of the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics indicate that he should.

A look at BESE meeting minutes in January of 2011 reveals (PDF) Chas Roemer voted on renewing the charters of multiple charter schools (Type 5 Charter Schools) that are members of the charter school association his sister leads. Some of those include the McDonogh schools, which belong to the KIPP and Algiers charter school networks.

Why Gov. Jindal cares about BESE

Jindal can appoint three BESE representatives; though the reform camp has a one-member majority, an additional member sympathetic to the pro-charter reform movement would put the coalition over the top. The governor’s likely selection for the top education position, White of the Recovery School District (RSD), is also an alumnus of Teach for America (TFA).

One BESE election that had the attention of many was between incumbent Louella Givens and the head of TFA in New Orleans, Kira Orange Jones. Neither candidate won a majority of the votes, and a run-off is set for mid November.

Jones is viewed as a potential member of the Jindal coalition on BESE.

Givens, known as a supporter of teachers unions and a constant critic of RSD and charter schools, took in $11,000 from the state affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. Another $2,000 came in from the Louisiana School Board Association (LSBA), an organization very critical of the state’s education policy moves.

Jones, meanwhile, received $40,000 from the four PACs created by LABI and $5,000 amounts from dozens of contributors, including the Bloomberg group, and donors from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

American Federation for Children, a non-profit that is regarded as the leading group in advocating for school voucher programs, donated heavily in the Saturday elections. It raised $100,000 from ISC Construction, $25,000 from Cajun Industries and $1,000 from a group called Friends of Bobby Jindal.

Charter schools are semi-autonomous education institutions with private school boards. In New Orleans, they operate as miniature school districts and remain popular among lawmakers despite incidents of poor student treatment, aggressive punishment tactics, lackluster academic gains and testing improprieties. National studies suggest the success of charter schools is limited, and more charter schools underperform compared to traditional neighborhood schools than those that compare more favorably.

However, parents have higher marks for charter schools, including in New Orleans, and prefer the experimental schools to traditional neighborhood programs.

As chairman of the board and president of the Foundation, Bush is working at the national level to support the implementation of choice, competition, school vouchers and testing.

Bush said on Al Punto that laws need be changed in all 50 states to ensure students have access to digital learning, an important issue for the Foundation.

“There are barriers to digital learning, but content must and can be much better than what students currently receive,” Bush said. “There is a lack of good teachers in many places, especially in urban districts. In my opinion, part of the solution is the use of existing technology.”

According to Education Week, a recent U.S. Department of Education analysis based on 2009-10 data from 2,200 school districts shows that teachers in schools where the majority of students are African-American or Latino are “paid significantly less—approximately $2,500 per year.”

The Foundation for Excellence in Education held its National Summit on Education Reform last week; the goal was to offer “an opportunity for lawmakers and policymakers to learn the nuts and bolts of reform.”

Bush was joined on Al Punto by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat who supported his state’s recent approval of the California DREAM Act.

Bush added that in order to make sure more Hispanics and other minorities make it to college, “we need to listen to the mayor,” adding that local reform to include everybody is necessary. Bush said there is a nationwide understanding that children’s expectations must be increased.

Bush said there is a philosophy that says that recent immigrant Hispanics cannot learn, and if “we reduce [children's] expectations we will get those results.”

Villaraigosa said schools must be reformed, “money must be invested where problem exists” and “we must have the most effective teachers.”

The report relies on answers to a series of surveys sent out to principals asking about instructional time in the classroom, the length of the school year, satisfaction with alternative teacher accreditation pipelines like Teach For America and teacher professional development.

Here are some key findings, beginning with responses concerning educational manners:

• Charter schools average two fewer education days per year than traditional schools, 177 to 179.

• The instructional day was half an hour longer in traditional schools than charters, 7.6 to 7.1 The national average, according to National Center on Time and Learning, is 6.7 hours.

• On a scale of 1 to 4, teachers at charters averaged a 2.5 to the statement they can maintain discipline in the classroom; teachers from traditional schools averaged 1.9.

Some results are counter-intuitive, but the study seems to play into the hands of organizations and advocacy groups skeptical of charter schools as reliant on less qualified teachers and as contracting out transportation and nutritional services.

Consistent with previous studies, parents still view charters more positively. The study authors remark that satisfaction might reveal socio-economic attitudes about choice and freedom of selection:

“Given that charter school parents who responded to the survey reported having a greater sense of choice than their traditional school counterparts, a lingering policy question is whether the system of citywide choice is equally accessible and navigable by all citizens of New Orleans.

The parent responses we received would suggest that it may not be.”

Since school closure happens at a greater rate in New Orleans than in other urban areas the researchers were careful to survey administrators and parents from campuses who have had their doors open for at least a few years. Seventy-five of the 86 public schools operational in 2008-2009 were sent surveys; 42 were charters and 33 were traditional, district-run schools.

New Orleans public schools [Read TAI's in-depth look at the city's school system] underwent an extreme state take-over following Hurricane Katrina, resulting in multiple districts overseeing different schools; however, the study warns that as many traditional schools report to the experimental Recovery School District, the usual lines separating charters from traditional schools blur.

Also from the study:

• Among responding principals, those at charter schools reported being somewhat more likely than their traditional school counterparts to have hired a teacher directly from a traditional licensure program (16 percent versus 7 percent of their newly hired teachers, respectively), whereas charter school principals were reportedly less likely than their traditional school counterparts to have hired a teacher from the alternative route program Teach for America. (TAI note: TFA has a non-binding contract with the Recovery School District to send its teachers to New Orleans classrooms)

• Charter and traditional school principals gave similar ratings of teachers they had hired from traditional versus alternative licensure programs, rating the former at 3.3 on a satisfaction scale of 1 to 4, versus 2.8 for Teach for America Teachers

[…]

• Traditional school teachers reported having about 3.3 more years of experience than their charter school counterparts, at 13 versus 9.7 years, on average. This difference in average experience level also accounted for a slightly higher average salary level reported by traditional school teacher respondents than their charter school counterparts.

• Charter school teachers reported receiving about 21 fewer hours, on average, of professional development than their traditional  school  counterparts,  at  70  versus  91  hours during the school year and preceding summer.

Studies like this one out of the University of Virginia show teacher experience at the same grade level leads to higher student achievement.

State Rep. Erik Fresen and state Sen. Don Gaetz (both Republicans) will speak at the National Summit on Education Reform next week in San Francisco. The summit — organized by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, founded and led by former Gov. Jeb Bush — “offers an opportunity for lawmakers and policymakers to learn the nuts and bolts of reform.”

The Foundation for Excellence works at the national level to support the implementation of choice, competition, school vouchers and testing.

The Miami Herald reported Thursday that Fresen said that during the 2012 legislative session, “he expects to examine how college and university courses match job-market demands. Professor tenure may be part of the discussion.”

This is precisely what Fresen, a Miami Republican, will talk about in San Francisco. The summit’s agenda has Fresen on a five-member panel addressing “an end to tenure and destructive last-in, first-out policies. Salaries that reflect student learning rather than seniority. Learn how lawmakers and policymakers from states around the nation are changing the paradigm of the teaching profession.”

The Herald adds that Fresen thinks maximizing “the ‘profitability’ of the state-funded Florida Virtual School” and allocating “more taxdollars per student to charter schools” should “be on the table.”

Gaetz is one of two scheduled panelists who will speak about “Don’t Let a Financial Crisis Go To Waste,” which will address “the best and worst components of education funding formulas, and just what lawmakers and policymakers can do to get a better return-on-investment for their education dollars.”

Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica Corporation and Fresen’s brother-in-law, will also speak at the summit about expanding capacity of charter schools. According to the Herald, in April a Tallahassee mother of three filed an ethics complaint against state Fresen who voted in the House “for a broad charter schools reform bill.” Fresen called the complaint “another misguided attempt to create smoke where there is no fire.”

SB 175, first introduced by Democratic State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, has been in the works since May of this year, but is moving along in the Senate education committee after supporters of the bill gave testimony in favor of its passage recently. The committee is split six to three in favor of Republicans.

“We need to make sure that we are not punishing excellent public schools financially by supporting charter schools that continually fail to provide our children a quality education,” Schiavoni told The American Independent. “This bill levels the playing field between our charter schools and public schools by holding them accountable for their results.”

He added: “In these economic times where state resources are so scarce, it’s critical that taxpayer dollars for education are spent efficiently. This bill makes sure of that.”

Officials close to the proceedings tell The American Independent superintendents and treasurers from local school districts came to the senator after noticing a drop-off in enrollment. Financially, losing a student spells trouble for a neighborhood school, as local dollars raised through property taxes, and state funds, travel with the student to the new school. Many became frustrated over what they saw as disproportionate amount of funding to charter schools in the state despite their performance indicators trailing traditional, neighborhood schools.

According to testimony given to the education committee by Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio, a progressive think-tank based in Columbus, charter schools (known as community schools) have a median performance index of 77.6, which is worse than all but six school district scores. He added: “Meanwhile, only 23 charters scored better than the median traditional school district score of 99.4.”

Funding for neighborhood schools has increased by 26 percent since 2000, compared to 1285 percent in expanded funding for charter schools. While that number reflects the quick build up of charter programs in the state, many of the schools don’t pass the muster.

Also from his testimony:

Of the 100,064 children enrolled in charters, about 24 percent attend school in an effective or better building; about 6 percent attend school in an excellent or excellent with distinction building, and nearly 40 percent attend school in a failing building. That means that about 40 percent of the $721 million the state spent last year on Community Schools, or about $290 million, went to educate children in failing buildings.

By way of comparison, about 60 percent of all traditional public school children attended school in an Excellent (A) or Excellent with Distinction (A+) building. So that means of the $5.6 billion the state sent to school districts, $3.3 billion of that went to give children an excellent education.

Meanwhile, only about 99,000 of the state’s 1.7 million children educated in the traditional public schools attended a building in Academic Watch or Emergency.

Boardman Local School Superintendent Frank Lazzeri, who testified in favor of SB 175 in late September, told the committee charter schools are draining his district’s resources.

“This past year the Boardman Local School District sent $807,762 to community schools – all of which were underperforming and nearly half of which were on-line schools,” Lazzeri said. “Since the inception of community schools our district has lost over $6.1 million of funding to poor performing community schools.”

He added: “What is odd is the fact that the Boardman School District only receives about $1,400 per pupil in state foundation money. However, when a child leaves our district to attend a community school, $5,753 is deducted from our foundation money and given to the charter school.”

Unlike brick and mortar campuses, on-line charter schools are not beholden to overhead costs like heating, maintenance, school supplies, and transportation.

Federal education laws under No Child Left Behind already permit students to leave schools that underperform for more than two years. However, that provision pertains to Title 1 schools, or places of instruction with a high number of economically disadvantaged students.

“I believe that some parents are misled by the advertising and promotions offered by charter schools when making a decision on their child’s education,” said Sen. Schiavoni. “Unfortunately, many students who leave for charters return back to their public schools and are behind in their academic performance compared to peers.”

Though the intent of SB 175 is to encourage struggling schools to improve, a 2010 study (PDF) from The Thomas B. Fordham Institute — which operates charter schools in Ohio through a separate foundation — found that change does not come easy to most campuses in the country.

After identifying over 2,300 U.S. low-scoring schools from 2003 to see how well they improved over a five-year period, researchers noted less than one percent posted better performance indicators. Fewer than ten percent made even moderate gains. Charter schools, however, demonstrated a greater drop in the number of failing programs, but only by virtue of shutting down more campuses. Nine percent to 11 percent of neighborhood schools were shuttered; the percentage of schools demonstrating improvement was even between the two categories.

More recently, a high-profile analysis (PDF) of Pennsylvania charter schools found that online charter programs lag significantly behind campus-based education facilities. The study also found student performance improves the longer he or she is enrolled at a charter school, and for brick and mortar campuses, charter schools were statistically even with neighborhood schools.

Other national- and state-specific studies show a picture of charter schools mostly training neighborhood schools in outcomes. A report from The Center for Research and Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted the nation’s first comprehensive comparison of charter and neighborhood schools, finding that for every 17 charters that perform better, 37 perform worse. The remaining schools were indistinguishable from their virtual public school twins. Fifteen states and Washington D.C., were scrutinized in the study (PDF).

The report did find charters with similar demographics to district schools performed better at the elementary and middle school level; a study in association with The National Charter School Research Project found (PDF) similar results.

President Obama supports the expansion of charter schools, and has called on states to break down barriers to charter accreditation.

Follow The American Independent as we continue to report on charter schools and federal education policies like No Child Left Behind.