The Economist magazine has two articles (here and here) about the “success” of charter schools in the U.S., which they admiringly refer to as privatization.
Charter advocates here might be embarrassed by the praise, as they prefer to call themselves “public schools.”
The Economist recognizes that charter schools are experiments in privatization, not simply another form of public school.
Unfortunately the magazine distorts the research on charter schools beyond recognition to justify its praise of privatization and free markets.
After a lame attempt to discredit the CREDO study–the one that found that only 17% of charters outperformed a matched neighborhood public school–the magazine nonetheless portrays charters as the sure cure to “save” black inner-city children. It seems that only private entrepreneurs know the secrets to educating poor black children.
Even charter advocates in the U.S. usually acknowledge that the academic results of charters are mixed, at best. There are some that get high test scores, some that get low test scores, and most that get scores no different from public schools.
The Economist articles do not acknowledge that charter schools typically serve fewer children with disabilities, and fewer children who are English language learners. They also exercise the right to remove students who don’t comply with their strict disciplinary code and return them to public schools.
And in the magazine’s lavish praise of New Orleans charters, it conveniently overlooks the fact that New Orleans is the next-to-lowest ranked district in the state of Louisiana, 69th out of 70. It is a very low performing district in a low performing state.
Also, the magazine ignores the disastrous results of the fastest growing segment of the charter world, and that is, the for-profit cyber-charters.
Why do charters require so much hype and spin to thrive? Why not admit that they face the same problems as public schools if they enroll the same children? Why not admit that the most successful charters spend more money than regular public schools? Why so much pretense?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The publication belongs to The Economist Group, half of which is owned by the Financial Times, a subsidiary of Pearson PLC. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist
They repeat the knee-jerk condemnation of teachers unions yet they, like most other critics, don’t explain why union dominated states like Massachusetts have high scoring schools while non-union states like Mississippi don’t do as well.
The poverty rate defines a state’s success rate…and family income parallels test scores. Politicians, economists, and policy makers find it easier to blame teachers, through their unions, and public schools instead of doing the difficult work of lowering the developed world’s highest child poverty rate.
Spin is one of a corporation’s skill sets. Whole departments of spinmeisters are set to the task of hypnotizing the “consumer” with bogus bunk. It works. School districts don’t have a public relations wing and teachers are supposed to concentrate on teaching. Voila! We are out-gunned!
The Economist is a partisan right-wing, British publication. This is pretty usual reporting for them, don’t be fooled by the magazine’s undeserved prestige. They also argued that the US regulates big business too much! (What? Really? What about the banking crisis, E-Coli scares…well, this list could go on…
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/04/financial-innovation
The Economist also reports reality
S&P’s credit rating cut
Downgrading our politics
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/08/fiscal-policy
And call Republicans economically illiterate
S&P’s credit rating cut
Downgrading our politics
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/08/sps-credit-rating-cut
And point out Mitt’s closing tax expenditures will take from the niddle to give to the 1%
Taking from the 19%, giving to the 1%
Mitt’s maths
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/04/taking-19-giving-1
Financial Times reported on labor’s share of the national income falling to just 58%
Pay gap a $740bn threat to US recovery
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1bf8e7ba-2578-11e1-9cb0-00144feabdc0.html
Connected to Pearson? Shocking…well, maybe not. The public is starting to find out it is all flash and no substance in the charter school/testing movement, and so the powers that be are now in hyperdrive to recover before someone’s head ends up on the proverbial stick.
To answer your question, it is all about the profit. It has nothing to do with the main purpose of educating children. Conservatives continue to spin the truth so that people will think that if we privatize everything somehow all of our problems will be solved. Obviously that is not the case but I guess that they think if they distort the truth enough times, it will become true. Problem is that their assumption that the public is stupid is probably even less true now than in the past. As parents, teachers and others who care about education stand up and object to what is going on in our schools, their so-called facts or proof will not stand up to the mustard. Being a former teacher in the inner city, I am glad that the voices of those most affected are beginning to heard because this is the only way that our schools will be transformed and that our children will get the quality education that they deserve.
The hyperbolic inaccurate praise for charters is the flipside of the hyperbolic inaccurate demonization of public schools. Billionaires who finance privatization are able to control the mass media as well as govt to “control the narrative” of what is wrong and what is needed. The lies of the charter camp are circulated as common sense b/c they are repeated innumerable times in corporate media and in politician/foundation pronouncements. Very impt to expose this false narrative, and no one does it better than Diane.
It’s no surprise that The Economist or any other corporate interests would be in favor of charter, privatization, and even the continued implementation of “measurable” achievement standards. The effort to move public dollars into private hands is not new, and the underlying maneuvering began back in the 80’s with the “failed American Schools” mantra.
Claims that we lagged behind the rest of the world were soundly contradicted in The Manufactured Crisis, http://www.powells.com/biblio?inkey=1-0201441969-2 to no avail.
From the earliest days of the Texas testing laws various sources have pointed out the nearly century long link between the Bush family and McGraw-Hill, which has profited phenomenally in the interim. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2006/08/mcgraw-hill-bush-graft-and-twig.html
The same voices who decry taxing the American public is so eager to move those tax funds into their corporate coffers.
Didn’t we have a revolution once to separate ourselves from the Church of Adam Smithology?
I’m pretty sure it was in all the papers —
U.S. papers anyway …
Reblogged this on Class[room]-Conscious.
As a taxpayer and a parent, I have two fundamental problems with the whole idea of privatization of education (besides the fact that, contrary to the Economist’s one-sided article, the results are not much better than public schools) and they are 1.) charter schools are a license for discrimination as these schools can legally select which students they want and tend to select only the best (probably to ensure the demise of the public school system by leaving the most challenged students to the public school system) and 2.) the vast majority are run by private educational companies whose number one goal is to return on shareholder value not deliver the best quality of education. I’m for school choice, but don’t suffocate the public school system in order to divert the shrinking dollars to these corporate fat cats, especially given that the statistics don’t show the monumental improvement that this article would lead you to believe. If these private “educators” have all the answers and were as successful as the Economist believes, then investors would trampling over each other to throw their dollars at these companies. Hopefully more people will wake and smell the coffee and see that the whole “choice” movement is really about creating another big corporate welfare program funded by taxpayers to line the pockets of the executive management of these companies and their big shareholders.
If you attend any school board meeting, you will be appalled at the amount of money schools must spend on audits and other legally required consulting activities. It’s not just the charter school movement that is trying to bankrupt our public education system, our legislators are gladly helping the corporate world in many other ways too.
Yes, the union has issues but they don’t represent the public’s best interest; they represent the teachers. If you want to hurl anger, do so at those who agreed to the union’s demands. Clearly no one, even the majority of teachers themselves, want bad teachers on the payroll. It seems the union leadership could quell a lot of this fury by acknowledging this and working with school administration to streamline the process for handling unqualified teachers.
Another reason the privatization of school doesn’t work, see the NY Times article, “Companies Shortchanged Preschool Special Education Program, State Audits Find” by David N. Halbfinger, published June 24, 2012. Another example of a private company treating taxpayer’s money as their own piggy bank.
My main worry about the claim made by the Economist is that now this idea is going to the developing countries and influencing the governments policy to privatization of public education. Many international aid agencies are already talking about it. What I fear is with this movement of privatization, children from poorer households or poor community will be even poorer with no education at all! We all think market is great where we can buy and bargain and negotiate. But market and public welfare really do not go hand in hand or does it?