A reader in Los Altos, California, comments on an earlier post:
The REAL carrot here is allowing middle-class parents to engage in segregation. This is the “dirty little secret” of charter schools and of education reform in general: that they are a sustained political force ONLY because rich or semi-rich parents want their children in schools without “undesirables”.
Hence Obama is making a calculated political move here by saying he supports charters. That statement alone is probably worth a million or two votes in terms of direct votes, activism on his behalf, and donations. Parents in segregated schools (segregated, these days, more along socioeconomic lines than racial lines) will do anything to keep their scam going.
This will change as charters dig deeper into suburban America and disrupt and divide more communities like our own has been divided in Los Altos, CA. The community filled with the executives who run companies like Google and Facebook are now rapidly (forcibly) becoming education policy experts and we’re not happy with what we’re seeing at all.
Please keep fighting the good fight, Ms. Ravitch–your students are learning.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think it’s important to distinguish among charters. In my experience with them, which has been pretty extensive in SE Michigan, there are those that are run by for-profit companies and those that are not. The difference is dramatic, by and large.
The ones I’ve taught for and/or coached math teachers at that fell into the not-for-profit category had really good teachers for the most part, andthe programs were as well.
I know, too, that there are older charters that were started by parents and teachers who had ideas that they couldn’t readily implement within the traditional school structure/mentality. I still think that is a reasonable idea. But since the corporatists and hedge-fund managers starting getting involved, it’s the rare charter that isn’t just trying to suck up $$. In Detroit, the market is getting saturated and they’re starting to bribe parents/kids to leave their current school. I’m hearing some very intriguing stories that I’m hoping to get an investigative journalist to write about or do it myself once I get confirmation. As usual, the money-folks are guaranteed to turn anything decent into utter crap.
It’s a distinction without a difference. Let’s quit justifying the destruction of public education by pointing to individual charter schools. It doesn’t matter whether they are for-profit or NOT–it’s the fact they exist at all and undermine communities. They are not public schools but private schools that get public money. I am sick and tired of people trying to make excuses for the destruction of democratic institutions in this country. Charters need to be outlawed, period. If they are any good, let them charge tuition and be run like regular private schools.
Thank you.
I agree with susannunes below, but want to add another point. Some of the most “successful” charter chains in Arizona (Basis and Great Hearts) may be non- profit, but their leaders are integrally tied to for-profit online learning venturers. Look at former Inte CEO Craig Barrett’s strong ties to Basis on one hand and K-12 on the other hand. The same is true for Great Hearts leaders – many of them are invested in an online learning business. The non-profits are a Trojan Horse to further dismantle public Ed and open the doors to more profit opportunity, especially with online learning.
Avoiding “undesirables” does not require charter schools. The public school system is highly segregated. Here is a column by Valerie Strauss about a set of studies produced by UCLA:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-segregation-sharply-increasing-studies-show/2012/09/22/5b34111a-04c6-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_blog.html
Milton Friedman came up with the notion of vouchers in the mid-1950s as a way to circumvent Brown v. Board of Education.
The apologists for charter schools on this thread make me sick. They will not acknowledge the bigger picture, the reason charters cannot be allowed to siphon public money when they are not public schools to begin with.
I don’t think the motivation was to circumvent Brown. It was part of his larger views about society. He would have been in favor of vouchers even without Brown.
The UNO charter chain in Chicago focuses on Hispanic students almost exclusively.
Here are 3 links.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-08-27/news/ct-biz-0827-executive-profile-rangel-20120827_1_juan-rangel-charter-schools-edward-burke
Trib reporter Melissa Harris explains “Rangel’s job as chief executive of UNO, which will operate 13 schools by year’s end, requires him to be politically connected to the nth degree, to know his allies and enemies, to understand their motivation, and be able to predict when an alderman wants to send a message to a rival and use that knowledge to his advantage.” …
“In 2009, UNO won a $98 million state grant for school construction, which the Tribune reported was the largest taxpayer subsidy to a single charter network in Illinois. In 2010 and 2011, Rangel was co-chairman of Rahm Emanuel’s campaign for mayor, and in 2011, he won a city zoning change for a new elementary school over a waffling freshman alderman.”
http://www.chicagonewscoop.org/pro-charter-group-rallying-to-build-support/
UNO was awarded a $250,000 contract to organize rallie to lend public relations support for Mayor Emanuel’s push for more charters.
http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2010/08/12/budget-landmines
The story explains that charters in Chicago rely on private donations to a greater degree than any other major city.
Charters have tremendous political appeal and, as the writer argues, that appeal is based largely on allowing parents to send their children to segregated schools. However, the sort-after segregation is rarely economic or racial segregation. Rather, the sort-after segregation is usually segregation based on parental attitudes.
There are many parents who are unconcerned regarding their children’s education, clueless regarding how to parent, and largely dysfunctional, Of course, there are also many other parents who are are concerned regarding their children’s education, have excellent parenting skills, and are generally functional. There are unconcerned, clueless, dysfunctional parents at all income levels, however — on average — the percentage of these parents increases as income level decreases. In the inner-city, the percentage of low-income parents is much higher than in the suburbs; accordingly, the percentage of unconcerned, clueless, dysfunctional parents is higher in the inner-city than in the suburbs.
The children of the unconcerned/clueless/dysfunctional parents will, unfortunately, often be “problem” students — chronic misbehavers, unmotivated, reading far below grade level. Classes containing large numbers of these problem students will be educational disasters where little effective instruction occurs and negative peer pressure is a constant. Because the concentration of unconcerned, clueless, dysfunctional parentsi much greater in the inner-city than in the suburbs, the neighborhood schools are much more likely to be educational disasters in the inner-city than in the suburbs.
The concerned, competent, functional parents do not want their children to go to schools where there are large numbers of the problem students. Charters offer these parents a refuge from such schools. Charters enroll only via application (and often require parents to provide daily transportation). Therefore, few of the unconcerned, clueless, dysfunctional parents will send their children to the charters. The concerned, competent, functional parents can send their children to the charters knowing that pretty much all of the students in the charters will be children of other concerned, competent, functional parents. And, if a few chronic misbehaving or unmotivated students do enroll, the charters can usually expel these problem students back to the neighborhood school. In short, charters allow concerned parents to avoid the educational disasters that inner-city neighborhood schools often become.
Because there are concerned, competent, functional parents at all income levels and because many low-income parents live in the inner-city, there are many concerned, competent, functional parents who live in the inner-city. These parents are the core supporters of charters. The concerned middle-class and upper-class inner-city parents also support charters, but they have the option of sending their children to private and/or religious schools and there just aren’t that many middle-class/upper-class parents in the inner-city relative to the number of poor parents (most of the middle/upper-class parents will have fled to the suburbs). For these reasons, the demographics (income, race) in the inner-city charters look a lot like the demographics in the neighborhood schools.
For the concerned, competent, functional parents, being able to send their children to an acceptable school is a huge priority. And, these kinds of parents are the ones who will show up to vote in the local elections. This is why charters are so politically popular in the inner-cities..
Sorry, but this is not necessarily the case. It’s just that these “concerned, functional” parents THINK that’s the case. Most of these “concerned” parents never come into the school except perhaps to rail on teachers at conferences about how their child is (pick one) not challenged, bored, too challenged, too stressed, etc. etc. and therefore it’s the teacher’s fault that the kid is a problem. I get FAR more support from parents of the “chronic misbehavers” than I ever do from the parents that are supposedly “concerned, functional” parents.
Of course, I am stereotyping to an extent here. I have many wonderful parents and students that are both low income and higher income, from both single and two parent families, or those that are in foster care or cared for by other relatives. But every year I get a few “concerned” parents who simply blame the school for their students’ problems.
A few years ago, I had a parent that I called because her son was having behavior issues in class. Not huge, but endemic. When I called the mother, she insisted that the problem was not her son. She said that her son was complaining about language in the halls (as if that was the excuse for her son’s behavior). She stated that she KNEW that it wasn’t the kids in (insert the name of the higher income town that feeds to our school) weren’t the problem, but the kids in the other, lower income town.
Now, that higher income community has its own charter school. So, the parents can place their children in this school where they KNOW that they won’t encounter kids with lower incomes or minorities. That’s how it happens.
what charters do worst:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/It-s-harder-for-charter-schools-to-keep-teachers-3905914.php
you will also note that the higher paying districts retain the most teachers and also are the highest performing
I agree that charters are the new way to segregate kids. My district started their own charter school. The charter is seen as a “better” school. It’s not better, it just attracts parents who want their children with other motivated, well parented kids. However, the charter does not have special education. This will be the death song of charters in the courts. You will see a very clear pattern that special ed. is not welcome at charter schools. I hope the “for profit” charters are ready to give all their money back in lawsuits.
The main value of school choice is matching the individual student’s needs with the resources in the school. I think we are seeing increased specialization in charter schools, where some are accepting few special education students and others are accepting large numbers of special education students.
Name a few of the latter, please.
Dienne,
Here is a short list of charter schools from about.com that specialize in deaf education:
Arizona – Sequoia School
Colorado – Rocky Mountain Deaf School
Minnesota – Metro Deaf School,
Nevada – Las Vegas Charter School for the Deaf
Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Texas – Jean Massieu Academy
There are a few that specialize in Autism, too. I know of Spectrum Academy near Salt Lake City. However, how many are there, compared to “regular” charter schools? There are, maybe, three specialized charter schools in Utah, and hundreds of others that fight accepting special education students. It took us nearly a year and a half to convince my son’s charter school (which he has now left) to test him for special education. By that time, he was four years behind in math.
I don’t know charters that focus on providing services for special ed students.
A GAO study found that a higher percentage of charter schools have high enrollment of students with disabilities (more than 20% of students) than public schools. The report can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-segregation-sharply-increasing-studies-show/2012/09/22/5b34111a-04c6-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_blog.html
Wrong link. It is here: http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/files/documents/112/pdf/letters/Charter%20School%20SWD%20full%20report_%20June%202012.pdf
May I remind you of the title of the GAO report?
It does not say “charter schools do a great job with children with disabilities,”
No! The title is: CHARTER SCHOOLS
Additional Federal Attention Needed to Help Protect Access for Students with Disabilities
Diane Ravitch
The point of the GAO report was that charters significantly under enroll children with disabilities.
Please do not use my blog to spread misinformation.
Diane Ravitch
If you read the report rather than simply looking at the title, you will find that something on the order of 11.5% of charter schools have at least 20% of their students with disabilities. The comparable figure for public schools is 8%.
So what percent do the other 88.5% of charters have for sped
students enrolled? What disabilities are reflected in those percentages?
If all public schools had 8%, most are much higher, that would be ALL public schools not a mere 11.5% of all public schools.
Why don’t you find out the number of spec. Ed students in all categories of disabilities, not just the mild ones, in ALL charter schools in the USA vs. the number of sped. in ALL public schools in the USA.
The charter schools number, the mere 11.5%, would also include the
charter schools that specialize in a disability, such as autism, which then inflates the number overall. Most do not take high needs sped
and their numbers do not reflect the average in their neighboring public schools…not matter how you want to spin it.
Sorry for any typos..in iPhone..can’t see the entire screen.
And by the way TE, don’t be rude to our host!
If Dr. Ravitch found me rude, I certainly apologize. I was, however accurately citing the statistics given in Table 1 of the GAO report. Linda, many, though not all of your questions can be answered from the GAO report. It is worth reading.
I found you rude..if you read the report rather than reading the title you said…RUDE!
Charter schools do not serve more sped than regular public schools…bottom line, fact!
Our charter school here is under fire for not supporting it’s share of special needs children. This has been documented in filings to the court cases some community members have launched against them. I have also, personally, been given accounts of what they do, and it’s subtle: they “wave off” special needs children who would require them to spend extra money. A detailed analysis of their financials shows exactly $0.00 spent on special education in their budget. They have counter-filed to the court–misleadingly–that they support special education, but they only do so insofar as it costs them nothing (and, I suspect, doesn’t lower their test scores).
Another effect charter schools are having–and ours here certainly has–is that they replace private schools. Parents here are attending our charter school (read: discount, government-subsidized private school) instead of private school, adding hundreds of students to our (small) district who would otherwise not be taking resources from our schools. My own off-the-top-of-my-head estimate is that they probably cost our district about $1-2 million per year, on a budget of $40m, which is very significant for us.
The anecdotal evidence I have for this school is clear: parents choose this school because it has more money (it has a “tuition” of $5000/year per child) and is a way to separate children from “undesirables”.
***
As a side note, I call this whole thing “anti-social behavior en masse”. I define this idea as follows: engaging in an act that DOES NOT SCALE beyond a small portion of the population. Something that, if everybody did, would no longer work.
An educational example is red shirting: if every parent did this, then its advantages would be canceled out, by definition, since then every kid would be older than their grade level and hence the new “normal” would be a year older.
In like fashion, if everybody moved to this charter school here, all of its advantages would be canceled out–they would be in the same place our public schools here are in, except that they don’t run their school as efficiently. This school’s existence is predicated on only a small part of our population attending the school, which is inherently dishonest. (To be clear, it’s “advantages” are very specious and depend mostly on its marketing materials and parents simply paying a lot of money to go there–test scores are basically the same as our public schools even with all of that money).
Anyhow, I know now that we may have virtually the worst, most indefensible example of a charter school in the USA here in Los Altos, CA :-). But I still think the lessons coming from this school are widely applicable.
Then I certainly apologize to both Dr. Ravitch and you for my rudeness. I hope, however, that we can agree that I accurately gave the statistic from the GAO report given in the last line of table 1.
But it’s not only rich or semi-rich parents who want their children in schools without “undesirables.” I remember this comment made under an anti-union, pro-charter school piece that was written by a lifelong Harlem resident, a reverend and a mother of six: “A good kid going to school with kids that were not raised in a good household is like putting a kitten in the middle of a pack of wolves.”
People living in low income communities are not homogeneous. Some have more stable homes, more social support (extended family, church, etc.), and haven’t been pulled into the criminal justice system as deeply as others. For instance, Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson (author of “Code of the Street”) studied Philadelphia’s inner city community and defined two groups: “decent” and “street.” It would be the families he labels as “decent” who seek to isolate their children from others by way of charter schools.
Charter schools feed into our tribal instincts and the stratification of social class, and finish off what residential segregation did not do. Charters turn out to be the perfect device to further finely sort and separate the children of all the various groups and social class levels so people can further reduce their contact with anyone outside their own tribe, or on the rungs beneath their social class. To me, our current education policies do nothing to strengthen, and only further encourage, the breakdown of our common civil society.
Well put, Sharon. I was going to say something similar and I tried to above: that our charter school is run by the super-rich (actual billionaires with a ‘b’) but the same thing is happening all over the place at every social scale. You don’t need to be “rich” to have a powerful political voice in a given context, you just need to be MORE rich than your competition.
I’ve asked this of many our our local charter school supporters here in Los Altos: in looking at some of the requirements of some of these inner-city charter schools, could any of your household staff pull this off? I get no answer. Those inner-city charter schools are not for the household staff, they are for pre-yuppies who have moved themselves to a “transition” neighborhood to start, or the occasional “super mom” who works two jobs yet somehow gets home to make sure the kids do their homework.
The message this sends is clear: it’s every parent for themselves. No longer are you supposed to move to an area and try to improve it, lifting all boats. The new mantra is to lift your own boat, the rest be damned.
***
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very hopeful this far won’t last much longer. The president’s endorsement of charter schools is the ONLY reason that anybody who considers themselves even moderate liberal can possibly support charter schools with a straight face. This will pass. Once this becomes a partisan issue, charter schools won’t have enough support when it’s just one party (the same one that basically wants to abolish all public schools at it’s fringes) supporting them.
Most of our charter school supporters here (with notable, vocal exceptions) call themselves liberal and are proud of that. The first step is forcing them to reconcile the two, as they are not at all compatible.
Sharon,
I think your post hits on an important point. Choice in education allows households to do what they think is best for their children. Sometimes this will be at the cost of students who are not their children. Should the “decent” families be allowed to choose what they think is best for their children without taking the interest of the “street” into account? What level of sacrifice should we require of he “decent” household be required to make?
Define decent please.
I am using the word as Sharon used in her post.
Sorry…maybe Sharon will respond. Thank you.
The problem is, the “decents” want their cake and eat it too. They want a liberal society that takes care of the more difficult cases, and they benefit from that society in the form of lower crime and a more educated society.
They want all of this, and vote to make sure schools take care of them, and burden schools with the work that the social safety net takes care of in other countries, and then, when they see that all of this requires a lot of trade-offs, charters allow them to exempt themselves from those trade-offs.
It’s a lot like people voting for a 55 MPH speed limit for safety reasons and to keep the price of insurance low–and then sign up for a special license to drive as fast as you want. It’s inherently dishonest.
So to answer your question directly, the “sacrifice” that household should make is to increase the taxes they pay in order to adequately fund their school, and pay for the social safety net the benefit from, and work together to make their local school the place where the community can come together.
Of the countless abominations contained in that sick-ass movie, “WON’T BACK DOWN”, there is one that is relevant to this post. Early in the film, there is the charter lottery, where the anti-union charter CEO brags about his school having the third highest academic achievement in Pennsylvania (both this claim and the school ARE A TOTAL FICTIONAL FABRICATION, by the way.)
Back on Planet Earth, the reality is that charter schools are responsible for turning the clock back on integration 40 years. They are responsible for more re-segregation than any other factor.
So what do they name the fictional charter school? (get your barf bags ready)
“THE ROSA PARKS CHARTER SCHOOL”.
Sweet Jesus, can you think of a great perversion or desecration of the name of this iconic figure in American history? This woman did more for ending segregation by starting the whole movement… AND THESE SONS-O’-BITCHES making this film associate Ms Parks with the movement that is reversing the gains that the movement she kicked off have achieved.
On this webpage Kipp say how they got their name:
http://www.kipp.org/news/washington-post-harriett-ball-dies-teacher-who-inspired-kipp-charter-schools-was-64
“They took the name of their network from her most popular chant:
“You gotta read, baby, read.
You gotta read, baby read.
The more you read, the more you know,
‘Cause knowledge is power,
Power is money, and
I want it.”
~~~~
I’m gobsmacked … buy maybe because I’m not from the USA.
Kopp and Barth rake in close to $800,000 a year that we know of, so yes they want money and power…..and don’t forget it’s all about the children.
Even worse, the president of NYU makes $1.2 million a year (in 2008 at least) by himself, yet claims to be interested in education.