North Carolina policymakers are putty in the hands of Art Pope, the zillionaire libertarian who funds the John Locke Institute and is also state budget director. Bill Moyers featured him in an exposé and Jane Mayer of the New Yorker wrote an article about his successful takeover of the state, in which he successfully defeated moderate Republicans with extremists to his liking.
The far-out anti-public sector Legislature is intent on advancing privatization. They work from the ALEC script, having passed a law that allows a charter-friendly state “advisory” board to override local school boards that might be so rash as to protect their local public schools.
This is context to explain how a developer who built a gated community got permission to open a charter school right outside the gates of his community. He wanted to build it inside the gates, but the advisory committee thought that might give the wrong impression. The developer, by the way, is an old friend of Vice President Joe Biden, whose brother Frank Biden is involved with a for-profit charter chain called Mavericks.
The developer and his board were turned down by the local school board, one of the worst funded districts in the state. The charter will take funds from the district. Nonetheless, the district was squashed by the state advisory committees, which welcomes more charters, regardless of the fiscal impact on the local public schools.
Unlike public schools, where 100% of teachers must be certified, charters need hire only 50% certified teachers. You can tell this is real “reform” because the standards for teachers are lower.
The charter will be run by a guy who ran another charter that was closed because of financial problems.
Really, folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dear Diane,
I did not know how else to reach you; the following is a link to an opinion piece in The Journal News (Westchester) regarding your talk at Fox Lane High School. I wanted to make sure that you see it and have an opportunity to respond. It appears today, Thursday, January 23, 2014.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20140122/OPINION/301220045/Tests-rigor-aren-t-new-education?odyssey=mod|newswell|text||s
One of many thoughts about this is that private schools already set the precedent of not requiring certified teachers and that, if spun a certain way, will associate charters hiring non-certified teachers with private schools. They have got some playbook, these reformers.
I think you are right.
But the ultimate goal here is to sell homes saying “and we have our own school right here!” so that any surrounding low student socio-economic level would not deter potential lot and home buyers from buying in their development. The ultimate insular life. Typically developments that attract lots and lots of families eventually lead to the community responding with a new public school. But there might be “poor kids” or “blacks” (as some say too often in NC), so this is a way of putting the cart before the horse and stamping out that potential threat that might deter a family from buying in their development.
Consider the new 175 trailer sites going in near my school. We are anticipating a huge expansion in our population (mostly Hispanic) next year. Yet they will come to the public school and then eventually the county will deal with the numbers if the crowding is a problem. Why is it that first generation Americans get that our public schools are a good thing? I guess if talk of a charter at the gate of the trailer park occurs, then we can just call it a neighborhood trend.
Icky is right
What the heck is his point that they are “professionals” and not just well-meaning parents and teachers. Many well-meaning parents and ALL teachers are professionals. He implies that business men are the only professionals.
“A need for schools of any kind.” Hmmmm.
Charters have long been a real estate play, whether in high-rent cities where they are allowed to take over public school facilities (with the presumed hope of getting captive politicians to later sell them for $1.00), or in other areas where the New Markets Tax Credit subsidizes them and enriches the developers (who conveniently always seem to turn up on their Boards) who build them.
In other words, legal looting by racketeers in three-piece suits.
That New Market Tax Credit sure had a lot of side effects, didn’t it?
Joanna, I’d say that’s a feature, not a bug.
It was Clinton’s baby, though, right?
I have some days come to regret the enthusiasm I felt about him at age 19. My first time to vote! Shook his hand at a rally. But gee the wake of what he achieved for our country has left so many problems. I don’t get it.
I totally agree with you about Bill Clinton. He was the best Republican president the US has had in recent years. Yes, I know he ran on the Democratic ticket 🙂
But Stoops, of the Locke Foundation, said people are complaining about Anderson Creek only because it’s a gated community. He described the school’s start-up as the action of concerned parents who want what’s best for their children’s education.
“It’s not the gated community that’s getting the money,” he said. “It’s the school that’s getting the money.”
This is not true. The gated community developer will own the asset and lease it back to the school.
In other words, the gated community is getting the money.
I love how they promise to provide “carpooling” for the riff-raff. There’s no transportation available to that school. Funny how they set up a school and make it very difficult for anyone outside the gates to get there. They’re flush with development cash and state funding. Why not provide adequate transportation to the public?
The accompanying newspaper article is confusing. Anderson Creek is a very large development. Ostensibly with 4200 units – I say ostensibly because the map suggests fewer than 4200 units. But I just chatted with someone at Anderson Creek and they indicated that currently about 1000 units have been developed or are in the process of development. There will be additional developments beyond the gated community. He confirmed the 4200 unit number. This suggests that the population in the development plus any ancillary developments will create essentially a new town of 15000-plus people. Therefore, it seems to me that new schools will need to be built one way or the other in the next few years. The tax base from 4200 new homes should make this economically viable on a more or less stand alone basis – once the development is completed and fully occupied.
Here is the ACC Charter Application.
Click to access accnarr.pdf
The appendices include important additional information but are not included for some unknown reason. The projected teacher salaries strike me as too low and without adequate year over year increases to ensure low turnover.
The plan specifies a class size of 15 for K-5. If so, then I would think it would be a great place to begin to argue for a reduction in class sizes elsewhere in Harnett and Cumberland County at least.
Bernie, those small class sizes in the charter school are contingent on resources being diverted from the local public schools.
Haven’t you noticed what so-called reformers say when public school parents and teachers propose smaller class sizes? The predictable response is that there’s not enough money.
However, there’s always enough money to open new charter schools, and it goes without saying that the overwhelming majority of so-called reformers send their own kids to private schools with small class size.
Michael:
Levinson is creating a sizable new community with new tax revenues (The local tax rate is $0.85/$100). There is an argument that if you do allow public funding of charter schools, then only the marginal cost of the student should be covered to avoid adversely impacting existing public schools. In this instance because it is a new community, it is reasonable to argue that the marginal cost comes close to the average cost.
It’s a RACE to the BANK!
Yvonne:
What evidence do you have that supports your assertion?
If the education that this charter school provides is bad the people who live behind the gates will not send their children to it.
That breeze you just felt was the point going over your head.
lol
This is a lovely School Choice Week event.
It’s where a state superintendent of public schools joins with national ed reform lobbyists and politicians to bash public schools:
“As part of events marking the national week, Superintendent Barresi will participate in a panel discussion Tuesday evening (January 25) at a special showing of the new documentary, “The Cartel” at Oklahoma Christian University. “The Cartel” focuses on New Jersey’s failing education system — a state where per-pupil spending ranks among the highest in the nation but students graduate with shockingly low proficiency in reading and math.
“A growing number of documentaries over the past year have exposed the failures in America’s education system, even as education spending has increased by more than 200 percent over the past quarter century,” said Barresi. “Far from being immune to these problems, Oklahoma faces a crisis. Studies show we are among the worst states in producing top-achieving math and science students.”
Barresi joins other National School Choice Week participants across the country including U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, commentator Juan Williams, Grammy-award winning singer Jon Secada, Black Alliance for Educational Options Chairman Kevin P. Chavous and former New York Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.”
I can’t believe we now have a week set aside for public school bashing.
I’ll have to alert my fifth grader that his school and teachers are part of a “cartel”. What a dope he is! Here he was thinking he likes school and trusts his teachers.
These adults should be ashamed of themselves.
DR..I’ve read/used your thinking for a good 35+ years. Recanting freeing the Charter School horses//meowing them back in the barn is a waste of good time. You know better. As long as the Kalamazoo Case is American school finance “law,” the House of Morgan, Boston State Street, Chicago School free marketeers, with the help of bought help in WDC, will continue fracking public education for private profit/s…and guess who will write and maybe teach about it in a tenureless workplace? I apologize for the negative tone. ted
And the big hits just keep on happening’. You can count on NC to entertain us even when don’t want to be entertained.
Dienne – If this school is opened do you think that it will appeal to the people who live in the million dollar homes? The article linked to clearly implies that this is the intent of the developers.
I find it hard to believe that people who live in million dollar homes will voluntarily send their children to schools providing a substandard education. If however they do so you should be happy since providing substandard educations for the children of the affluent should reduce the economic inequality that you are concerned about.
The point is segregation, not the quality of the education. I’m sure it will be a quality school – the rich wouldn’t stand for anything else. The problem is that it’s exclusive to people who live in million dollar homes, but paid for by the public. Was that really not obvious?
I know that this post is a few months old, but as a student and actual resident of Anderson Creek Club, there are just too many misconceptions about the community and the school that I want to clear up for the benefits of people who know nothing of the environment.
First of all, Anderson Creek Club, though a gated golf community, is a master-planned community, mean that there are a range of communities and homes starting as low as the $120s. Poverty? Not necessarily, but most certainly not this stigma of “millionaire kids”.
Next, the school is not that significant. It only plans on enrolling a little under 200 students, and with the way this part of Harnett County is growing (there are about 4 mass developments in the area with over 800 planned homes, and several smaller developments), which hardly makes a dent in the student population. What does this result in? Honestly, parents not caring about the school as a whole. Just ask around. People in Harnett County are extremely invested into our school system, and the residents of Anderson Creek Club are very found of the public schools that serve the community, particularly the elementary school, which is rather new itself (2009.) Take notice of the few PRIVATE schools we have – about 2, with extremely low enrollments. If Anderson Creek Club parents choose public schools over private, what makes everyone believe that parents are lining up to put there kids in this school? I’m not sure.
If anything, parents are rallying for a new large public elementary school, but this charter school is honestly often overlooked by the people it actually affects, so this talk of de facto segregation, which I am EXTREMELY against, is irrelevant. Not only is the community diverse, but so are the great public schools we go, and will CONTINUE to go to even when this day-care sized charter school is opened.
Just though, as an actual resident, I’d clear some things up.
This is an obscene misuse of tax dollars. You cannot spin this is to make it anything but a travesty of the formerly high-minded concept of public money used for public schools.
We see time and again, charter businesses MUST lie, equivocate, BS, etc. to make their actions look like anything but an affront to common sense and our basic values of democracy.
Call the place “Smell A Rat Academy”.
Well Dienne this is the first time that I have noticed anybody here admitting that some charter schools may provide an excellent education. Of course I am sure that among the thousands of charter schools in this country there must be some that are not so good.
Jim,
The question is not whether “some” charters are good but why should we have a dual school system?
Remember in 1954, there was a Supreme Court decision about that?
It seems to me we have many more than just two school systems. To begin, we have a parallel, lightly regulated private school system that educates one out of every ten students in the country. We have magnet public schools, all accepting students from a much larger geographic areas than traditional zoned schools, some requiring students to take standardized exams for admission. We have charter schools, barred from requiring exams for admission in most jurisdictions (perhaps all, I am unsure), but also drawing students from much larger geographic areas like magnet schools and more lightly regulated like private schools. We also have traditional zoned schools in which students are admitted based on street address.
If the goal is to eliminate duality in K-12 education, private schools, charter schools, and magnet schools would all need to be shut down in order to get to one school system.
Jim, that is not true. There have been plenty of discussions on here acknowledging the success of some charters.
The duality is the issue AND the fact that eventually it is revealed that much of the “success” is due to keeping certain children out, which seems/is wrong for the use of public dollars. It’s akin to not letting certain people drive on roads paid for and maintained by public dollars, or not letting certain people use a park paid for by public dollars.
Everything has cost. The question is the priority of our mission. American ideals have typically (supposedly, since integration)) hinged on not being denied access to those aspects of our communities that are public and/or paid for by tax dollars.
The question of educational quality, then, actually gets pushed aside because the “quality” afforded by exclusion can be and is limited in scope by the things it accounts for. In my opinion, quality also encompasses an understanding if who loves in our societies–who breathes the same air we do, relies on the same water systems and pays into the same tax system (as they are able). A snapshot based in testing performance if ores am aspect of quality in democratic communities (with elected representation) and should not be exclusive.
It is a conundrum—hence the reason for needing to discuss it. The problem is that while we recognize these shortcomings of charters in regards to inclusivity, the cat is already out of the bag. We already have charters and some of them are doing great! (But they are exclusive). “Exclusive” adds a certain panache to things—people want to feel that they are in with the creme de la creme–and it used to be that a well supported public school allowed for that type sorting by having sports, academics and vocational opportunities for all type learning and interests. When you start chipping away at a collective effort like that in order to pay for exclusive havens (that even charter school pârents admit have their limitations when it comes to athletics and specialized classes), you get the duality we have now. And taking a snapshot of performance in reading and math is the new and desperate measure to try and justify this splintering.
I believe in high standards in ALL things, not just reading and math. We have a better shot at that when exclusivity is not part of the equation.
But the ship has sailed. We have named the stray cats before we knew if we could afford to keep them. And that’s where we are. On this blog I think you will find the realization that as a category, charters hurt Public education. But there are plenty who recognize that the snap shots of sone of these charters and the experience of the children who are allowed to attend them is positive at SOME charters.
Limiting the scope of academics to a snap shot (or series of snap
Shots) of reading and writing and math has hurt our county’s sense of “achievement.” The well diggers installing a geothermal unit at our house need a different set of skills then close reading a text somebody else selected for them. Had they attended an exclusive charter in order to achieve that, they might never have become skilled at the very thing that now puts bread on their tables and provides a much needed service in community.
Than a close text.
(Pardon the typos. It is very early).
Then learn to read, Jim. Diane has repeatedly said that some charters are good, some are bad, some in between. Overall, charters get the same (or worse) results as public schools because in both kinds of schools the results (test scores, that is) reflect the socio-economic status of the students in them.
I myself think that good results by charters or private schools is probably mostly a matter of selection of good students. As a matter of fact good results by almost any institution largely come about as a result of selection. The US Army does not try to teach low IQ individuals to be good soldiers. Instead they just have a cutoff IQ score below which they do not accept volunteers.
The charter school mentioned in the link is probably much better for the children of the people owning the millon dollar homes than the local public schools at which their children would likely be exposed to disruptive and low IQ children. I can’t blame them for trying to do what is best for their children.
Hi Diane-I found your BLOG while searching for information on the charter school being built near our home. My husband and I own a house in Anderson Creek Club (ACC) where Mr Levinson is building the charter school. We are active duty military. We currently rent the house. It is worth about $220.000. There are only about 3 houses in ACC that are worth a million. Most are $200.000 to $400.000. I would also estimate at least 50% of the families that live in ACC are active duty military who are stationed at Ft Bragg, that is located about 20 miles south. The reason our family bought our home in ACC is because of security. The crime is very high in and around Ft Bragg and my husband was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan many times when we were stationed at Ft Bragg. If you do your research on the schools that are located near ACC, you will find it is called Overhills and i believe it is estimated at being at 150% over-strength at this time and no new schools are being built in the next 3-5 years. The Ft Bragg military population is also growing and the infrastructure of the surrounding counties are having a hard time supporting the growth. A tax increase JUST got approved this year for Harnett county but it will take years for any new schools to be built to support the area surrounding ACC. This charter school may be a quick solution to a long-term problem. If you have any questions about about the lovely working families (not millionaires) that live in ACC I would love to answer those questions. Sandy
Sandy,
Why not a public school for the military families?
Diane: The facts that Sandy identifies indicates that the local schools are already seriously over-subscribed. Is there no situation where you would countenance a Charter School?
The military kids who live off base go to local schools. Each public school gets money from the Federal Government for each military student that attends their school. The local schools love to have military kids in their schools because of this extra money they get from the Federsl Government.
Sandy:
So in essence the local school district collects money twice for the children of military families – from property taxes like everybody else and also from the federal government? I was unaware of the additional revenue source.
Yes-
http://www.aasa.org/content.aspx?id=9000
Read this link.
Some of us in the military that live outside of the military posts sometimes speculate that school districts near military posts are some of the “least funded” (as stated in Diane’s original BLOG) because the decision makers who divide up the money know that these districts get extra money from the Federal Government because of the huge population of military children that live within the district. Only a speculation-no evidence to prove it. On another side note. Some reasons why military families live off of military posts: there is not enough housing on military posts to handle all of the families that are stationed at a post: some families like to live with the “people” where we are stationed and create a sense of community with our families and the people around us as much as possible; to purchase homes for investments; to purchase homes to come back to for retirement someday; to live near a good school for our kids to attend; to live near a job that a non-military spouse is working at; for safety, such as was the case for us when we purchased our home in ACC. Those of us who live in ACC are not sure what to think about the charter school. Since the current school situation in Overhills is severe overcrowding and the building of any additional schools for this area is not for another 3-5 years and the Ft Bragg military continues to grow, something has to be done to add schools to the immediate area now.
Hi everyone,
I’d like to share a talk I recently gave to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL about the excessive testing going on in our public schools and who is profiting by it.