Rick Cohen of the Nonprofit Quarterly traces a clear pattern: The Republican party has embraced charter schools as their cause.
Republicans have always favored school choice, assuming that competition makes all schools better.
But they have never been able to persuade any electorate to endorse vouchers for private and religious schools.
So, charters are now the darlings of Republican donors and candidates.
The fact that charters have failed to demonstrate consistently superior academic performance doesn’t bother the Republicans, nor does the number of failed charters, nor are they dissuaded by the charters that have been caught up in financial scandals.
Nor do they care that the expansion of charters drains money from the public schools.
Nor are they troubled that many charters cherrypick their students and exclude students with disabilities and English learners.
Follow the money.
Cohen writes:
In politics, you have to follow the money. The editorial board of the San Antonio Express-News found it almost laughable to imagine that what it counted as more than $800,000 in campaign contributions from “charter school interests” between 2006 and 2013 didn’t play a role in convincing the Texas legislature to lift the state’s cap on charter schools. The Express-News is referring to the findings of a report from Texans for Public Justice that indicated people affiliated with the state’s top six charter school chains doubled their political contributions in recent years, comparing 2006 and 2008 to 2010 and 2012.
The bulk of the charter school contributions were linked to KIPP, particularly in the Houston area, where Doug Foshee, the former CEO of the El Paso Corporation natural gas producer, sits on the KIPP board and is treasurer for the conservative-leaning Texans for Education Reform. The biggest recipients were gubernatorial candidates Bill White, a Democrat, and the eventual winner, Rick Perry, a Republican, in 2010. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo may have scored a $10,000 campaign donation from the state’s largest teachers’ union in the past few months, but charter school advocates have given the governor much more, including $40,000 from Bruce Kovner, a billionaire among the 100 richest people in the U.S. who is a well known financial backer of Brighter Choice Charter Schools in Albany; $25,000 from StudentsFirst NY, the New York State affiliate of Michelle Rhee’s pro-charter political arm; and $14,000 from the pro-charter Democrats for Education Reform. Cuomo says he can’t be bought by campaign contributions, but like the editorial editors at the San Antonio News Express, most people would find the notion that campaign money doesn’t affect political positions as ludicrous.
Republican politicians like Rick Perry might get some money from charter school supporters, but given the large Republican soft money edge across the nation, donations from supporters of KIPP or IDEA are kind of inconsequential. In fact, strong charter school and privatization supporters like Eli and Edith Broad and John and Laura Arnold are major donors to Democratic politicians, although it is possible that those campaign contributions make the Democrats a little more charter-friendly. But around charter schools, campaign financing follows a bipartisan mold. The Arnolds’ foundation, for example, has put substantial funding into promoting charter schools in Houston and Louisiana. (The latter is where conservative Republican governor Bobby Jindal is closely allied with the expansion of charter schools and publicly funded vouchers for students to attend private schools.) Republican supporters of charter schools have also been somewhat bipartisan; the American Federation for Children, funded by Republican donor Betsy DeVos, for example, made more than one-third of its political donations to Democrats. Similarly, Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst Tennessee poured dollars into both to Republican and Democratic campaign coffers trying to win favor for charter schools and school choice.
The fact that President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan support charters allow Republicans to appear bipartisan even as they embrace a strategy that undermines and weakens public schools:
This new charter school strategy by multiple Republican gubernatorial candidates isn’t just serendipitous. It is a conscious strategy—kinder, gentler, and kid-focused— for a Republican Party that generally has not supported the strengthening of public schools. Perhaps charter schools in Texas and elsewhere feel that they are not in a position to deny politicians like Abbott the opportunity to shoot TV ads in their facilities, especially if today’s denied politician turns out to be tomorrow’s governor. It might be a little bit awkward for charter schools, many of them managed by nonprofits like KIPP, to find themselves positioned by Abbott, Walker, and others as avatars for reduced public sector support of public school systems. Maybe some, however, are not all that discomfited by their use as props in Republican campaigns.
In a National School Choice Week editorial, Georgia Governor Deal lauded both private schools and charter schools as the means for parents “to ensure their child is getting an excellent education to compete in today’s world.” He made his position on charter schools clear. “These schools are given greater flexibility in return for strong accountability for student academic success,” Deal wrote. “By observing high-performing charter schools throughout Georgia, it’s clear these institutions promote competition, innovation and creativity while encouraging strong parental involvement.” He offered not a scintilla of analysis about how to make the public schools of Georgia, beyond the 310 charters already operating, also attractive choices for parents.
Deal didn’t acknowledge how the $1.51 million given to the Georgia Charter Schools Association in the past few years by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus’s foundation and the $3.99 million given to the Association by the Walton Family Foundation, much of it devoted to building charter school capacity, boosts the attractiveness of that choice over traditional public schools, whose staff are often scrounging for basic supplies and services. He didn’t mention the past several years of grants to KIPP in Georgia, including at least $21.825 million in foundation grants to the KIPP Metro Atlanta Collaborative ($2.653 million from the Marcus Foundation, $9.456 million from the Community Foundation in Atlanta, and several large seven-figure grants and PRIs from various foundations for the construction of the KIPP Strive primary school), over $2 million for the KIPP West Atlanta Young Scholars Academy, and funds specifically targeted for KIPP Strive Academy and KIPP South Fulton Academy. These and other grants hint at the private capital that Deal’s Democratic opponent Thurbert Baker pointed to in his explanation that charter schools’ complaints about facilities funding, not to mention operations, might be a little unwarranted.
The Foundation Directory Online lists over 960 grants in the past several years in support of specific charter schools or charter school networks in Texas, more than half of them between 2008 and 2011. KIPP Academy pulled in 208 of those grants, eight of them in the seven-figure range, with major support from a couple of community foundations as well as the Houston Endowment, the M.D. Anderson Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and the Brown Foundation—plus over $40,000,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. YES Prep Southeast received 106 foundation grants or loans, including seven larger than $1 million. KIPP Aspire Academy got 40 grants, KIPP Truth Academy 35. The Laura and John Arnold Foundation made only a handful of grants, but one was for over $6 million in 2011 to the YES Prep Public Schools. Traditional public schools, which serve the bulk of students in Texas and elsewhere, can only dream about and salivate at these sources of private contributions.
Why do Republicans detest public schools? That is hard to say. It used to be that Republican businessmen served proudly on local and state school boards. Now they flock to privately managed charters, without any concern for the community public schools that serve their town or city.
Some think it is because charters are overwhelmingly non-union. But Republicans support charters just as enthusiastically in states where unions are prohibited.
Bottom line is that Republicans as well as leading Democrats are unconcerned about creating a dual school system: one sector that can pick its students and kick out the ones it doesn’t want, and the other sector that must take all students.
Some people thought that the Brown decision of 1954 foretold the end of dual publicly-funded school systems in the United States. Not so. Now we will have one sector for the strivers, another for the undesirables rejected by the charters.
Why do Democrats support the school choice movement, which was once seen as a signature policy of the far-right? That’s even more puzzling than why Republicans are ready to abandon our nation’s public schools.
Perhaps this is good news? Perhaps now that charter schools are a “Republican” issue, the Democrats will wake up and back off from them? Or at least perhaps Democratic voters will start to oppose charters, just because the Republicans like them? Or perhaps I’m naive?
“But they have never been able to persuade any electorate to endorse vouchers for private and religious schools.”
Except in NC, where the “scholarships” will create a new experiment in public education.
Charters. . .what about the exclusion factor? Isn’t that really, more, what the subtext is? Good, bad or indifferent. . .excluding children from schools that are paid for by tax money. I guess it will end up like our University system, where some are better than others (in terms of whom they attract, both for teaching and students and resources)? Except universities charge tuition. So, is that where we are headed? Choosing a school will be like choosing a college or university?
“So, is that where we are headed? Choosing a school will be like choosing a college or university?”
No, it won’t be like choosing a college or university. The charter school will be choosing the student not the student choosing the charter. Do all applicants get into the post secondary institution that they choose even if qualified?
The main difference being that “free and appropriate” public education is a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT for all up to the age of 21 (that age at least in MO). Now if this country were enlightened we’d provide all education and health care for all citizens. I guess I can dream, eh!
Duane, I’m glad you’ve posted that. I have told conservative friends that “school choice” is the correct term because it’s the schools who choose their students. Not the parents who choose the schools. In a school choice scenario, the school must consent to admitting the student. Ask parents if they always get their first choice in some of these wild west places. I live in metro Detroit and have talked to numerous parents who have said, “My kid didn’t get into…”
So it isn’t actually parent choice. In the end it is up to the schools themselves.
You’re right, Duane. The charter does choose the student. Even in cases where there is a lottery for admission, if the student doesn’t perform up to expectations by state test time, out he/she goes.
Which is, actually, like a college or university. So my original point was we’re going to have the selection, researching, touring, applying and wringing of hands about where to go to school at age 4 now, instead of at age 18. The self-imposed pressure that the elite have felt for decades on getting their kindergarteners into the right private school will now be felt by the masses. That was generous of them to want to share that pressure.
We lived in New Orleans when I was a little girl. My father was the minister of a Presbyterian church with many affluent families. My mother (a big public school supporter who taught in the church preschool at that time) said she heard people stressing about which private school to use and which one would they get into and she asked them in a friendly manner if they had even gone to look at the public school in their district. Many, she has reported to me, gave it some thought, went and looked at the public school, liked what they saw, and sent their children there, thanking my mother for suggesting it. I suppose that is no longer an option in New Orleans, but four decades ago there were people awakened to the fact that public schools in your neighborhood might not be the terrible pit of mediocrity that many folks would want spun as the truth.
I still find people who say that six children live on their street who are all the same age, and they all go to different schools and they think it’s sad (this is due to a magnet system, which I actually sort of like, and the popularity of private Christian schools in North Carolina). Point being. . .there are people who recognize this downside of choice. A new level of stress for parents of young children.
Exactly the reality in my community.
I’m dreading the cage match, where politicians line up at microphones to see which side can bash public schools more and declare their undying fealty to charters. Democrats will vie to out-bash Republicans.
Meanwhile, existing public schools- the vast majority of schools-are completely abandoned.
We have passionate advocates for charters and vouchers on one side, and “agnostics” and “relinquishers” on the other. Public schools don’t have an advocate in government.
We have two choices. One Party has antipathy for public schools and the other side has “relinquished” them and is “agnostic”. Fabulous. What a great, great climate for public schools- “pick ONE, abuse or neglect.”
The truth is, liberals got played in “ed reform”. Conservatives got 100% of what they set out to do, and liberals had absolutely no influence. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between what was formerly the hard Right position on public schools and the Democrat’s position on ed reform besides language. Democrats don’t say “government schools” (yet!). That’s the difference.
Well Rahm, here in Chicago, is a dem and he seems to love charters. So I can’t really believe it is one party or the other. The love of charters seems to be a follow the money to which ever politician is willing to take it kind of the thing.
Also, watching the US struggle to “reform” their government-funded, privately-run, fragmented mess of a health care system WHILE watching the US turn their K-12 public education into a government-funded, privately-run fragmented mess JUST LIKE the dysfunctional health care system has been absolutely amazing.
If you had told me I’d watch that happen at the same time, I wouldn’t have believed you 🙂
It’s as if they said “let’s reform the health care system and also turn the public school system INTO the broken health care system we’re reforming!”
How does a country make a mistake that huge? They looked at the health care system and said “we want that mess for K-12 schools!” ?
“If you had told me I’d watch that happen at the same time, I wouldn’t have believed you :)”
Just following the historical trajectory of the military industrial complex and the department of WAR, CIA, NSA, etc. . .
“In a National School Choice Week editorial, Georgia Governor Deal lauded both private schools and charter schools as the means for parents “to ensure their child is getting an excellent education to compete in today’s world.” He made his position on charter schools clear. “These schools are given greater flexibility in return for strong accountability for student academic success,” Deal wrote. “By observing high-performing charter schools throughout Georgia, it’s clear these institutions promote competition, innovation and creativity while encouraging strong parental involvement.” He offered not a scintilla of analysis about how to make the public schools of Georgia, beyond the 310 charters already operating, also attractive choices for parents.”
I wonder about this strategy for both Republicans and Democrats, however. The fact is, despite the best efforts of both Republicans and Democrats, most people go to public schools. I think promoting charters and vouchers to the detriment of public schools could come back and bite them. I think public school parents are already aware of it, and they will become more aware of it as their schools continue to take hit after hit after hit.
Chris Hedges answered in 2011 why the sick and powerful are ready to abandon our public schools at Truthdig, here’s the link…
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410
Thanks for refreshing our memories of this excellent essay!
All should reread or read it if they haven’t!
In my humble opinion, charters, independents and private schools are likened to the classic bow tie, long believed by the aristocracy to exude a refined elegance which is removed from the loathsome world of the common folk. Methinks this might even be part of a new nobility; driven by social obsession where school choice stands equally with money, power and influence; sadly accompanied by an indifference to humanity and civility. Plantation mentally sweeping this country at the expense of our egalitarian system of free public education. Do we have to wait for Katniss Everdeen to fuel the revolution?
I would not deny that Republicans champion school choice, but in my little state of Delaware, where liberals are in control, we are full steam ahead for charter schools.
Our democratic governor has fully bought into all the reforms. Our State Secretary of Ed, chosen by this Democrat governor has been named to Chiefs for Change.
We were first to win Race to the Top, and sell out public schools and their teachers to do it.
Our legislature loves to vote $$$ into charter school coffers.
Our Department of Ed loves to approve more charter schools.
Seriously, folks, Jack Markell, our president and his Secretary of Ed are not Republicans!
This issue crosses party lines with abandon. It is neither a Republican nor Democrat issue.
It is an issue on which persons of any political party can unite. On either side. So let’s unite on the basis of our concern for the future of public edication regardless of political party.
Making this a single party issue distracts from our focus, and does nothing to unite.
I agree.
Yes, the Grand Oligarchic Plutocrats go way back on this, and they have always known they would have to be real sneaky about it to get their Enron Endrun around the public.
☞ Strategy for Privatizing Public Schools Spelled Out by Dick DeVos in 2002 Heritage Foundation Speech
It goes back farther than that. From the GOP’s darling, neo-liberal economist Milton Friedman in 1995, “Pubic Schools: Make Them Private” http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-023.html
l
Oh sure, I know that. I’m just saying that it’s one thing to get a Nobel Prize for some cock-eyed, fuzz-brained plan to destroy civilization — and another thing entirely to put the plan into action.
Friedman started advocating for vouchers on the 1950s. He produced the Chicago Boys who went back to Chile to destroy the democratic institutions there after Allende was overthrown.
Yep. This is Friedman’s baby. He was one evil so-and-so. He started the voucher idea to get around Brown v. Board of Education. He was a tool for corporate America from way back, and then posed as an “economist.”
“Why do Democrats support the school choice movement, which was once seen as a signature policy of the far-right? That’s even more puzzling than why Republicans are ready to abandon our nation’s public schools.”
Democrats are also ready to abandon our country’s public schools. The reason why is because Democrats have not been left-leaning liberals since Arkansas’ Governor Bill Clinton (from Walton country) formed the “New Democrats,” who are market touting neo-liberals that describe themselves as “centrist,” which helped to capture the southern vote.
The sad irony is that Obama, our first black president, is also a “New Democrat” and is on the same page as the southerners who have long aimed to defy the Brown decision. Obama has not only enabled this dual system of public education, but his policies have fast-tracked its implementation at record speed.
People have been catching on to this virtual one party system of government and these Republicrats will soon be paying the piper for playing political games with the lives of our nation’s children.
Neoliberalism, the most evil concept ever devised, has captured BOTH political parties to the point there is no real meaningful difference between the two anymore. It was critical for them to infiltrate and destroy the Democratic Party from within, using people like Obama to do it.
I saw this coming years ago. That is why I was completely opposed to Obama.
When any candidate talks about “globalism,” run the other way. These candidates are in favor of a race to the bottom.
Yep.
Ayn Rand. Existentialism (and not the Kierkegaard brand either).
This post highlights the need for a non-party-aligned, pro-public-education political movement. A platform against which all candidates for office can be tested. Dropping the assumptions of party and philosophical labels helps us get a clearer look at the opposition, and put our focus where it needs to be.
1. Shift the national conversation back toward public schools by emphasizing the numbers: the great preponderance of the nation’s children are in public schools.
2. Focus on just a few clear, positive, practical steps: what do we want for public schools? ‘We were fine before’ doesn’t cut it. ‘Get rid of poverty’ doesn’t cut it.
3. Change the conversation on “accountability”.
a. Charters – Show that by their own measures, charter-school-proponents haven’t improved student results. (2)Show real per-pupil expenditures for charter schools, then break it down (how much goes into the classroom).
b. Public Schools – Show how the same specious accountability measures have brought increased per-pupil expenditures to public schools via CCSS, high-stakes testing, VAM – just like NCLB a virtually unfunded mandate (RTTT $ drop in bucket) – break the costs down, show how the money needed to comply goes directly to bureaucracy, takes away from classroom costs.
4. Challenge the ‘college-and-career-ready’ lingo– dump it. Look at industrial successes of the last 40 yrs; all signs are pointing to the need for flexibility, initiative, innovation, creativity.
I’m very surprised that Republicans haven’t seized the Gulen charter schools as a ripe political scandal to lay at the feet of Duncan and Obama.
Are Republicans so eager to support charter schools that they are willing to look the other way when an Islamist group opens 150 charter schools in America with over half a billion dollars of annual taxpayer revenue?
http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/how-the-schools-serve-the-gulen-movement.html
Maybe Republicans, like Democrats, have been bought with Gulen campaign contributions and junkets to Turkey.
http://rpnps.blogspot.com/2014/01/when-does-gulen-mess-in-illinois-become.html
I find people are generally in the dark about this.
And about ALEC.
From: http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23577-republican-gubernatorial-campaigns-play-the-charter-school-card.html
“New York Governor Andrew Cuomo may have scored a $10,000 campaign donation from the state’s largest teachers’ union in the past few months, but charter school advocates have given the governor much more, including $40,000 from Bruce Kovner, a billionaire among the 100 richest people in the U.S. who is a well known financial backer of Brighter Choice Charter Schools in Albany; $25,000 from StudentsFirst NY, the New York State affiliate of Michelle Rhee’s pro-charter political arm; and $14,000 from the pro-charter Democrats for Education Reform. ”
Need any other information?
Scott Mooneyham in the Sanford (NC) Herald asks us to consider the “bottom-line” of the for profit private schools. He states, “With its embrace of private school vouchers and the elimination of the cap on charter schools, the Republican legislature has sided with more choice. Even as critics question whether those decisions might erode resources for public school, the moves are still part of a legitimate debate about where the balance should be struck. The idea that for-profit schools are a part of that same legitimate debate is delusional when considering that children may suffer so that investors might profit.” ( Underline is mine.)
Do we want our shildren to becomes commodities that are used for others profit?
_____
So do “Democrats” like Obama and Duncan. It is because of these two “Democrats” that public education is on the ropes in this country.
This is part of a movement to sell off public assets for private gain; in other words, another attempt to transfer wealth upward.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
This Republican doesn’t think charter schools are necessarily more effective than public schools. I believe Diane Ravitch and the educational investigation of her book, Reign of Error. If schools are similar in the population they serve, there is no great difference. As a retired educator, I believe we have not done children any favors by promoting one system of education over another. Since I taught mostly in low-income areas, the children had a lot on their plates — above and beyond the school they attended. We have gotten so far away from true education with high-stakes testing and Common Core. Let’s stop spending money on an unproven, developmentally unsound program developed by people other than educators. So now legislators know more about teaching than educators do? Give me a small break —
Sincerely,
Sandra L. Wickham
Woodland Park, CO
No breaks for anyone except reformists. 🙂
And now Gates is leading the troops for GREATER engagement by business in educationd If you don’t want to read the slick 32 page publication, just go to the last page to see who he has recruited, CEO of Teach for America, Jeb Bush’s buddies, etc. Not one mention of the tax breaks that flow away from school districts to support business. Under the banner of “partnerships” the message is that the business must hold schools accountable, etc., etc. etc. Here is the report http://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/pdf/lasting-impact.pdf
John King (New York State), John Deasey ( L.A. superintendent), a host of charter people. Hail.hail, the gang’s all here!
Thank you, Laura, for this link and the great amount of information generally that you provide. The unholy alliance of the Harvard Graduate School of Ed with the B school has certainly had a deleterious impact on our public schools here across the river in the Boston.
Dimocrats, Repugnicans–if you think there’s a difference, you’re not paying attention.
Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Corey Booker, George Miller, Rahm Emanuel… the list is almost endless.
Boy, am I glad the Democrats have our backs covered against those Evil Republicans.
Ha, ha, ha.So funny I forgot to laugh…:(
Both have bought into the easy, lazy notion that public schools are failing. Even if it is not true, but the public believes it, politicians of both parties will promote stupid alternatives.
Mike Ombry, read my book. The public schools are NOT failing. Test scores are at their highest point in history for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. So are graduation rates. Read my book. The reformer narrative is a hoax, as Berliner and Biddle said long ago, “a manufactured crisis.” The so-called reformers want to turn our schools into an emerging market for investors.
No, no…I agree it is not true. I did not mean to imply that it is. I have read The Manufactured Crisis, The Death and Life of the Great American School System and Reign of Error. All excellent. My point was that if the public believes the hoax, politicians will follow them as opposed to the truth. It is so much easier.
Yikes, please look at my blogs… doubleddemocrat.blogspot.com and bridgeporteducationassociation.blogspot.com
I have taught in Michigan for 25 years. I’m a BAT. I am euphoric that you are so passionate, but I have been on board all along. Bless you for all you do.
I should have said, Even though instead of Even if…
You will be pleased to know that I actually bought three copies of your latest book. One for myself and one for the superintendent and school board president of my district. I am the local union president. Every member of our Executive Board signed each copy. : )
Democrats or Republicans ?
Chaters on the ledge Review …
I can’t believe , Republicans controlling Chaters schools , Miami dade county school sistem are on the ledge ..
Quiters never loss .
The true and nothing by the true , the whole true .. Corruptions is the problem . Republicans or democrats ? Trump or ( Sandrers or HILARY )
I go for the right side . Supporting billionaires , Trump have no clue what does mean Education . Sanders or hilary do . I go for publics schools .
Why ?
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/hialeahs-carlos-hernandez-next-mayor-to-jail-6393604