Today: Press Conf Demands Eva Return $8 Million as Hedge Hogs Rape Puerto Rico and Attack Public Schools for More profit - And give to Eva

PR crisis, like Katrina in New Orleans, is another disaster capitalism opportunity to destroy public education. When will Arne Duncan say: The Puerto Rico default is the best thing to happen to PR?

[Major Success Academy supporter] Paulson & Co. was one buyers of Puerto Rico's record $3.5 billion sale in March 2014. 
of the largest

Hedge Fund Economists Want Puerto Rico to Lay Off Teachers to Fix Debt Crisis... Time

Puerto Rico can avoid a costly default by upping taxes, cutting teacher jobs and closing schools, a group of hedge fund economists proposed in a report released on Monday, offering a controversial solution to the island’s “unpayable” $72 billion debt crisis. The report, commissioned by hedge funds holding several billion dollars of Puerto Rico’s bonds, highlights the island’s rising education expenditures against the backdrop of countless school closings and waves of poor families fleeing to mainland America.

Gee, hedge hogs killing an economy and targeting public schools and teachers. Can someone connect the dots for us?

It would, in particular, be a terrible idea to give the hedge funds that have scooped up much of Puerto Rico’s debt what they want — basically to destroy the island’s education system in the name of fiscal responsibility... Paul Krugman, NY Times

I saw this little tidbit in the Krugman piece on Monday on the Puerto Rico debt crisis. But Krugman, as usual when it comes to education, doesn't connect the dots -- that the PR crisis, like Katrina in New Orleans, is another disaster capitalism opportunity.

This morning at 10AM some dots will be connected.

Success Academy Pressured to Return $8.5 Million Hedge Fund (Dirty Money) Donation

PRESS ADVISORY

Success Academy Pressured to Return $8.5 Million Hedge Fund Donation
The charter school chain in New York City should not accept any money tied to the suffering of Puerto Rican children and families, many of whom already live in poverty

WHAT: Advocates will call on Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy to return an $8.5 million donation of “tainted money” from controversial hedge fund manager John Paulson. In Puerto Rico, where many New Yorkers and Success Academy families have roots, Paulson is profiting from the debt crisis. He is linked to austerity measures that may lead to deeper cuts in school funding and wages for workers that will harm Puerto Ricans. Success Academy’s expansion should not benefit in any way from the suffering of Puerto Rican children and families.

Fifty-six percent of Puerto Rican children already live in poverty, and now hedge fund managers like Paulson want to threaten access to educational opportunity just to make bigger profits.

WHO: Education advocates, parents, community leaders, and concerned residents of New York. Leaders and members of the Hedge Clippers, Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change, Make the Road New York, Strong Economy for All, Citizen Action New York.

WHERE: Steps of City Hall, Lower Manhattan, NYC.

WHEN: Today, August 5, 10 a.m.

MORE BACKGROUND: Paulson has focused on transforming Puerto Rico into a low-tax, high-luxury playground for the wealthy. As a Bloomberg News headline put it, “Paulson’s Paradise Lures Rich Fleeing Taxes.” He has purchased $120 million of Puerto Rico’s debt. Like other hedge fund managers, he is looking to collect massive profits from his investments – even if it means drastic austerity measures like cuts to public education funding and wages that will destroy the lives of families and children. Paulson’s paradise is a nightmare for Puerto Ricans.

Charter School Hedge Hog Backer of PAVE, Julian Robertson: Hedge Funds Close Doors, Facing Low Returns and Investor Scrutiny

There is joy in Mudville. I love the smell of bad news for hedge funds in the morning. Robertson's son Spencer Robertson heads PAVE Academy, which is the school that invaded the space of Julie Cavanagh's PS 15 in Red Hook. The good thing that came out of it was how it mobilized the community to fight back.

Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management. This year, three funds it spun out have closed. Credit Vaughan Leighton Brookfield for The New York Times

For decades, nearly everything that the billionaire Julian Robertson touched turned to gold. Mr. Robertson, founder of the hedge fund Tiger Management, seeded a network of hugely successful “Tiger Cubs” — companies that in turn seeded more talent. It became the closest thing the hedge fund industry had to a dynasty.

Since the start of this year, however, the managers of three firms spun out of that gilded empire have called it quits after volatile performances and sometimes steep losses. They will return money to investors and focus on managing their own wealth.

TigerShark, Tiger Consumer and JAT Capital Management are just three examples among a recent wave of hedge funds that have closed their doors to investors in the face of choppy markets. They are a reminder that the hedge fund industry is not all spectacular returns... NY Times, May 16, 2015

Hedge Funds Close Doors, Facing Low Returns and Investor Scrutiny

New York Times‎ - 1 day ago

 

Hedge Hogs and Evil Moskowitz

Almost five years ago, a fateful agreement was reached. An ambitious then–attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, walked into New York's "power breakfast" hub, the Regency Hotel, and shook hands with Education Reform Now's Joe Williams, the man who could help him secure the hedge-fund community's blessing. Williams told Cuomo that they "were looking for a leader on our particular issue," and according to Williams the attorney general's response was a good one. Since that breakfast, millions of hedge-fund dollars have poured into the governor's coffers, and education-reform stalwart Andrew Cuomo has never looked back.
Thus, over a breakfast .... one man's ambition and a few other men's power overrode the decades-long demands of millions of New Yorkers for fully funded public schools. But what does such a profoundly anti-democratic approach mean for the state's public school system? In less than two weeks, when the state legislature votes on Cuomo's proposals, New York's public-school students will find out.... The Nation, March 2015

And so it shall come to pass.

despite New York's progressive reputation, its school-district funding-distribution system is actually one of the most regressive nationwide, similar to that of states like Texas, North Carolina and Missouri...

Phew! At least Cuomo hasn't turned us into Mississippi --- yet.

The Times put the Success Academy horror chambers story we reported on yesterday (Video of Eva Bund Rally, NY Times Piece on Eva and Success)
on the front page. That story doesn't even scratch the surface. Apparently the reporter didn't talk to people who are forced to share space with the avaricious Eva -- people who observe evidence of brutality all the time. We'll comment more on the Eva piece -- what scares me is how many public school teachers want this system for their kids.

The Nation had a good piece on the hedge hog billionaires with this graphic:

Why Do Hedge Fund Executives Suddenly Care About Poor Kids?

Why the New York hedge fund community has rallied around the issue of education reform, specifically in support of charter schools and against teacher tenure, is more complicated. Their policy prescriptions—basing 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student test scores, for instance—are not in any way grounded in mainstream education research.
"The problem is that Cuomo's backers aren't paying much attention to the people who actually understand how Value-Added Modeling works," explains Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig, an education policy researcher at California State University. "Education statisticians have come out many times saying these models are being used inappropriately and are unstable because other things happen in students' lives outside of the teachers they encounter. When a kids' parents in a high needs district are deported, and their achievement plummets, this actually has nothing to do with the teacher."
Vasquez Heilig added that the reform proposals seem founded on a desire to destroy the development of long-term professional educators, rather than any empirical analysis: "We know 70 percent of teachers will bounce between high performing and low performing from year to year. So this is creating an impossible high stakes testing gauntlet between a young excited teacher and their path to quality, veteran expertise. If you're looking for a cheap churn-and-burn teaching force, this is your policy, but if you want experienced, qualified teachers, committed to a schools' long-term success, this is a disaster."

From a purely business standpoint, however, such cost-effective education reform proposals do make sense for the hedge-fund community, especially given the alternative education reform option: the legally required equitable funding of New York public schools, as mandated by the state's highest court in 2007. Low-income New York school districts haven't received their legally mandated funding since 2009 and the state owes its schools a whopping $5.9 billion, according to a recent study by the labor-backed group Alliance for Quality Education. Yet somehow in this prolonged period of economic necessity, billionaire hedge-fund managers continue to enjoy lower tax rates than the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers.
As a recent Hedge Clippers report pointed out, the hedge-fund community has achieved these gains over the last decade and a half by buying political influence and carving out absurd breaks and loopholes in the New York state tax code. Since 2000, 570 hedge fund managers and top executives have poured $39.6 million into the campaign coffers of New York state politicians. Thus, despite New York's progressive reputation, its school-district funding-distribution system is actually one of the most regressive nationwide, similar to that of states like Texas, North Carolina and Missouri.

Read it all:
http://m.thenation.com/article/201881-9-billionaires-are-about-remake-new-yorks-public-schools-heres-their-story

Argentina Called Hedge Hog Paul Singer's Bluff

Many are bewildered as to why Argentina wouldn't come to some agreement in the eleventh hour, given the seemingly manageable amounts of debt in play. But the truth is that Argentina acted sensibly, especially given the limited maneuvering room it had to work with.  ... Foreign Policy

Paul Singer is singing in a high-pitched voice today after getting kicked in the balls by Argentina.

See my previous post on Argentina: Hedge Fund Vulture Hogs Default Argentina - And Public School Systems Too
where I suggested Singer could have made more money opening a chain of corrupt charter schools in Argentina.

Nice to see this piece from Foreign Policy, which is often a shill for US policy.

Of Course Argentina Defaulted

And you would have done the same thing too, if you had been in their shoes.

• BY Shannon O'Neil
• JULY 31, 2014

On July 30, Argentina defaulted on its outstanding debt. The technical default ends a long saga. It began in 2001 when the country failed to continue payments on nearly $100 billion worth of obligations, continued through its 2005 and 2010 restructurings of over 90 percent of these bonds, bled into ongoing lawsuits with "holdout creditors" including Elliott Management and Aurelius Capital Management, and culminated in the June 16 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to not hear Argentina's appeal of a 2012 ruling by New York Judge Thomas P. Griesa. This left in place a decision that not only bolstered the holdouts' rights to repayment, but also blocked Argentina and its U.S.-based banks from disbursing the next $539 million round of interest due on the restructured debt. Negotiations over the last month ended fruitlessly, leading to Wednesday's selective default, as defined by Standard & Poor's.

Many are bewildered as to why Argentina wouldn't come to some agreement in the eleventh hour, given the seemingly manageable amounts of debt in play. But the truth is that Argentina acted sensibly, especially given the limited maneuvering room it had to work with.

Girls Prep Charter, Hedge Funds, and Space Wars in District One

Sunday's NY Times had an article called "Scholarly Investments" which talked about Hedge Fund millionaires and billionaires and the push for charter schools, mentioning some of the charter invaders we have been covering: Harlem Success, PAVE and Girls Prep.

The Tiger Foundation, started by the hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson, provides a large chunk of financing for several dozen charters across the city. Mr. Robertson’s son, Spencer, founded his own school last year, PAVE Academy in the Brooklyn, while his daughter-in-law, Sarah Robertson, is chairwoman of the Girls Preparatory Charter School on the Lower East Side.

Ahhh, synergy. And good cash flow.

Still, Mr. Curry has been “knee deep in educational issues” since his 20s, he said. He co-founded two Girls Prep schools and is head of the board of the newer one, in the Bronx. The schools are “exactly the kind of investment people in our industry spend our days trying to stumble on,” Mr. Curry said, “with incredible cash flow, even if in this case we don’t ourselves get any of it.” The reference is to the fact that New York State contributes 75 to 90 percent of the amount per student that public schools receive.

Of course hedge fund characters love charters. We're paying for most of them and they get to raise private funding so they can pay Eva Moskowitz $370,000 a year. "These guys get it," said Moskowitz. They sure do get it. And Moskowitz makes sure to get her share. Why doesn't the reporter question the logic of us paying up to 90% of the costs and charters using the extra money coming in to pay such high salaries and who knows what other perks? These sharks aren't only in this for the kids. Edu-business, indeed.

The reporter, as we usually find, mentioned the tainted Caroline Hoxby (see Ed Notes' Nov. 13 Hoxby Hocked) study on charters in NYC outperforming public schools:

A study released in September by researchers headed by Caroline M. Hoxby, an economist at Stanford who is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, concluded that on average New York City charters outperform local schools. But another study by a different group of Stanford researchers last summer suggested that nationally the numbers are muddier.

What's muddy is the press' insistence on harping on Hoxby despite the flaws and questioning why the data munchers in hedge funds would be so enamored of faulty data.

Make a wish, Mike

And then there's this weak-kneed comment from our fearless UFT leader Mike Mulgrew:

“I think it’s all good and well that these people are finally stepping up to support education,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, referring to wealthy hedge funders. “But I would wish they would do it in a more foundational way, a way that would help all the children instead of just a small group.”

Mike has got to be kidding. Stepping up to the plate? Sure, to kill any remnant of teacher unionism.

Below find reports from parent activists Lisa Donlan and Leonie Haimson regarding Girls Prep charter school and the impact of its attempt to grab more space on the schools and students in District 1 on the lower east side. Sorry but the chart of D. 1 demographics did not come out and trying to fix it did not work. Email me if you want a copy.

From Lisa:

The hedge fund-spawned Girls Prep Charter in District One recently mentioned in a number of news stories wants to add on Middle School grades, by pushing 300 additional seats into one of the local "underutilized" ( offers small class size and more than 3 cluster rooms for enrichment for several hundreds of students) school buildings.

if we compare the demographics of GPC and the schools being targeted for space, it seems that the GCP is not equitably serving students in the local community despite the legal mandate to do so.

GPC serves NO ELL students, offers no CTT or self contained classes and serves no BOYS in a district whose students arew 12% ELL on average and 23% special education ( CTT/SC) and 8% SETTS ( push in pull out)

District One is an all choice district that allows any family to apply to any school in the district.

There are currently a dozen middle school options available to all District students, including the GPC students who are largely from out of district.

see below portions of the DoE's memo:

To: District 1 CEC

Fr: Community Superintendent and the Office of Portfolio Planning

Re: District 1 – Scenarios around Space Needs

Date: November 15, 2009

The following memo outlines the needs as identified by the Department of Education (DOE) in District 1 and the process by which the DOE has engaged with all schools to understand more information about school needs as well as the available space. The memo also outlines potential scenarios to meet these needs. This is a follow-up to the September CEC meeting which underutilized space was discussed.

District Needs:

1. Girls Preparatory Charter School of New York (“Girls Prep”), a charter school currently serving grades K-5 with two sections per grade, is in need of space for their middle school. The Girls Prep middle school will serve grades 5-8 with three sections per grade. Girls Prep is currently housed in M188. There is sufficient space for the K-4 elementary school in M188, but the current configuration of the building does not have enough space for Girls Prep to serve its middle school grades long-term. At scale, Girls Prep requires 10 sections for its K-4 elementary school and 12 sections for its 5-8 middle school (22 total sections).

Available Space

The original list of buildings discussed at the September CEC meeting was as follows:

· M015 (houses P.S. 15 and D75 program; hereinafter referred to by building code “M015”)

· M020 (houses P.S. 20; hereinafter referred to by building code “M020”)

· M056 (houses Henry Street School for International Studies, University Neighborhood Middle School, and Collaborative Academy of Science, Technology & Language Arts Education; hereinafter referred to by building code “M056”)

· M137 (houses P.S. 184; hereinafter referred to by building code “M137”)

· M188 (houses P.S. 188, Girls Prep, and D75 program; hereinafter referred to by building code “M188”)

Since September discussions were held with all principals, Network Leaders, SLTs, and building surveys were conducted of M020 and M137 to understand the space and the current situation in each of the building. Based on those conversations and surveys the following buildings were removed from consideration for having space:

· M015- Given the standard instructional footprint that allocates cluster space there is not additional space in the building for a new program or school

· M056- Due to the high need Special Education population located in the building and the existing programmatic needs in the building it did not make sense to add another organization into the building

Furthermore the following building was added to the list as potentially having space:

• M025 (houses School for Global Leaders, Marta Valle Secondary School, and Lower East Side Preparatory High School; hereinafter referred to by building code “M025”)

GIRLS PREP CHARTER

On its website, the school makes extraordinary claims regarding its success and rights to public school space:

http://www.girlsprep.org/

Girls Prep Closes the Achievement Gap for Latina and African-American Students! Number 1 school in District 1! The results are in! Girls Prep students excelled on this year's English Language Arts exams. 98% of our third graders and 92% of our fourth graders met or exceeded standards. These scores place Girls Prep as the second highest scoring charter school in New York City! We are thrilled that our girls scored so well on the assessment! These results are just one amazing outcome of years of collaboration, hard work and thoughtful planning. Parents, students and teachers, please take a moment to congratulate yourself, each other, and the third and fourth grade students. Save Girls Prep are parents and supporters of Girls Prep Charter School who believe every child must have equal access to a quality education. Girls Prep's ranks among the top 1% of NYC public schools, traditional or charter, in terms of the achievement of its students.
Save Girls Prep believe all children in District 1 should have access to a high performing school such as Girls Prep. Charter Schools are Public Schools and have every right under NYS Law to share space in a public school building.

On the website GPC also offers transportation to parents to the December PEP meeting to make a show of strength for their cause.

---

Let's repeat Lisa's statement we extracted earlier in this post:

Yet, if we compare the demographics of GPC and the schools being targeted for space, it seems that the GCP is not equitably serving students in the local communityt despite the legal mandate to do so.

GPC serves NO ELL students, offers no CTT or self contained classes and serves no BOYS in a district whose students arew 12% ELL on average and 23% special education ( CTT/SC) and 8% SETTS ( push in pull out)

District One is an all choice district that allows any family to apply to any school in the district.

There are currently a dozen middle school options available to all District students, including the GPC students who are largely from out of district.

DISTRICT 1 SELECT DEMOGRAPHICS 2009

	District One	P.S. 184	Girls Prep	P.S. 188	P.S. 15	UNMS	CASTLE	HSISS	P.S. 20
Total enrollment	11,653	640	263	400	235	180	292	525	590
% Charter Students	11%
SC Classes		0	0	1	3	2	2	3	3
CTT Classes		1	0	6	1	2	3	1	5
IEPS	23%(ES) /29%(MS)	2% = 11 stds	8%	21%		36%	27%	30%	16
SC/CTT	15%(ES) /21%(MS)	.7%= 5 stdts	0	15%	18%	20%	21%	22%	10%
% ELL	12	5%	0	16	21	15	7	15	18%
% Title One	80.1	77.8	68.0	92.6	96.5	89.6	80.8	69.9	97.1
#/ %STH	4%		4=2%	51stdts =13%	24stdts =11%	6=3%	3=1%	9=2%	3=.5%
% in district			43
% out of district			57
% Hispanic	48	5%		64	58	65	62.3	58	60%
% Black	19	6%		33	30	26	18.5	28	10%
%Asian	19	80%		3	8	2	15.1	10	26%
%White	13	7%		1	3	6	3.4	3	2%
%Am Indian	1	.9%		0.3	0.5	0.4	0.7	0.4	.7%

Sources and References:

- DCEP 2009-10, p.5, author Sarah Kleinhandler, school district improvement liaison

- ‘Girls Prep at a glance’, author Miriam Raccah, executive director Public Prep

- 8/10/2009 ATS snapshot K students D1

- DOE D1 K-8 Special Ed Percentages base on 2009 projections (08/04/09)

- D1 poverty percentage, author Jean Mingot, budget officer Manhattan integrated Service Center 10/26/09

- School portals DOE website Aug. - Nov 2009

- ATS website 10/23/09

- STH report from ATS 09/22/09, author Cecilio Diaz, Office of Youth Development Manhattan ISC

Lisa Donlan

CEC One

Leonie follows up with: more reasons to reject expansion of Girls Prep: lack of space

More on District 1:

1. The total student population is growing faster in D1 Elementary school buildings between 2007 and 2008 than any other district in the city, according to DOE’s blue book data (which include charter schools already housed in their buildings).

Total student population in elementary school buildings is up 4.1% -- by far the fastest growth anywhere.

(Second fastest growth is D25 at 3.9%; D 20 at 3.2%; D 24 at 3%, D26 at 2.9% and D28 at 2.5%, all in Queens, then D31 Staten Island at 2.4% and finally D2 at 2.3%.)

2- Gened/CTT/G&T Kindergarten enrollment increased in D1 by 10.9% between 2008 and 2009 (not even including charter schools), according to the DOE class size reports. (They are tied with D5 as second fastest Kindergarten growth in Manhattan).

3- Kindergarten class sizes are up 22% since 2007 – probably the sharpest increases in the entire city. Now, more than 51% of Kindergarten students in D1 schools are in classes of 21 or more.

Their schools simply don’t have the space for this expansion, unless in the future they want class sizes to continue to increase even more sharply and/or kick out their preKs.

Meanwhile, the small classes and the access to preK were probably the main reasons that achievement in District 1 schools improved more than any other district in the state between 2001 and 2008, according to the DOE’s own calculations.

For the DOE power point showing this, check out http://www.scribd.com/doc/20954070/New-York-City-School-Performance-October-2009

Rather than further damage the opportunities of students in D1, the lesson should be that whatever D1 is doing, the rest of the city desperately needs: more space, so that schools can provide smaller classes and more preK, not less.

Leonie Haimson