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I worked in the front office of a charter school for two years. We marketed heavily in the neighborhood and would get hundreds of applications for a school that had anywhere from 30-40 seats available in Kindergarten and 0-2 seats per class available in grades 1 and up. I remember the crestfallen looks on parents’ faces when it was announced at the admissions lottery that there were no seats open in a class and that the lottery would determine the order of the waiting list.
I once recommended to the principal that we stop taking applications after a certain point. I had two reasons for suggesting this: 1) We were giving families false hope, as anyone other than the first five to ten on the waiting list had no realistic chance of getting in, and 2) We could make better use of the time and money being spent on processing applications for students we knew would never be accepted, and on marketing to more families when we were already at capacity. His response was that we needed to keep adding as many names as possible to the waiting list, so that we would have numbers to back up our organization’s efforts to demonstrate the need for more charter schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is another thing I don’t want public schools learning from charters. I don’t want public money going to advertising and recruitment. As far as I can tell, all this does is enrich media companies. Toledo charters started advertising, and then public schools had to follow. I hear an advertisement for our “cybercharters” every at least once a day on the radio.
It’s a wasteful and dumb advertising arms race, and it’s only going to escalate. If this is a “laboratories of innovation” idea public schools are supposed to adopt to “compete” well, no thanks. There’s enough people siphoning off money out of public schools. We don’t need advertising agencies and media companies lining up for a piece of the pie.
The idea that these two systems are going to “collaborate” while competing for students is a fairy tale. Ed reformers have to choose. Do they want a competitive system or do they want a collaborative system? It’s two warring theories in the ed reform movement, and the “competitive” theorists are winning, to the detriment of public schools which are caught in the middle. Duncan himself speaks out of both sides of his mouth. He claims the aspiration is collaborative efforts while crowing about people “voting with their feet” and setting up these ridiculous rigged competitions and making what are innumerate and unfair comparisons between the two systems.
It’s completely incoherent, and I suspect it has more to do with keeping all the factions within the ed reform political coalition happy than it does with the strength and support of public schools. What are they trying to do? I don’t even know what the ASPIRATIONAL goal is listening to them, let alone the practical goal or real-world goal.
Suburban district public schools have been advertising around the country for decades. They produce materials that they give to real estate agents. They sometimes advertise in programs of art organizations (like professional drama or musical performances).
If you call suburban real estate agents in Shaker Heights or other Cleveland or Cincy suburbs (for example), I think you’ll find they have material that those districts gave them to convince people to live in the suburbs.
This has been going on long before any charter law.
So show me the waiting list for a public school. Jeez.
We have plenty of them in NYC.
I have NEVER an advertisement for a public school district, in any way, and I’ve traveled all over the country.
The word “seen” should have been in that last paragraph. Sorry.
Really Joe? You’re comparing an ad supporting a nonprofit arts org with a radio ad plugging ridiculous charter schools numbers?
I am saying suburban Ohio districts pay for brochures that they give real estate agents. I have seen some of them. I don’t know about paid ads in Ohio for arts programs. I have seen suburban district advertising in other states.
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Charters chartered district wide in my district have to be +- 10% of the district in terms of diversity. So they market to and try to recruit minority students. Local magnets do the same, although some magnets have entrance requirements. Charters do not, and none are run by for profits or EMOs. They do have waiting lists and fill any open seats until March.
You just can generalize across states and districts about charters, their value and practices. What seems to be happening in NYC with charters or Eva isn’t acceptable, but my district in SC isn’t the same.
Many charters have one advantage that traditional schools should have – autonomy, local ownership and teacher empowerment. But not all charters have that.
Letting the waiting list thing set hair afire is a fool’s errand.
Chambers of Commerce love to promote their resident districts and schools are a major focus point. Schools help attract businesses that attract home owners that all keep their communities strong. There are no waiting lists for public schools because there is no limit for enrollment. Throw up another portable building until a bond can be passed to build more buildings. I teach in a “destination district” and we have a very strong relationship between local businesses and the schools and, yes, the schools benefit; but those benefits are for ALL students not a select few. I thought the purpose of public education was to give ALL children the best education their parent’s tax money can provide. These laws that help a few and leave other students to suffer is not only counterproductive, it is undemocratic.
Is it really the district that pays for those brochures? I think they’re usually put out by the Chamber of Commerce which, presumably, pays for them.
Yes I have seen many brochures and some advertising paid by districts.
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The costs of brochures is nowhere near the costs of television advertising.
Sorry, accidentally posted Dec 2013 Mn parent (which also has ads). Here is January 2014 Mn Parent which has more ads starting on page 56
Click to access Jan%202014.pdf
If a district does advertise their schools, they do not make students enter a lottery to see who will be “allowed” to attend their school. My guess schools promoted in magazine have these advertisements paid for my their local Chamber of Commerce. That is how is works in my area where competition between suburban districts is very fierce and home values can rise or fall according your school district.
You can check in your suburban area to see who pays for the ads. In Minneapolis St. Paul, the ads are paid for by school districts and charters. I’ve checked over the years in other parts of the country and found similar paid ads which predate the creation of charters.
As has been repeatedly noted, a number of magnet schools don’t provide equal access to all students…they skim off only the students who score highest on the tests.
The problem with magnet schools is really a problem with neighborhood schools that do not/cannot, for whatever reason, provide a rich and engaging experience. I know there are many ways that districts, schools and teachers try to or could try to better serve their population, and magnet schools may at best be politically expedient in some cases. As an example, there is no reason for the Chicago Public schools to add another magnet program to a the already well served, wealthy Lincoln Park area, especially while they gut public education in their neediest neighborhoods. However, if we are truly to raise the next generation of thoughtful, engaged, and productive citizens, we have to decide how we can provide an education that does not bore or frustrate our children and that attempts to expose them to the breadth of human experience. Our task is to provide an equitable education system, not the same cookie cutter (CCSS) program. Just as you, Joe, promote charters as a way to achieve equity, others promote magnet programs. In the grand scheme of things, neither is close to ideal, but, at the present time, charters are being used as a weapon against the public school system. Too many have been and are being created not for the public good but for private gain.
Actually, for several decades our organization has promoted and helped create options that are part of existing districts, as well as charters.
I live in a small urban district where approximately 20% of our students attend charters (although it fluctuates wildly as buildings open and close. This makes it very difficult for the district to plan or estimate upcoming class sizes.) The charters market heavily, and also provide things like free bbqs and parties in local parks. The public schools have responded in kind. We now do lots of advertising that is definitely paid for by the district, not the Chamber of Commerce. (Our schools, charter or public, are not a strong real estate selling point.) Although I don’t like to see money spent on this kind of thing, I do see some good sides. It has forced our district to accentuate all the wonderful things going on in the district, and the district is now on the news, (and bus shelters, and event programs, etc.) for more than just being a “failing” district. This helps build up morale of both teachers and students.
Susan,
Multiply your district’s spending on advertising times hundreds and thousands of districts. Think of the millions of dollars spent on radio and TV ads that could have been used to reduce class size or increase arts programs.
Another way to think about this is to say that districts are communicating with the broader public about things they do well.
Many people don’t have youngsters in schools. Sharing information with the public is one way to help taxpayers understand what schools are doing.
Aren’t there large differences among “advertising”, “communicating”, and “publicizing”?
And even school report cards.
Given the state of advertising, I hope it’s not the basis for choosing a school.
Chiara Duggan: you have fleshed out the posting in such a way that it highlights the differences between the self-styled “education reform” movement and those in favor of a “better education for all”—
They are working off a business plan.
We are working off an education model.
What is described in the posting is perfectly consonant with their plan.
The critique you and others outline is perfectly consonant with our plan.
One of the ironies of this: their plan has built-in waste and inefficiencies that are absurd on their face even while they scream and holler that they’re all about eliminating waste and increasing efficiency.
“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” [François de la Rochefoucauld]
Thank you for your comments.
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Re district school advertising. Here is the PDF for Minnesota Parent, January 2014. This is a widely distributed free publication geared toward parents. You’ll see paid advertising for several district & charter public schools starting on page 56
Click to access MNP%20December%202013.pdf
This was going on long before Minnesota charters opened. Going back 30 years, I’ve seen brochures paid for by suburban districts in offices of suburban real estate agents all over the country.
Seriously, Joe? After a quick perusal of the parenting magazine, I found two advertisements for public school systems. Minnesota really is hardly representative, in any case, given its unique history with charters. Furthermore, real estate agents typically carry literature on all local public and private schools. It is part of the way homes are marketed and is considered to be a public service. People want a snapshot of the community, and schools are important for young families with school age children. I have yet to see an ad for a public school on TV. I can’t say the same for charters.
Thank you–this is interesting. We have a very similar situation with regard to our large local K-12 charter. They frequently cite their 2,000-plus student waiting list as evidence of their popularity, success and need for expansion. However, most of those 2,000 students are in surrounding public schools, which are weakened by the charter’s drain (particularly since, for ten years ending this past fall, it was allowed to operate w/o a school meal program–never mind that 2/3 of children in our district qualify for f/r lunch; there is also an annual per-student “fee” and an absurdly pricey uniform involving proprietary embroidered logos). So it seems to me that it’s quite inaccurate to cite those 2,000 students as “supporters” of the charter. Many of their families despise it, and would prefer that it be closed (or dramatically changed)–but they recognize that, given such demographic imbalances, it might be better for their children to be on the “winning” side of an inequitable situation.
What a great post, Chiara. I can’t agree more with what you’ve written.
This sentence in particular really struck me:
“It’s a wasteful and dumb advertising arms race, and it’s only going to escalate.”
It has become an advertising agency’s dream. We can’t get away from advertisers, wherever we go–so this would be just another golden opportunity to twist the perception of parents and the public as a whole. It’s all about advertising with flashy lights and colors instead of offering something of substance.
Reblogged this on Dolphin and commented:
I commented at Diane’s blog to Chiara:
I can’t agree more with what you’ve written.
This sentence in particular really struck me:
“It’s a wasteful and dumb advertising arms race, and it’s only going to escalate.”
It has become an advertising agency’s dream. We can’t get away from advertisers, wherever we go–so this would be just another golden opportunity to twist the perception of parents and the public as a whole. It’s all about advertising with flashy lights and colors instead of offering something of substance.
In many states, charters are not allowed to turn away applications. That’s the same situation as many magnet schools. There is an application period. In many cases, neither a district magnet nor a charter can say, “We are not taking applications.”
If your enrollment is full and you have no more room, it makes sense to turn away applibations. But what about charter schools that push out pupils and don’t replace them? Where the class begins with 100, but three years later has only 50 kids? Or the charter schools with zero students with profound disabilities?
Continuing to take applications can give important information to decision makers. If a Montessori school has a long wait list, for example, decision makers would know that there are enough local students to justify expansion or perhaps the creation of another school. If the Montessori school simply turned folks away, we would not know if 10 or 1,000 more families wanted that kind of education in the town.
St Paul Public Schools used the existence of waiting list for a Montessori elementary district school to justify opening a 2nd Montessori. They used the existence of waiting list for a local Montessori charter middle school to help justify creating a district Montessori middle school.
Filling students from a waiting list is an important subject, whether for district, magnet or charter public schools. This needs to be tied into a discussion about which students are included for accountability purposes in testing programs.
For example, neither district nor charter should be responsible during a school year for a youngster who enters at the beginning of the 2nd semester and with whom the school works only for 2 months before testing takes place.
Many districts have created special programs or collaborative special programs for students with profound special needs. We don’t expect all schools, whether district or charter, to have within their individual buildings, programs to meet the need of the complete range or students. Both district & charter public schools should be able to enter into collaboratives to meet these needs.
Good points, Joe.
Then why not bring in kids off of waiting lists when other kids leave the charter for whatever reason? Charters will bring in kids before October 1, but won’t take anyone after October 1 (that’s the cut-off for funds in my state), even though they keep all of the money for that student.
You’ve seen waiting lists or have seen principals say waiting lists are good for marketing?
I don’t like the idea that kids get in or not based on luck, but it happens. I certainly don’t want charters with selection criteria.
That charters having waiting lists is a distraction from bigger problems.
No, I haven’t seen the waiting lists. BUT, I get students back from the charter schools all the time and no one ever goes to the charter schools after October 1. IF they have the big waiting lists like they say they do, I would have students BOTH going in AND out of charter schools at all times of the year. Instead, the street only goes one way–from charter schools to public schools.
I suppose charter schools should all start turning down parents without putting them on waiting lists. That way charter opponents like NEPC would have an easier time writing blog posts and “reports” pretending that not many parents are interested in charters after all, because there aren’t many people on waiting lists.
I have a counter-thought: Let’s have a waiting list for everyone waiting on government to properly fund the traditional public schools, and even providing additional resources to schools in poor neighborhoods. Let’s see how long that list gets and whether policymakers will notice it and do something about it.
I don’t doubt the original poster, but this is anecdotal vide nice based on one school. Applying it to other situations is the same logic used by those who cite a few problem teachers as evidence that we have a “teacher problem”.
I can confirm that I have seen it happen in many schools in my area, and I don’t think I live in the same region of the country as the original poster does.
The wait lists are public relations tools. Most special interest schools. like vocational or religious or of the arts don’t have to advertise because they naturally have found their audience. Public schools don’t have to advertise. The notion of “competition” is a reform tool.
Charters have to advertise so they can grab those tax dollars from the public schools, and keep churning the PR that they have better curriculums (tho not well-rounded) and certainly they have those better-than-public-school, 5-weeks-of-training, top-o-the-class, young, strict, stern, full-of-rigor (tho uncertified, without Ed degrees, and without the benefit of clinical internship) Teach for Awhile “teachers.”
Oh, and lets not forget the bloated salaries of their principals and superintendents. If you can’t get the kids to the table, you can’t profit, so a false demand is created. That false demand keeps the donations from the Broads, Waltons, etc. coming.
This may have worked in the past, but we’re seeing right now that parents feel duped and are starting to wake up to the reality that their kid is being treated like an inmate, and being taught a very limited curriculum, and to be silent, and grateful.
But if the charter schools don’t advertise, they will be shut down for lack of students. The traditional public schools are generally prohibited from distributing material for the charter schools.
Advertising sounds bad, but if it’s the only method schools have for letting the public know about their existence, they should be allowed to use it.
“I remember the crestfallen looks on parents’ faces when it was announced at the admissions lottery that there were no seats open in a class and that the lottery would determine the order of the waiting list.”
What causes that crestfallen look on parents’ faces? million and maybe even billions of dollars in hype creating a false myth that Charter schools will do what public schools can’t do—a lie that has been perpetuated for decades until the unsupportable myth becomes the truth to many.
To those crestfallen faces, Charter schools are the lottery to success for their children and public schools are the road to failure. Thank you Bill Gates. Thank you Walton Family. Thank you Governor Cuomo. Thank you Chris Cristi, Thank you Jeb Bush. Thank you Eli Broad. Thank you Michael Bloomberg. Thank you Wall Street. Thank you for the lies, the endless lies that led to this false hope.
Isn’t there any attorney anywhere in the United States who sees this colossal class action law suit in the making? Imagine your share of the settlement from all those deep pockets and all the free media PR turning your name as a lawyer into a icon of justice. Maybe Hollywood will even turn this into a major motion picture with Tom Cruise playing you as the savior of democratic public education in the United States.
Tangentially, in healthcare, consumer costs rise, when companies like Cancer Treatment Centers of America ramp up their big dollar spending on broadcast ads, forcing competitors to buy ad time for survival. Money that could be spent to improve healthcare or reduce costs, instead, goes to the mogul owners, of main stream media.
In a neighboring school district, the superintendent was suspended because he worked to support a school levy during weekdays. His counterparts in the charter/for-profit, don’t
have their hands, tied. They can raise funds and political favors, 24/7, from business owners and politicians who plan to benefit. Taxpayers can deny public schools money to advertise. Charters and for-profits don’t have their hands, tied. They can spend the public’s money at will.
I must be missing something here. In my community, it is part of the Superintendent’s job to support the school levy. It is the budget numbers produced by the administration that drives a request for more money. They are responsible for justifying their plan.
The school system is Kettering. The article was in the Dayton Daily News, May 7, 2014. Reporter-Jeremy Kelley.
Different states, different rules?
Diane, I’m glad you posted the comment. It is a sad comment but the administrator’s comment is true. I’ve heard our local school board members talk about how they could shut down the local charter school if they could show that there wasn’t much demand.
Unfortunately, the current open war between traditional public schools and charter schools has led to a lot of wasted time and resources. I do hope all of us could focus on what’s best for the children.
What this principal said is just more propaganda–it totally disgusts me, yet it’s the motto of many charter proponents: “Charter schools MUST be good if so many people want to get in!” So they create a “demand” to keep up appearances and garner support from the easily duped, i. e. the policy-makers and the philanthropists.
LG: your comments got me to thinking…
First, let me plug two books by folks who worked in NYC schools. 1), CONFESSIONS OF A BAD TEACHER: THE SHOCKING TRUTH FROM THE FRONT LINES OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION, John Owens, 2013; and 2), DAVONTE’S INFERNO: TEN YEARS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL GULAG, Laurel M. Sturt, 2013. Part of what they write about you touch on in your comments—so much of self-styled “education reform” is staged triumphal pageantry that comes at the expense of school staff, students, parents and communities. And at the expense of genuine teaching and learning.
They are good reads. I heartily recommend.
Second, what you are describing is characteristic of a business plan not an education model—and not utilizing best business practices either. In fact, I sometimes label it the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$ because it is so reminiscent of the scripted gaiety, numerical success on paper, and actual inefficiencies and waste of the Potemkin Villages that were [ultimately, counterproductive] showcases of the late Soviet Union.
Not long ago Bob Shepherd wrote how, in probably the not too distant future, the same edupundits who are on the charterite/privatization bandwagon now will be moaning about how they—allegedly just like the rest of us!—got it all wrong.
Don’t believe a word of it. They were nailed long long ago by an old dead Greek guy:
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true. ” [Demosthenes]
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Don’t forget, if you are a for-profit company, at any rate, all expenses related to advertising are tax deductible, including things like football tickets and restaurant meals. At least that’s how it was for years and years. This may not apply to charters themselves, which may be non profit, but the various contractors and middlemen are not. This is more money taken from the public treasury (advertising is out of control in this country). I am sure the accountants are having a field day.
The charters continue to recruit families, door-to-door selling in neighborhoods whose demographic they want, while pushing out kids they don’t want, for whatever reason the “Executive Director” decides. It changes from year to year. It’s a shell game only a select few know the logic behind. The names of the “recruits” are not necessarily people who’ve filled out a form of some kind. be sure that the names are not taken off that list, the numbers can only go up by their accounting.
Also, If they can’t be audited, how will anyone know?
The “waiting list” lie, like so many hypocrisies of corporate “school reform,” was first field tested and perfected by Chicago’s charter schools and former “Chief Executive Officer” Arne Duncan. By 2004 – 2005, Duncan was using the “waiting list” for Chicago charters as “proof” that there was a market “demand” for more charters, just as the writer notes. But Duncan and the charter schools always refused to provide reporters with actual waiting lists, or any explanation of how families either got on or off the waiting lists. Since Chicago also has magnet high schools that are highly competitive, thousands of families every year also apply to these schools, so there should be “waiting lists” for them, too. Most recently, Michelle Obama has been hypocritically praising (with s snide little teacher bashing aside) her alma mater, Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School (also the alma mater of my son, Dan, who as a high school senior designed the Substancenews.net website…).
So at various press conferences where Duncan was citing the “waiting list” lie as part of the proof of the need to expand Chicago charters I would ask to the supposed “waiting list” and also ask “How many kids are on the waiting list for Whitney Young…”
Duncan’t answer, when he couldn’t just ignore the question with the help of Peter Cunningham (whose daughter also went to Whitney Young) was “I’ll get back to you on that…” which of course he never did.
The reason is that when parents are “applying” for selective enrollment schools, whether charters or magnet schools (and Chicago has been a pioneer in both, both for segregationist logics) they apply to many many schools. As a result, they usually get “in” somewhere, and therefore if their names remaining on some fictional “waiting list” they have already satisfactorily gotten their kids into another school. Since the charters can make up a number and then cite “student confidentiality” when reporters demand to actually see the list, the lie continues and as longer as reporters report the claim as a fact, as opposed to another bit of mendacity, they get away with it.
In Chicago, of course, the members of the Board of Education then utilize those same kinds of numbers as a fig leaf to cover up their latest anti-public school votes. Last month, Board member Jesse Ruiz used the supposed number of applicants to Ames “Marine Military Academy” as a proof that the “community” really wanted the military school (expanded down to 7th grade) even when a referendum in the precincts adjacent to the school found more than 80 percent of the voters did NOT want the military school.
Like their Wall Street counterparts selling the dubious “investment instruments” that crashed the economy in 2008, these people make up “facts” to sell their products, and then make up newer “facts” when we catch them in their most recent lies.
And with Arne Duncan and his corporate minions running the Department of Education since 2009 for President Obama, the lies about “education reform” far surpass any lies that were told by administration people about events like, say, Bangazi.
George Schmidt: excellent examples of what Andrew Lang described—
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than for illumination.”
What you are describing is SOP/M [Standard Operating Procedure/Math] for the leading charterites/privatizers. Even when a figure in and of itself is accurate, it can be cynically and dishonestly and consciously misleading. One of the most obvious is 100% graduation rates—fine if you are talking about 12th graders due to graduate in a month, but what about the 9th grade cohort they were part of? How much attrition between entering in the 9th grade and making it to graduation in the 12th? Gary Rubinstein, for one, has been excellent at exposing edufrauds making such claims.
And then, of course, there are the really important figures at play, like $tudent $ucce$$. Consider the ‘midyear dump.’ At whatever point the money for the full school year has followed students into a charter school, that’s when the charter sheds/counsels out/rids itself of Rahm’s “uneducables” and Petrilli’s “non-strivers” aka “test-score suppressors” and sends them back to their local public school. And the best part for self-styled “education reformers”? If the students who have been “dumped” ever graduate, then “scientific studies” will show that the short short short time they spent in a Centre of EduExcellence [i.e., charter] is responsible for their being able to graduate—unlike, natcherly, the actual public school that took the student back in with decreased funding and resources, because everyone knows that public schools are “dropout factories.”
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For the ‘midyear dump’ please refer to a posting and comments by Jack on this blog—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/15/reader-offers-a-dose-of-common-sense-about-high-test-scores/
Thank you for your comments and your efforts on behalf of a “better education for all.”
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Diane, what if we had a waiting list for everyone waiting on government to properly fund the traditional public schools, and even providing additional resources to schools in poor neighborhoods. Let’s see how long that list gets and whether policymakers will notice it and do something about it.
What about having a waiting list for everyone waiting on government to properly fund the traditional public schools, and even providing additional resources to schools in poor neighborhoods. Let’s see how long that list gets and whether policymakers will notice it and do something about it.
Perhaps have a national petition…
Title: Put Me on the List to Properly Fund Traditional Public Schools
“Put me on the Ultimate Waiting List: I’m waiting for state governments around the United States to properly fund traditional public schools, including additional resources for schools in low-income neighborhoods to cover the special needs of children in their formative years, to ensure they are properly fed, get necessary medical attention, and see they are otherwise prepared to meet their ongoing education challenge. I prefer being on this list rather than joining a list for a political workaround (e.g., charter schools) that is unaccountable to me and my fellow citizens, and drains the resources we need to properly fund public schools. ”
Something like this.
love it! sign me up!
Leave it to right-wing businessman Joe Nathan to deflect important criticisms of the lucrative charter industry’s ever escalating use of funds that should be used for teaching and learning on slick advertisements and marketing instead. Finding a fringe example of a suburban public school doing the same doesn’t address the problem. They shouldn’t be doing it either. As communities we should be demanding that all funds be used in the classroom, not on Eva Moskovitz, Marco Petruzzi, or Joe Nathan’s privately managed vanity projects. Their burgeoning charter marketing budgets would be able to fund school libraries in my community—something actually that serves children!
If these charter schools were forced by law to educate every child that our public schools gladly welcome, they wouldn’t have these huge marketing and advertising budgets. It’s a testament to the revenue seeking mindset of Nathan and his ilk that charters are praised instead of condemned, for a behavior that goes against the very essence of public commons. Once again Nathan unwittingly reminds us that he represents business interests, rather than human interests.