In her testimony to the New York City Council Education Committee, education activist Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters exploded several common myths about charter schools.
First is the myth that they are public schools. They are not. They are private corporations with contracts to run schools, exempt from most state laws and from most state oversight. In court after court, the charters themselves have argued that they are NOT public schools. We should take their word for it. They are not public schools.
Second is the myth that charter schools enroll exactly the same demographic of students as the real public schools. This is patently false. With few exceptions, they take smaller proportions of students with disabilities and almost no students with severe disabilities, and they enroll smaller proportions of English language learners. They have the power to kick out students who do not meet their stringent disciplinary codes, which leaves them with a very different student population than public schools. Meanwhile, neighborhood public schools get disproportionate numbers of the students who are most expensive and most difficult to educate. This is not a fair playing field on which to compete. The original purpose of charters was to collaborate, not to compete, yet charter schools take every opportunity to boast of their success with a select population of students.
If you want to know about the other four myths, read the rest of the post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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Another Michigan privatized district in absolute chaos:
“Despite a previous state takeover, a slew of surprise costs and a dramatic drop in student enrollment have led to a new budget deficit for the public school district in Highland Park.
A multi-million dollar deficit prompted a state takeover of Highland Park Public Schools in 2012. The state appointed emergency manager restructured the district’s deficit into long-term debt with over $7 million in emergency loans from the state.
The manager created a new charter school district to educate students. In 2012 The Leona Group LLC., a charter company,was hired to run the entire district for an annual fee of $780,000.
But now the district is running a deficit again.
What caused the new deficit?
In documents filed with Michigan’s Department of Education, officials from Leona Group said the decline in student enrollment was a “major contributing factor” to the roughly $600,000 deficit.
Before Leona took over, Highland Park had nearly 1,000 students enrolled. This year there were only 639. The state provides the district $7,168 per student.
Leona wrote “It is believed that (the enrollment decline) comes partially as a result of community unrest surrounding the conversion” of the original district into a charter district.”
I wonder where the 400 missing students are?
http://michiganradio.org/post/already-run-emergency-manager-highland-park-schools-face-new-budget-shortfall#.U3T3ZXl9dC8.twitter
“Despite the major enrollment decline at Highland Park over the last couple of years, Leona projects that 650 students will show up this fall and the year after. But is that realistic?
“That is a good question,” Michigan Department of Education spokesman Bill DiSessa says. “I’m not familiar with the underlying facts in Highland Park. I would say this: If any district has had declining enrollment, that’s a pattern of decline obviously. That’s a big concern for us and that’s one reason we would be monitoring things closely.”
Weatherspoon says he is aware of some charter school near Highland Park closing next year. He believes Leona hopes to attract some of those students over the summer. He’s hopeful current students will stick around, too.
“We’re trying to work to get the communications out to the parents so they’ll know what’s going on next year,” Weatherspoon said. “There are things changing all over the district and we’re hoping that parents will stay with us and understand that we’re still going to provide that quality education.”
“A pattern of declining enrollment”. They privatized the district and lost 400 students.
I’d say that’s a pattern, all right.
Chiara…this is the same reason Deasy gives in LAUSD for shutting down public schools and instead rapidly assuring that many more new charters are opening, embedded in their sites.
“A pattern of declining enrollment” is the phrase they learned at the Broad Academy to justify this onslaught. Gives them a chance to fire older teachers and bring in TFA kids at low cost. In LA, this means around 12 – 15 new charters per month lately. We have close to 300 now in LA, and close to 2,000 in California.
The monumentally wealthy entertainment industry also is behind this…as well at Broad and Gates, et al.
If you follow the language used by the Broad graduates such as Deasy and Byrd-Bennett and others, all use the same catch words. “Rapidly” and “declining enrollment” are key….mind bending lesson in linguistics. They have learned to frame the national conversation by constantly repeating these words which are then picked up by corporate media…and now everyone I talk to seems to refer to them. A dumbed down public is easy to fool.
Dr. Ravitch,
I follow your blog with great interest as I am an English Language and Literature teacher in Italian secondary schools (Liceo Linguistico) and I too share the concerns about standard testing and all that that entails. I would like to forward to you the Italian translation that I have executed on the OPEN LETTER TO ANDREAS SCHLEICHER, OECD, PARIS. If you see it fit to divulge it from your blog as well, I would greatly appreciate it. You can find it at the following link: http://blogletteraturacapuana.wordpress.com.
Thank you again,
Lucia R. Capuana
Please stop spreading the myth that charter schools are private schools. They are public schools subject to federal civil rights laws as the USDOE just made perfectly clear and I write about here. http://systemschangeconsulting.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/read-my-lips-charter-schools-are-public-schools-must-comply-with-civil-rights-laws/
What’s a “public school”?
A public school is subject to the laws governing public schools. Hence, charter schools are public schools.
I’m going to go ahead and assume that you don’t have a source for that definition.
Bad assumption. The source is linked in my blog. It is yesterday’s USDOE guidance letter which ids amply footnoted with legal citations.
Sorry, I’m not seeing a definition of “public school” in that letter. It is interesting, though — thanks for the link.
If they’re public schools, why do they claim otherwise in court?
Whenever charter school teachers attempt to unionize under public employee labor law, management invariably claims they are a private institution.
The fact is, they talk out of both sides of their mouths: claiming to be public schools when it’s time to accept public dollars and when marketing themselves, and claiming they are private when it comes to labor law and oversight.
As for your claim that the requirement that charters adhere to federal civil rights laws makes them public schools, that’s a red herring. All schools, public or private, must adhere to those laws.
Not sure where you get your legal information, but private schools do not have to comply with all civil rights laws. If they did, there would be no such thing as private religious school which are allowed to discriminate based on their religion. It is this kind of misinformation that confused people as private voucher schools, and the laws that regulate them, are vastly different than public charter schools. Parents need to know when and where they can file complaints on solid legal bases if their children’s rights are violated.
If private schools receive public money, are they now “public schools”?
If public money is involved, should there be public oversight?
I would say yes, but that’s not a very useful question, because there is public oversight. The useful question is whether it’s the right kind of public oversight.
Yes. The private schools have little to no oversight. For example, Cincinnati Catholic schools created a morality clause that would never be found in public schools as being too discriminatory. But the Diocese still want their public voucher money. If they are receiving public money, shouldn’t taxpayers have a say in governing the schools? If not, isn’t that the Tea Party’s taxation without representation?
Then I guess Halliburton is also public.
Anyway, multiple courts have already ruled that charters are not public – they don’t have to follow the same labor laws and regulations, they are not subject to the same audit regulations, and I think there have been some other decisions saying that charters are not public entities.
BTW, private entities have to comply with Civil Rights Laws too.
Ah, the old evergreen of whether charter schools are “public schools.”
I agree that the refrain that “charter schools are public schools” is largely a marketing slogan. Of course, like all people who can read, I must concede that the state Education Law says “charter schools are public schools.” But there’s no real legal significance to that language in the statutory scheme.
I also agree that, in New York at least, charter schools are run by private corporations. If a charter school operator ever said that charter schools are operated by the government, and are not operated by private corporations, then THAT would be a myth you could “explode,” because it’s plainly not true.
But while we’re exploding myths, how about the myth that “[i]n court after court, the charters themselves have argued that they are NOT public schools”?
If anyone can show me one time, in any submission filed in any court, where a charter school operator has argued that charter schools are not “public schools,” I will buy a hat and eat it.
Not that charter schools are not “units of the state.” Not that charter schools are not “political subdivisions,” or “state agents,” or “public entities” for purposes of determining liability under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. That doesn’t count, unless you can also show me that charter school operators have claimed the opposite in other contexts.
Can anyone show me where a charter school operator has argued in court that charter schools are not “public schools”?
curious:
Re:”Not that charter schools are not “units of the state.” Not that charter schools are not “political subdivisions,” or “state agents,” or “public entities” for purposes of determining liability under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code.”
Are traditional district/county/city etc public schools considered these things?
This is an argument of de jure vs. de facto. When a charter school operator can appoint his/her own board, and that board can decide on salaries, this is not a public entity. It is a corporate entity with generally little to no oversight by public schools administration and BoE.
Ang, yes, I believe they would be classic examples.
Ok,
So help me out here.
Public schools are the things you list.
Charter schools are not the things you list.
Yes?
I gather that these terms have agreed upon legal definitions .
So these two things ( charter schools and public schools) are not alike.
No, “public schools” is not a term that has a clear, agreed-upon legal definition. That’s one of the reasons why this debate just goes in circles. Many, perhaps all, state education statutes say that “charter schools are public schools.” What does that mean? Not much. Why not? Because “public schools” is not a defined term in the statutory scheme. (There could be some state statutes where it is, but I’m not aware of any.)
To use your original phrasing, “traditional district/county/city etc public schools” and charter schools are not alike in some ways, and are alike in other ways. Whether they’re operated by a unit of the government is one of the ways they’re different.
Here you go: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/04/charter-school-ruled-private-entity-for-labor-relations
Would you like salt and pepper with that hat?
I’m about to click on this. . . . I’m rooting for you, if only because then I can openly concede that I was wrong, thereby boosting my moral credibility.
I looked at the WaPo article; I looked at the Board’s decision; I looked at the charter school’s opening brief. No dice. The issue wasn’t whether the charter school was a “public school,” and the charter school didn’t argue that it was not a “public school.” The issue was whether the charter school was a “political subdivision” within the meaning of the NLRA.
The next time Eva Moskowitz gets in front of a microphone and says “charter schools are political subdivisions,” I’ll be ready to explode that myth.
Actually, it’s quite simple, though I understand that as a lawyer you are obliged to muddy the waters: the charter school teachers in Illinois wanted to unionize under state public employee labor law, as befitting teachers in a “public” school: management said public employee labor law did not apply, as they are a private entity whose labor relations should thus be overseen by the NLRB: the NLRB agreed that the charter school is indeed a private entity and that Illinois public employee labor law did not apply.
Though they may be providing a service to the public with tax money, when it matters charter schools claim to be private entities, are in fact private entities, and have had that opinion legally validated.
They’re private schools, though I understand that your hat-eating offer was contingent on the fine print that we find a press release from Eva Moskowitz stating, “Though we claim to be public schools, that is a falsehood, since, on all issues other than funding, we are indeed private institutions.”
No, I just want to see an example of charter schools arguing they are not “public schools” before I applaud when someone says that they routinely do that.
It counts where labor is struggling to unionize and the courts are agreeing that in the area of labor rights, charters are not public schools.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
I see we are entertaining clowns here today.
If you are a legal eagle you might want to read some of the chartering laws in various states. They are not the same in every state. I am not going to wrap my mind around this but here is a guide written for prospective charter operators in Ohio, 2013. The rules may have changed because Governor Kaisch just recycles ALEC’s boilerplate legislation.
Click to access Final_CB_LAW_GB_2013.pdf
If you have the urge to see what RttT said about charters go to the following. It will tell you more than you wanted to know. The sections on definitions and on comments are pretty revealing about the agenda and reasoning, if you can stand the bureaucratic language.
Federal Register /Vol. 74, No. 221 /Wednesday, November 18, 2009 /Rules and Regulations 59805
59688 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 221 / Wednesday, November 18, 2009 / Rules and Regulations DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 34 CFR Subtitle B, Chapter II [Docket ID ED–2009–OESE–0006]
RIN 1810–AB07 Race to the Top Fund AGENCY: Department of Education.Retrieved from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-11-18/pdf/E9-27426.pdf
There are some consistent trends across the nation in terms of the attempts to privatize education and dismember the public education system, but there are also some important differences between states. Charter authorization and ecosystems are one of the areas where there is difference from state to state. In many states, especially the larger states and larger urban areas the charter “chains” are the more prevalent model. For the purposes of student rights, they are indeed public schools and need to be held accountable for providing a free appropriate public education under the law. I understand the “charters are private” criticism as in those states many charters are operated by private companies or non profits that seem to operate with the values and culture of a private sector firm. Leonie Haimson is in New York and her critique is accurate for New York. And her testimony was specific to the problematic charter ecosystem that has grown up in New York.
Jeff (systemschangeconsulting) makes an important point that regardless of the private sector provision of these charter chains, they are still public schools in terms of individual student rights. I am not sure whether or not Donna was referring to this with the clowns comment, but those that know Jeff and his work know that his advocacy for and commitment to students with disabilities are unimpeachable.
In some other states, most charters are instrumentalities of public school districts. Wisconsin would be an example of this. http://sms.dpi.wi.gov/files/sms/pdf/2013-14yearbook.pdf This is a less common model and there are political forces that have tried for the last three years to change the Wisconsin charter ecology to a private provider model and prevent local school boards from authorizing innovative charter schools. So far in this fight local school boards and public educators have mostly won and the private providers mostly lost, but it is long struggle and the issue is in doubt. For now in Wisconsin, Leonie Haimson’s critique would not be as accurate.
My district has no charters and we choose to innovate within our existing schools. I am just pointing out that there are some variations in the charter landscape.
To put it more strictly, charter schools are not even close to classic definition of private schools because many of those are managed by those who have little or no expertise in education research, curriculum practice, or school management. No private schools that have a historically high educational integrity and national reputation are managed by hedge-fund managers, corporate billionaires, or unknown private consultants. What can they bring to students and teachers? VAMification and green buck counting?
I think ‘charcoals’ could be a better name to describe their ‘state-less’ status more accurately.
After reading this thread, I am more convinced than ever that—outliers and subtle shades of disputed meaning and artifacts of the past aside—charters as they are created and expanded now are not public schools.
I agree with Leonie Haimson on this one.
😎
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Education Reform: Debunking the myths about charter schools.