I never thought I would see the day when NPR ran a story complimenting a misogynist rapper for opening a charter school. This rapper, who calls himself Pitbull, writes lyrics that are too filthy to repeat on NPR or on this blog.
But there is Claudio Sanchez, reporting on the charming phenomenon that celebrities who are not educators and who apparently have no education themselves are opening charter schools! Isn’t that wonderful! Shouldn’t we all be impresssed!
Well, no, it is not that Mr. Pitbull has a heart overflowing with love of children or love of learning. He is making a lot of money. Fortunately for the readers of this blog, we have read Jersey Jazzman and Mother Crusader, both of whom did the sort of research that NPR did not do. Mr. Pitbull has another name: Armando Perez. In Jersey Jazzman’s article, you will see Mr. Pitbull-Perez has hired Academica, a for-profit charter chain with revenues of $158 million, to run his new charter school. Academica is owned by Mr. Fernando Zulueta, who controls some $115 million in real estate in Miami, all exempt from property taxes because his for-profit schools are “public.”
The story–and the money trail–gets way more complicated, but NPR did not see fit to discover any of the backers of Mr. Pitbull’s school.
The story gets entangled in Florida Republican politics, as Mother Crusader shows.
As always, it is a good thing to follow the money. Who is putting up the money, who is getting the money, who is making out like bandits?
But there is a lingering question: Why does anyone think it is a good idea for celebrities to open their own schools and to get public dollars for their profitable vanity project? How are we supposed to “outcompete” the globe by turning our children over to uneducated sports stars and rappers?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hadn’t heard of Mr Pitbull before this, and so naturally I rushed to look up the lyrics of his songs. You are correct in saying that most of the lyrics are not worth repeating, but I thought this little excerpt from his 2004 song ‘We don’t care ’bout ya’ was relevant in this context:
We don’t care about yo clique
We don’t care about yo crew
We don’t care about yo bitch
We don’t care what you do
We don’t care about your car
We don’t care about your chips
We don’t care about shit
except getting rich
Maybe this could be engraved on the new school’s signboard as a kind of motto.
Diane,
Do you sleep ever? Thanks for your relentless coverage. Is it me dreaming, or is some progress being made?
“Nina Reese, who heads the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says she’s not about to apologize for supporting the rapper’s school.
“Whether it’s Pitbull or Meryl Streep in Rhode Island or Sandra Bullock in Louisiana,” she says, “charters do benefit from celebrities because public schools, they do have to market themselves to families because these are schools of choice.”
Another nonsensical statement. If charter schools are “schools of choice” then public schools in a public/charter system are also “schools of choice.” Maybe the claim is no one would ever “choose” a public school? We’re all of us “trapped” inside our “failing” public schools, I guess is the assumption from charter school lobbyists.
Has anyone ever spotted a celebrity inside a public school? Or are our schools and kids not worth “marketing”?
At this point I’d settle for a state or federal elected leader acting as an advocate for public schools. I know we won’t rate a celebrity.
I guess NPR is really hurting for money!
“Whether it’s Pitbull or Meryl Streep in Rhode Island or Sandra Bullock in Louisiana,” she says,
Have to love the name-dropping, too. No mention of whether the schools are any better than the public schools they’re replacing, but they have Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock!
I’m curious how public schools are supposed to “market themselves” in this new celebrity endorsement ‘merit-based’ system.
“Seventeen-year-old Austin Rivera says he transferred to SLAM after Pitbull spoke at his previous school. “He came from nothing and became something huge. … It shows like not a lot of people are handed everything,” Austin says.”
If a charter sends a celebrity over to my local public school for “marketing” his or her school do we have to let the celebrity in? Or do we counter with hiring our own celebrity? I’m not really on board with “marketing” being conducted during the school day, generally. Just wondering how this market-driven system works, as a practical matter.
“Just wondering how this market-driven system works. . .”
It doesn’t work, all market driven systems tend to cabals or monopolies. That is what markets do!
“Schools of choice”.
I detect the invisible hand of the marketing department!
Not like those icky public schools full of failures that kids are “trapped” in, against their will, right?
Florida has two separate schools systems, a public system and a publicly-funded charter system.
Why then aren’t public schools also “schools of choice”? Presumably there are a large group of parents who are “choosing” NOT to send their children to Pit Bull’s sport’s franchise marketing entity.
There’s a perverse marketing synergy at work: the Miami developer with a sketchy background finds a promoter of a celebrity with a Horatio Alger story to front his school… both the developer and the promoter have public relations firms with connections to the mainstream media who LOVE to tell the “rags-to-riches-success-gives-back-to-the-community” story… and the media consumers never see the predatory takeover of another public by a multi-millionaire, they only see the rapper-with-a-heart-of-gold opening “his” school to help other kids… it’s a win-win-win for Mr. Zulueta, Mr. Pitbull-Perez and the media myth-makers and lose-lose-lose for parents, students, and the truth.
Just thinking how many celebrities would open schools if they were required to be present full-time at the school for a minimum of five years – actively on the school board too and such??? I suspect we would have a lot less celebrities getting in on “the latest profitable venture”! At least Tony Danza had an ed degree and entered the classroom as a teacher.
Today’s NPR = National Propaganda Radio. The old NPR died a slow, quiet death starting in the ’90s when the Clinton-era Democrats took power and caved to the Republicans’ campaign against the network. Over the years, the commentary became more and more right-leaning in the name of “balance”, as did the selection and tone of the stories. I was heart-broken watching the death of the NewsHour, which used to great debates between Gergen and Shields, turn into Bloomberg lite when David Brooks replaced Gergen.
And take a look at how David Koch scuttled a documentary on WNET recently.
Today, I really don’t care if PBS survives or not—It’s just another shill for the <= 1%.
Yep. Evidence: the story on the sainted John Arnold’s “gift” of 10 million/billion (I forget which) to Headstart. The gift was a loan, but that was never mentioned. The fact that he is an ex Enron trader who is attacking public pensions nation-wide was never mentioned either. NPR is a sad puppy. I contribute a little to my local with the understanding that it is going to drivel like this but I won’t contribute any more than a little.
Oh, and no one bothered to reply to my message to NPR when I called them out on this.
I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t blame the victim, but how does a child end up at a school like this?
“Hey, Mom, can I go to Pitbull’s school?”
“Isn’t he that foul-mouthed, misogynistic rapper”?
“Yeah.”
“Oh, sure, dear, that would be fine.”
But, remember, …
Any school is better than the “failing public school”, “dropout factory”, “dangerous place” you are zoned for!
😉
Zip code is destiny.
We had a middle school principal the kids really loved. He had an inspiring story, too. He had landed in this county as a foster child. The public school was his whole world. That’s why he returned to teach and then become a principal.
But he’ll never get a free ad for our public school up on NPR. Maybe we can send him to charter schools to recruit their students? After all, it’s just “marketing”.
I know they don’t care about my piddly little donation but if every single teacher in the country stopped donating they might notice a bit (hence the reason I didn’t donate during this current fall fund drive).
Something for me to consider!
The editor for this story, Stephen Thompson, the music editor, was partially responsible for the death of two black boys in college. He and his friends ran a photo of two black children throwing up gang signs, signs of the gangster disciples. The boys faces were not obscured, they had their first and last names printed in the cutline. Both were murdered by opposing gangs. Mr. Thompson lives in Maryland.
To me the fact that celebrities turned heroes because of their association with “education” (in the guise of charters) are given attention by media (NPR, and this week TIME magazine had something about Andre Agassi in the back that put his charter involvement in a sunny light) shows that children and education are just not thought about a lot. Those of us who do think about it, who work with and for children every day, can call BS on this because we know the deal. Somewhere along the line (always?? )a disconnect between business-minded endeavors and the daily grind of life looked over children and education. They (we) are an afterthought. Therefore, given this reality, it is easy for someone who doesn’t really pay attention to a situation, to just assume a celebrity rubbing elbows with something called education is a good thing.
It’s media hype because they don’t know better.
To me it’s just as bad as the local news interviewing some uninformed person excited about the limelight giving their take on a school fight or something. It’s about attention.
You’ll notice that NPR is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates fund. Their reporting is often procharter.
I stopped donating to NPR several years ago (see post by mooseensquirrels above for reasons..I agree).
Switched to supporting Democracy Now and Amy Goodman.
Check it out!
Or support your true local non commercial community radio station!
Don’t know of any in my area, but will look per your suggestion.’
Thanks, Duane.
If there aren’t you can always listen to KDHX (St. Louis for over 25 years or so) streaming live on the internet. Great programming-“None of the hits all the time”. Most every type of music imaginable ends up being played-different schedule everyday, programs 1-3 hours long usually
I don’t care about his music, but rather what the school is about. Making his lyrics the issue is an error. What is wrong with Andrei Agassi’s schools isn’t that he played tennis, but the schools themselves.
What do you call the narcissistic wealthy in pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$?
People who get “public dollars for their profitable vanity project.”
🙂