Families for Excellent Schools - NYC Hedge Funders Take Over Massachusetts Education

Please read the blog and then, if you would be so kind, sign the petition.

Families for Excellent Schools (AKA Unify Boston) is a New York City based lobbying, charter school promotion organization that has extremely deep pockets and is more than happy to bowl over anything, and anyone, that gets in the way of its goal of taking public tax dollars and placing them into private hands.

They spend humongous amounts of money to get what they want. I'm pretty sure $11 million dollars a year is way more than most "grass roots" (that's what they actually call themselves) organizations can come up with.

     From FESs' 990 tax filing last year

As a matter of fact, Families for Excellent Schools has set all time spending records, almost $1.5 million a month - for a multi month span, lobbying the New York State Legislature.

Oh, and heads up if you're a politician, you do not want to get in their way. In March of 2014 Families for Excellent Schools launched a three week, $3.6 million dollar attack on NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio because he stopped three privately owned Success Academy charter schools from setting up in publicly owned buildings.

But I want to talk about Massachusetts.

In December of 2014, Charlie Baker appointed Jim Peyser to be the new secretary of education for the Commonwealth. Before becoming our Secretary of Education, Mr. Peyser worked for... Families for Excellent schools. :(

     From FESs' 990 tax filing last year

Not surprisingly, Mr. Peyser is extremely pro charter school. As a matter of fact, he's so pro charter school that he wishes Mayor Walsh would care a lot less about the Boston Public Schools budget crises (the crises that is a result of charter schools taking $973,500,000 from each BPS school) and be more vocally pro charter school.

Boston Public Schools also has a new superintendent, Dr. Tommy Chang. Sadly, Dr. Chang is also from a charter school background. (If you think this is sounding bad for public schools in Boston, you would be right)

The funny thing about Dr. Chang becoming superintendent is that after a week long dog and pony show with panels interviewing candidates for the position of BPS superintendent, I knew who got the job (and who picked Dr. Chang) hours before the school committee vote. A friend sent me this text on March 3rd at 12:30 in the afternoon. The school committee vote "electing" Dr. Chang was at around 7:00 that night.

Last week (the last few weeks?) Dr. Chang appointed his cabinet. I'll give you one guess as to what organization his new chief of staff, Makeebe McCreary, worked (works?) for. That's right, the very organization that promotes lifting the charter school cap (and subsequently completely de-funding BPS) Families for Excellent Schools. 

What this is boiling down to is that - the people who are paying for and whose children attend BPS, the taxpayers and citizens of Boston, have lost all say in what happens in, and to, our schools. 

State wide and city wide, outside organizations are swooping in, swooping up our tax dollars and making decisions that should be our decisions. 

If you haven't read it yet, please read about the impact that charter schools have had, to the tune of $973,500.00 less funding, per BPS school, here.

These are our schools. Our children attend them. Our taxes pay for them. We do not want hedge fund managers from NYC infiltrating and taking over what belongs to us. As parents and Bostonians we need to speak up because we're the only ones that can - without fear of repercussion.


John Lerner, Roxbury BPS parent and member of the Boston Educational Justice Alliance.

A Guide for Boston Charter Schools*

How to Get Great Test Scores, a $5,971,713 Annual Bonus,

and Seriously Harm 54,312 Boston Public School Children**

I’m the dad of a Boston Public School 2nd grader. Over the last 16 months I’ve been, along with others, looking into Boston’s charter schools. It began when my 1st grader came home with a note in her backpack, in January of 2014, telling parents that her school will begin seeing serious underfunding in the 2014/2015 school year.

Not long after that note came home, a group of parents from Boston Public Schools began to band together to try and fix what turned out to be a $90M+ district wide shortfall for our FY15 school year.

As we talked and dug into this, one of the things we discovered was that because of the way charter schools are funded, by receiving all of their funding from a district's state aid, that charter schools would be taking about 50% of Boston’s state aid this school year. That’s $100M+ for 7,500 charter school kids, and $100M+ for 54,312 Boston Public School Kids. That information is part of what began to put Boston’s charter schools under the microscope.

We began to hear (from our newly formed parent network of thirty schools) that charter schools dump vast amounts of kids right before MCAS/PARCC testing in March. It’s called skimming, and they do it to boost their MCAS/PARCC test scores.*** I dug into it, and the push out turned out to be 100% true. The skimming practiced by six Boston charter schools can be seen here. To this day I don’t understand how this is allowed and wonder if this is actually unlawful. About a month ago the Massachusetts charter industry was running around with a “CREDO” study that stated how Boston charter schools outperformed Boston Public Schools. Well, this is how they do it - they dump all the kids that won’t test well, along with the ones that might hurt their graduates to college rate, back into the public schools. Anyone could do that. My eight year old could do that. Yet, instead of starting an investigation into fraud, our Governor and our Secretary of Education just can’t seem get enough of these “High Performing Charter Schools”. They think that more of this is the answer. It’s beyond me. They’ve seen these charts, because I’ve sent them to them, and they do nothing - except advocate for more charter schools.

But wait, that’s just the beginning. We (parents) kept hearing that the charter schools got to keep the money for the kids they dumped out in February, right before the testing. I posted this information in the comments section of a Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, pro-charter-school editorial - and Mr Lehigh said he thought that the class population was taken monthly and that adjustments were made almost immediately. It looks like Mr. Lehigh was wrong. This is what’s on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website.

Whoa. I’m pretty sure that’s saying that it’s up to the charter schools to report the dumping of kids after February15th if they feel like it. If they don’t feel like it they get to keep all the funding, for the kids they no longer have, for the 40% of the school year that they don’t have them.

The following is my attempt to shed some light on and put some dollar amounts to what I believe is potentially - an enormous amount of fraud.

Let’s assume the charter schools don’t feel like reporting their skimming after February 15th, because, well…..

• They don’t have to.
• There’s no reason for them to.
• They stand to keep a lot of money if they don’t.
• They stand to lose a lot of money if they do.
• This is exactly what we’ve been hearing that they do, from a variety of sources, for the last 16 months.

Given the Boston charter school industries track record of complete denial of their skimming practices, which are easily documented fact, there’s no reason to believe that they might suddenly begin to act in an honorable manner - especially when you see the amount of money involved, below.

So, if this all plays out the way I suspect it does, here’s the scam: (Some might call it a racket, or even - racketeering) Dump the kids right after February 15th. You get great test scores and you get to keep the $229,681.26**** remaining funding for the kids you dumped out/no longer enroll. Do you get what I’m saying? Each Charter School (possibly) gets to keep, on average, $229,681.26 for the last four months of the school year - for kids they’ve dumped back into the traditional public schools - (if they feel like it, of course)

And guess what BPS gets for taking these kids for the last 40% of the school year (if the charter’s don’t feel like reporting it) That’s right, nothing.

Using the Boston Charter School average of (possibly) scamming BPS out of $229,681.26 - per Boston charter school, per year, and multiplying that by the twenty six charter schools in Boston…. that’s $5,971,713 the charters get to keep, per year, for kids they don’t have - but hold on, it’s also $5,971,713 BPS doesn't get for kids, per year, that they do have. I think I’m coming up with a (probable) scam that’s actually valued at $11,943,426 per year. Am I right? That’s the (possible) total impact of this... situation? Yearly.

In Atlanta, teachers altered tests and went to jail. In Boston, charter schools alter who actually takes the tests - to change the schools test scores (level 1,2,3,4,5) and are hailed as saviors. I don’t really see a difference between the two. To me, both are cheating. To me, both appear unlawful. Both certainly should be against the law.

I don’t understand how this continues to go on, but I do know that a large part of the reason is because the Massachusetts press isn’t doing their job. Just a few days ago I saw that the pro charter school Boston Globe will be receiving funding from the Gates Foundation for “the ‘solutions’ approach to education journalism”. Seriously? Corporate ed reform is now funding the Globe to report on education? Is that even legal? I mean, for a real newspaper?

What I also don’t get is why no one with the power to stop this, is stopping this? It’s lying (year to year push-out/testing/fact) and stealing and corruption (probably fact) and it’s hurting children (fact). What one single part of that isn’t in itself enough for people to take action?

Hello Justice Department - Someone needs to launch an investigation. Someone needs to find out the truth, and if that truth is what parents have been hearing for the last 16 months, someone needs to see that the charter schools provide full restitution to the traditional public schools - and going forward, someone needs to protect the traditional public school children from scams like this.

If you’re a parent, or a concerned citizen, or a student, or a legislator, or a lawyer - and want to get involved - listed below are a few organizations you can join to help stop the destruction of, privatization of, corporate ed reform grab of, fleecing of, our public schools. (If you’re a legislator, please launch an investigation, pass a bill, make a law, do something)

Boston Educational Justice Alliance Facebook page.

Citizens for Public Schools Facebook page.

Quest (Quality Education for Every Student) Facebook page.

Less Testing More Learning Facebook page.

And coming soon to Boston - The Hedge Clippers Facebook Page.

I’m asking you to join up. I’m asking you to help. We’re true grass roots and we need your support. The money and the influence on the other side of this is huge, I’m talking Gates Foundation, Walton Foundation, Boston Foundation - huge, but we can win this fight, we can stop these scams, if we band together. We need to do that. Please “like” and “follow” all of the Facebook pages above. Show up to meetings when you can. Show up to events when you can. Take. Action. We can protect our schools, we can protect our children, and we will win this if we work together toward the common goal of saving public education .


John Lerner, public school dad and member of the Boston Educational Justice Alliance, Roxbury, Massachusetts.




Data Citations

*This document is referring specifically to Commonwealth Charter schools, not ''In-district" or "Horace Mann" charter schools.

**Maybe. I dare say, probably.

***Skimming year to year is documented. Concerning the push out in February, that’s what I hear, over and over. That’s why I’m calling for an investigation.

****My best dead reckoning. See the averages tab using the Data Citations link above.

The Slow Downward Spiral (Boston Public Schools)

*This post was updated on May 6, 2015. See notes at the bottom of the post.

I did some number crunching this morning. I start to wonder about things... and then I can't seem to let it go. Last week it was about the possibility of Boston Charter School enrollment fraud. By coincidence the Washington Post also ran a piece last week about charter fraud - that included enrollment fraud. 

But today I was wondering about the resource drain of, the financial impact of, Boston's Public Schools having lost 8,500 students to charter schools. 

It's interesting.

If you were to walk into a BPS classroom, I doubt you would notice the enrollment difference that losing all these kids to Charter schools has made. In a classroom, it's 2.6 kids. The Charter Schools enrollment of 8,500 means, on average, 2.6 less kids per BPS classroom. 

The thing is, that negligible 2.6 children per classroom translates to, on average, $979,492.00 less that the average BPS school receives in funding ($38,113.00 per classroom) than they would if they hadn't lost those 2.6 children.

The real problems for the public schools come from the fact that it's such a such a small number of students that have left each classroom. A school can't consolidate classrooms if two rooms have lost a combined total of 5.2 kids. A school can't let a teachers go because a classroom is down by 2.6 kids. The same goes for virtually all of the costs of operating the school. At a loss of 2.6 kids a classroom, the costs are still firmly fixed. The only thing that changes is that the school now has $979,492.00 less funding to somehow try and provide the same level of (or improved?) instruction. 

Regardless of how you feel about Charter Schools, the one thing I can guarantee that they have accomplished is setting into motion a vicious downward spiraling of Boston's Traditional Public Schools. 

With BPS schools now forced to try and educate with (on average) $979,492.00 less per school, something has to give and it's happening, right now. Boston Public Schools are cutting every position they can, all levels of service, from mental health to food, and asking for funding on DonorsChoose - for pencils. 

My daughters "highest poverty" school has been somewhat able to somewhat hold it together by fundraising $45,000 this year - but you see that DonorsChoose link above asking for pencils, that's us. 

Somehow our school was 5th in growth in the state last year, out of 1,930 Massachusetts schools, in English Language Arts. Somehow the kids haven't noticed that there's no extra paper to draw on, that the adults in the classrooms are now mostly college interns, that we have no gymnasium, no library and no auditorium. Somehow they're really happy and somehow they're really learning. I just can't help but wonder how amazing this school could be with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of more dollars a year - and I can't help but think about the schools that are facing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of less funding next year. How are they going to survive? How are they going to improve? 

We need real answers, and we need them now. The two things I know that we don't need more of are more charter schools and outside organizations - syphoning off further precious dollars from BPS. 

If we really want all children to receive a good education, we should look at what's been done in the past to bring an under preforming school up to a level 1 - as in, what's been successful, what resources did that accomplishment take. Then we need to find the revenue to provide those resources and then apply them across the board. That's assuming we're really serious about improving public schools, which as time goes by, with my first hand witnessing of the systematic de-funding of the traditional public schools and the enormous push for even more of that, I'm no longer convinced that improving public education is what this is really all about.

John Lerner - BPS Dad and member of the Boston Educational Justice Alliance

*This blog post was updated with more accurate numbers, provided by DESE Commisioner Mitchell Chester, on May 6th, 2015. My original number of 7,800 charter students has been changed to
8,500. That change brought the loss of students per classroom average up to 2.6, from 2.5 It also brought the average tuition lost per school up to $979,492.00, from $899,750.00