While the New York Times and the New York Post continue to recycle the press releases about the awesomeness of charter schools. One newspaper’s reporters tell the unvarnished story. While the editorial board of the New York Daily News, owned by billionaire Mort Zuckerman, continues to dispense charter Kool-aid, the reporters at the News distinguish themselves by writing story after story about outrageous rentals, conflicts of interest, greed, and outright fraud.
What do you think is likely to happen when an organization gets a steady stream of taxpayer dolls but is unregulated and unsupervised?
One day a newspaper will win a Pulitzer Prize for unraveling the charter industry, its political strategy, its gaming the system for higher scores, and its adroit use of the profit motive to incentivize “innovation.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“What do you think is likely to happen when an organization gets a steady stream of taxpayer dolls but is unregulated and unsupervised?”
Are you referring to the local affiliates of the NEA/AFT?
Diane,
Please take care! And always…thank you.
I still am confused why the implication is that it is the fault of charter schools that they are under-regulated…..in Philadelphia, politicians have allowed charter operators to carry on that won their charters based on political favors rather than true achievement, and the charter school office in the School District of Philadelphia is woefully understaffed. Is this the fault of the charter schools themselves or the school district and PDE that has let this go on?
The media blackout of what is happening in education is one thing I don’t truly understand. I get that there are very few media outlets these days and that the ones we have are owned by a very few conservative people/corporations, but do they really exert that much control? There are thousands of reporters out there. Are some of them even trying to report on this and being shut down, or is there truly not any interest? I am disappointed in people like Michael Moore who I have always considered a person that champions causes like this, and yet not a word from him and others like him. It truly puzzles me.
I genuinely believe it’s part of the risk of bipartisan initiatives. I think there’s a tendency to assume that if “both sides” back something then it is presumptively good or worthwhile. It seems like poor logic to me. It’s equally as likely that “both sides” could be wrong and “both sides” don’t even necessarily meet in the middle. Both sides could be off on some extreme edge. I think the anti-public school rhetoric and policy is an edge, and extreme. I don’t really care of “both sides” met there. Promoting the idea that all public schools are broken and should be replaced with a new system is objectively wrong. It’s simply not true.
I’m a middle-aged liberal Democrat and I have seen several big issues where in my opinion “both sides” came together and went in the wrong direction over the last thirty years. As examples I would point to deregulating the finance sector, cutting tax rates to what are now often negative collections, where ordinary taxpayers are actually subsidizing corporations with tax incentives, and trade policy. Both sides agreed on a lot of that. Those were mistakes.
One of the things that “both sides” agreeing on something does is it makes for a much less rigorous (and admittedly sometimes rancorous) debate. That is not always a good thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing in this debate. We need more dissenters, ESPECIALLY when “both sides” of what is a group of really powerful people agree. That’s when we’re likely to make not just a small mistake, but a HUGE mistake.
Weakening, abandoning and then privatizing our universal PUBLICLY owned and operated school system is a mistake. I think we’ll regret it, and I don’t really care if “both sides” agree it should be done. Both sides can be wrong. Both sides can meet somewhere other than in the middle. I think both sides are very far over to the privatization side in ways that strike me as really radical.
I don’t even think they see the bias.
I’ll post two letters on civil rights in schools, one that was directed to charter schools and one that was directed to all public schools.
Compare the language in the two letters. The letter to charter schools begins with a paragraph extolling the virtues of charter schools and ends with a heart-felt sentence of thanks for, I don’t know, working in one. There’s nothing like that in the letter that was directed to all public schools. It’s simply an ordinary government directive or advisory.
So here’s the advisory letter to all schools:
Click to access colleague-201405.pdf
Just an ordinary directive. What one would expect. No opening paragraph extolling the virtues of public schools and no heart-felt thanks at the end.
I can’t post two links so I’ll post the letter directed to charter schools below this comment. Read them both. Is there a huge difference in tone and language? I would argue there is, and that goes to a preference.
And here’s the letter to charters:
Click to access colleague-201405-charter.pdf
Exactly, this would make a fantastic Michael Moore documentary — or a follow up on “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” You can’t make up the unbelievable stuff that is going down here.
What about the focus of so many charters on “order” and “discipline”? This is an important theme, given the 21st century imperative to develop children’s critical and creative thinking skills. Ostensibly, the Common Core State Standards are focused on such skills; however, how can one nurture critical and creative thinking in a top-down, quasi-militaristic environment such as the one that exists in many NYC charters that service predominantly poor, minority student populations? For example, note this description of the Brownsville Collegiate Charter School in NYC (Source: http://insideschools.org/middle/browse/school/1605):
“The school is a highly conditioned, disciplined environment: One pattern of handclaps draws a class’s attention; another sequence of finger snaps shows that students are ready for their next task, for example. These cues are modeled by teachers from day one and (most important) practiced in every classroom in the school. The highly codified rules and behavior underpin how students turn a military-sharp about-face (on cue in a single-file hallway lineup) to how teachers manage their students, with repetitive chanting and elaborate handclaps and snaps to show that a teacher’s directions have been heard. Discipline is strict but not highly punitive, with a focus on rewarding good behavior. The school uses the MAPP (mindful, achieving, professional, prepared) system of discipline motivation. Students, who wear neat, conservative uniforms, earn merits and can redeem them for prizes at the “merit store” or earn privileges like dinner with school staff. Academic progress reports students receive every two weeks track discipline merits and demerits.
Many students seemed subdued in classrooms that were largely barren of student-made work or art, books, or other nonessential learning materials, like math manipulatives and art supplies. Most classes are set up in traditional rows, with teachers up at the front delivering the lessons. Most classes have 22 students. Students are grouped based on similar abilities in 5th and 6th grades, Hendershot said, but classes are more mixed in the upper grades. Some students are required to attend after-school tutoring and Saturday school.. Even with the extra help, about 30 percent of the 5th and 6th graders were held back, and about half of the retained 6th graders elected to leave the school rather than repeat the grade, Hendershot said.”
Is this what rates as a “world class” education in the 21st century? Aside from being a set-up for probable failure for children with ADHD and other special needs, this rigid environment seems unlikely to propel the children attendees into the higher-income earning “creative” class. Instead, it appears designed to produce the next generation of compliant low-paid service, including military service, employees.
Handclapping, snapping and precise about-faces are important for college and career readiness. I had to do those things every day in college and still do in my career.
Oh, wait. No I don’t.
The media is owned by corporate interests. five major corporations are responsible for 80% of the “news” with which people are deluged. Not surprising whose side they are on. TRAGICALLY, whether it is education, public schools, climate change, whatever, their short term interests are NOT in the interests of the general public nor in their own long term interests. Unfortunately monetary considerations supplant human interests and a humongous price will be, and is now being paid for those myopic short term interests. As our former superintendent said years ago, when I see the decisions being made by politicians, indeed the public schools have not done a very good job in educating. A good portion of the problem, in politico speak, education is now a euphemism for training, train people for the jobs for corporate CEOs, do not worry about educating for a democracy AND jobs.
Pulitzer Prize nominations should go to Josh Sweigart of the Dayton Daily News for his charter corruption articles, to Doug Livingston of the Akron Beacon Journal for his expose of the conflict of interest, at the Ohio State Board of Education, and to Matt Taibbi for his work, “Looting the Pensions”, in Rolling Stone.
A MacArthur grant should go to Mercedes Schneider for her book about the corporatization of public education.
Nobel Peace Prizes should go to Paul Krugman, Robert Reich and Dean Baker. If their alarms about inequity and oligarchy go unheeded, violent revolt is inevitable.
Can we add Diane to the short list for a Nobel Peace Prize?
Diane belongs on the award dais, for sure!
A strong argument for a diversified press. Shame on NYT for being so overwhelmingly biased re charters.