Frank Biden, brother of Vice President Joe Biden, is president of the Mavericks charter chain in Florida, explained the secret of charter success.
He said,
“Biden, the brother of Vice President Joe Biden, offered some red meat, saying the school choice movement needs to continue organizing parents – and accumulating political power.
“It’s all about the 501(c)(4) and how much money we get in it,” he said. “And we go see our friends and we tell them we’ll support them. And we go see our enemies and look ‘em in the eye and say we’re going to take you down.”
In that state, charters give handsomely to politicians and have a lock on the legislature.
Biden spoke truth.
At a conference in Florida celebrating Nationsl School Choice Week,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Some charters, like public schools, also make good decisions. There are real, actual teachers and administrators in both types of schools.
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Diverting education tax dollars from public schools to privately managed charter schools has resulted in a corrupt gold rush. Kickbacks, self-dealing, cherry-picking students, and lavish campaign spending, as described here by Frank Biden, are par for the course.
Yes, some charters make good decisions, and real teachers and administrators work at charter schools, but that doesn’t mean public funds should be diverted to edu-preneurs who see schools as a financial investment, rather than an investment in future generations.
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Concerned citizen, I agree for the most part, but the title of the post is “how charters succeed.” Charters don’t simply succeed because of money and fundraising, and I think the educators at those schools deserve to be recognized for their decision-making when appropriate, just as public school teachers should.
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EDE,
The problem is that charter schools are being/have been co-opted by the corporate reform movement. Furthermore they are solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. Everything a good charter school does is being done (in most cases for many years) at a public school. But, like every good marketing campaign, they are making what you already have in abundance seem outdated, quaint, and in some cases just bad.
They engender a segregation on our society even more pronounced than it already is, and divert public funds to schools that are essentially “creaming in” the high performers. This makes them appear all the more effective.
Yes, there are dedicated professionals at these schools However, their idealism, their devotion to children, and their commitment to making a difference in the world, is being used to undermine a deep public good.
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James, I disagree that they are a “solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” and that “everything a good charter does it being done at a public school.” There are great public schools, but there are ineffective ones as well. Step one of putting teachers back in control is owning that “education is perfect in this country” and that poverty is the real problem. Poverty IS a real problem, but so are things like lack of implementation of research-based practices in schools. Charters are a symptom – not just of corporate greed and political need, but of a public need for something to change. It may have been the wrong answer, but it was nevertheless a real issue.
This isn’t me badmouthing public schools, nor me unilaterally standing up for charters. Just me saying that there are good teachers in some charters that are doing things better than in some public schools. We should not be so naive as to assume we’ve already got all the answers and we can’t learn from them, just as they should not arrogantly assume public schools have no answers either and should be thrown out as totally ineffective.
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I doubt that good teachers in charters are doing anything different than good teachers in public schools. If they are they are very good at keeping secrets. I like you though do not see charters per se as the enemy. Unfortunately, good charters will be tarred with the same brush as bad charters just as good public schools are judged by those that are struggling often for reasons that have nothing to do with pedagogical acumen. It is too bad that charters in general have been repurposed to serve the needs of investors above the needs of the students.
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Everything that charter schools are doing well is being done in a public school, or could be done just as well under the auspices of a public school. Not every public school, but in a public that is funded properly, where teachers are respected and allowed to operate with the autonomy they are due. Hence, they are unnecessary – a solution for a problem that does not exist. Or to say it in a different way, better solved by a public school, as opposed to the corporate entity one-step-removed of charter schools.
“Implementation of research-based practices…” makes me ask the question, “research by who?” The term “research-based practices” is simply the new corporate sales line. When you read Paul Tough’s book, what he describes going on in some charter schools is great, but it’s going on public schools just as well. So much of what they are doing in charter schools (regular good teaching, caring about students, visiting parents, challenging assumptions, etc) is presented as some kind of innovation. It’s not. If the bureaucratic, and financial restrictions were diminished we would see more (than we already do) of these well known best practices in public school.
Charters are indeed a symptom greed and politics, but the public outcry for change was sponsored by a great deal of corporate propaganda. Which is, conveniently, some of the same sources subsidizing charter schools.
I agree there are good teachers in some charters and some of the things they are doing is good quality, but not better than good public school- at best, the same as good public schools. In addition, I think it’s reasonable to observe they have more resources in many cases and have often cherry picked the kids they allow into their midst. Also, I don’t think we are naive or arrogant when we assume we have less to learn from a teacher just out of graduate school or having just completed the 5 week TFA course- and most charter school teachers fall into those two categories.
I might add that it is naive of teachers at charter schools to not see they are being used by corporate interest to undermine public schools. They are recruited using the rhetoric of vocation, meaning and purpose. They are approaching what they do with that level of devotion, and that is nothing less than honorable. I have nothing but respect for teachers of almost any stripe, but I am forced to relate to charter school employees with the same austerity I would someone who crosses a picket line to work in a school where teachers are on strike.
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Biden’s was unaccredited for a while. I wonder if they are now?
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No wonder Secretary Murphy joined Chief As Leaders. May eyes have been opened . I teach in Delaware…..
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This is the yearly school choice window here in Florida. I get to see an advertisement from a local charter school that receives money from my district knock and smear the public schools and public school teachers in our district as being indifferent, uncaring, unhelpful, and lazy, compared to all the wonderful employees of the charter who care and treat everyone with great service This is how they “compete” for students and it plays several times an hour. Their school grade for the previous year was no better than my school’s grade (we both failed) but they have all new employees every few weeks so I guess that does give them an edge in change for change’s sake.
Leaving aside the fact that the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are spending on round the clock advertising is money that is NOT being used to educate students, I think these ads epitomize for me what is so terribly wrong with school choice.
Instead of relying on the higher ground of selling their charter school on its benefits and innovations and “good” decisions they have chosen to take the low road so common in business and smear their “competitors”, all of whom work for the same district and the same state entities.
This is not friendly rivalry like the old football team competitions but cutthroat competition that creates enemies, breeds hostility, destroys reputations, and makes people cynical, suspicious and doubtful. Is this really the America we want to create, based upon the model that produces scandal after scandal, scam after scam, corruption, lies, and greed?
I guess it is the Florida we want as there is little to no chance that this juggernaut can or will be stopped. Pity the children of Florida!
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He forgot to tell people about this part:
“But so far, Mavericks’ lofty goals haven’t materialized. Most of their schools graduate less than 15 percent of eligible students. On state report cards, the schools get “incompletes” because so few of their students are taking the FCAT. In Miami, two former teachers filed whistle-blower lawsuits alleging the Homestead school is inflating attendance records and failing to report grades properly.
Plus, there are rampant financial questions, cozy ties between Mavericks and local politicians, and a legal fight with former celebrity spokesman Dwyane Wade.
Mavericks has become a poster child for the problems that have long dogged charter schools in Florida”
Mavericks also received a 250k grant from the US DOE.
Perhaps you’ve heard of White Hat which is a notorious charter chain in Ohio.
Mavericks is a spin-off of White Hat:
“One of White Hat’s early leaders was Mark Thimmig. As CEO from 2001 to 2005, he helped grow the company into one of the largest charter school chains in the country. As of 2010, White Hat had 51 charter schools in six states, including ten charter schools in Florida called Life Skills Centers.”
“Two years after leaving White Hat, Thimmig alleges in court documents, he was approached by Palm Beach Gardens developer Mark Rodberg about launching a chain of charter schools here. Rodberg had built a few schools for White Hat, but had never run one before. He owned restaurants, including Bucky’s Bar-B-Que in Boca Raton and Bucky’s Grill in Fort Lauderdale. Together, Thimmig and Rodberg came up with a plan that was nearly identical to White Hat’s”
Read the whole thing, although the whole sordid tale could be summarized as “ca-ching!”
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2011-12-29/news/mavericks-high-schools-hope-to-profit-from-education-ndash-but-at-what-cost/
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“And we go see our enemies and look ‘em in the eye and say we’re going to take you down, ”states the noble Frank Biden. Take away the political cover and the difference between this guy and a mafia punk is what, exactly ?
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That line caught my eye also!
All I can say is come out here to the Show Me State Mr. tough boy Franky. I know of many places we can go at it. You’d end up being fish food in the Missouri River, that is if they could stomach you!
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Hello, Due-ane.
And yet, isn’t Biden such a perfect fit for Obama and Michelle and all of their friends who they either agree with this sham of a reform or made promises to their political lovers in corporatizing public education.
I am sure Obama and Michelle will thank Penny Pritzker, among so many others, at their $34 million dollar ocean front manse in Honolulu one day over a a dinner party replete with flowing Perignon and organic filet mignon.
Only the finest will do for the vice president, his brother, and the whole Adams family of ghoulish corporate reformers . . . . .
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If he takes you up on it let me know. I’ll be visiting my son in Moberly, I’d be glad to be your second. It can be a formal back woods duel for the gentry.
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Thank you for this post. I knew Joe Biden’s wife is an educator (I don’t know her views, if any, on school choice and vouchers), but until today I did not know he had a brother, and that his brother is a charter school operator.
The post brought back some bad memories of the Rodham brothers? Does anyone know what they are doing these days? I think they are both in Florida? Do they have any connections to charter schools?
I am very wary of a Hillary Clinton DOE, and recommend Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein as alternatives.
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Jill Biden is a college professor. I’ve never heard of Michelle Obama having a position on school reform. She’s emphasizing nutrition and exercise. Until these women publicly declare their positions, let’s not inject them into the conversation. They are “not guilty” by association until proven otherwise IMHO.
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I asked a question about Dr. Biden, and did not inject Mrs. Obama into the conversation.
But, IMHO they are both bystanders, at a minimum, to the steady and organized destruction of public education and demonization of public school teachers like myself. My wife, also a teacher (painfully for her, her colleagues and students, in Philadelphia, Pa), supported Michelle’s husband with the few dollars we could spare for politics and our votes, and we hoped for much better. That is why I am looking for alternatives in independent and third party candidates who reject Citizens United and charter schools.
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They plan to use Michelle to work on higher education “reform.” She’s not a bystander.
http://www.universityherald.com/articles/5521/20131112/michelle-obama-takes-on-higher-education-reform-new-initiative-aligns-with-baracks-college-reform-proposal.htm
http://www.alternet.org/education/kipp-forces-5th-graders-earn-desks-sitting-floor-week
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Here’s how to make it rich in the real-estate business:
Borrow some money and buy an abandoned grocery.
Put some PCs around the walls.
Do a contract with K-12 to get some worksheets on a screen for those PCs.
Use your political connections to get your charter school application approved.
Have students show up and do worksheets on a screen almost all the time.
You can have really high student-to-teacher ratios and really crappy, low-paid teachers because all they have to do is make sure the computers are turned on. Teaching? There’s an app for that.
Collect taxpayer money from the state for those kids, and use that money to pay off your real-estate loan.
Repeat.
If you want to expand quickly, hold investor conferences and explain to them that you are not in the education business but in a VERY LUCRATIVE real-estate business.
AH, EDUCATION. MAKE$ ONE FEEL ALL WARM AND FUZZY TO BE HELPING ALL THO$E $TUDENT$.
HOW TO YOU LIKE THE FONT I’M U$ING? IT’$ CALLED GATE$. I U$E IT WHEN WRITING ABOUT THE CC$$.
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Florida is a great place to do this. After all, Florida pioneered the real-estate scam back in the Flagler days.
Anyone want to buy a beautiful piece of lakefront property (uh, swamp)?
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As Florida is voucherized, charterized, and privatized to death, far too much of the real estate stands to lose tremendous value or become nearly worthless.
The National Realtor’s Association (the good NRA) and National Homebuilder’s Association, should realize how mischaracterizing a school system, lying about it, and measuring it with junk science will make it excruciatingly difficult for realtors and developers to sell properties in a mainstream market . . . .
Unless we want a society where buying a home is like buying a yacht.
Time to call my friend Ivana and see what she thinks . . . .
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I’ll buy that lakefront property if you buy some of my “preferred” ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in central MO.
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I will be sure to do that for you, my friend, with all the windfall fortunes, golden parachutes, stock options, double backed derivatives, exotic mortgage instruments, hedge fund proceeds, and off shore tax-free largesses I have made as a public school teacher teaching low income immigrant students . . .
But, in my effort to be conservative with finances, I will secure the property for you and put the deed in your name, but YOU have to build the home and pay the property taxes. I expect you’ll let my wife and I visit once a year.
Don’t ask for more than that because you’re not getting any more, and I mean business, Swacker . . . .
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Sold!! to the gentleman in the tall hat!!!!
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It’s interesting how the charter business and online virtual school business is dominated by ex-politicians and the brothers and cousins of politicians.
In other banana republics, politicians have to give their relatives and buddies lucrative no-work jobs in the government. In the United States, we can make them school leaders.
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“In other banana republics, politicians have to give their relatives and buddies lucrative no-work jobs in the government. In the United States, we can make them school leaders.”
Yes!
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Time to start running late-night infomercials on how to make MILLION$ in the EDUCATION BU$INE$$.
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Oh, that I didn’t have 1/10 of a conscience I could be rich!
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The League of Women Voters of Florida has done a statewide study of charter schools. When the final report is released, please help us spread the findings though social media. Here’s a link to the Alachua County study which was completed last year and is a model for the other counties who are participating. http://www.lwv-alachua.org/pdfs/LWV%20Study%20Charter%20Schools.pdf
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Apparently the capitalist wall street army has captured all of the education hills and there is not much left for the financing of public education whether it be in Florida, Philadelphia, however their maybe a change coming and it is already starting in NYC. As a proud voter in the last election in NYC we didn’t talk about it we voted. Voters took action not lip service and we now have a progressive as mayor in office who is finally going to listen to the people. Stop, Question and Frisk is already dying, it can be done we can make the changes to take back the educational arena
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How do charters succeed in New Orleans? They fund-raise constantly. The big winner here, besides the corporate chains, is the city & state. Instead of paying to build or renovate a school building, they just make the charters do it themselves. Saves a ton of money. And, according to the board president quoted in the article below, “As a practical matter, drawing the outside community in to invest in our schools is not a weakness.” True, except that the public is already investing – through taxes. This is a way for the “public” to “invest” in only the schools it really wants to succeed instead of the state/city using taxes to fund schools at levels so that all students have a place to learn.
http://uptownmessenger.com/2014/02/lycee-francais-monthly-board-meeting-feb-3-2014/
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