Margaret (Macke) Raymond, leader of the CREDO studies of charters, recently completed a study of charters in Ohio. She concluded that public schools outperform charter schools.
In explaining her findings at the Cleveland Club, she made a statement that shocked free-market zealots:
“This is one of the big insights for me. I actually am kind of a pro-market kinda girl. But it doesn’t seem to work in a choice environment for education. I’ve studied competitive markets for much of my career. That’s my academic focus for my work. And it’s [education] the only industry/sector where the market mechanism just doesn’t work. I think it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance throughout the state. I think there are other supports that are needed. Frankly parents have not been really well educated in the mechanisms of choice.… I think the policy environment really needs to focus on creating much more information and transparency about performance than we’ve had for the 20 years of the charter school movement. I think we need to have a greater degree of oversight of charter schools, but I also think we have to have some oversight of the overseers.”
This was not what one of her sponsors, the Walton Family Foundation, expected to hear.
Good for Macke!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very important report by Macke. Spread it around. Not what the billionaires wanted to hear.
“Look, uh, sometimes things look good on paper, but lose their luster when you see how it affects real folks. I guess a healthy bottom line doesn’t mean much, if to get it you have to hurt the ones you depend on. It’s people that make the difference…”
(Mr. Shirley, played by Brian Doyle Murray on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation)
Among other things, in a functional market a supposedly superior product could be produced at higher levels and, in theory, be consumed by everyone. Schools cannot expand, contract at the whim of consumer preference. Gates will be erected (no pun) and the ones that make the product look less desirable will be excluded. The key agents will be the marketer and the gatekeepers, working hand in hand to brand their products.
We can add this to Robin Lake’s admission that the portfolio strategy was a hot mess in Detroit and other cities where it has been implemented: http://janresseger.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/inventor-of-portfolio-school-reform-confirms-it-isnt-working-well/
Imagine that — selection of a school is not similar to selecting a breakfast cereal or a car. Whoever predicted that?
For a market to actually be free, there has to be a level playing field of both information and agency on the part of all consumers so that they can’t be manipulated by sellers to make choices that are not in their best interests. It’s blatantly obvious that this does not exist in the so called education market place or anywhere else these days. The idea of free markets exists only as a threadbare sales pitch, nothing more. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the situation with vouchers is exactly the same. Here’s a great explanation of why market based competition in education is so utterly BOGUS. http://horacemannleague.blogspot.com/2013/01/asymmetric-information-parental-choice.html?m=1
Glad to see Ohio lawmakers and lobbyists are retaining their laser-like focus on charter schools.
Did they say anything about the public schools that outperformed the charter schools at this gathering of leaders? I’m wondering how the hell the public schools pulled it off, considering that they have been either abandoned or actively undermined by state leaders chasing after charters.
That might be a good study. How are Ohio public schools soldiering on in such a hostile state and national policy environment?
“Parents have not been well educated in the mechanisms of choice”…..at last, some truth sneaks into the conversation. Thank you Margaret Macke Raymond.
I read endlessly the monolith word of “parents” as choosers for their children’s education. After over 40 years as an educational researcher and public policy educator/writer, and observing in schools in almost every state in the union, always speaking with parents as part of longitudinal studies, I see ‘parents’ as a very broad category of humans who may or may not be valid ‘deciders’.
The continual hue and cry about parents having choices is so limited when looked at with real data and real facts about this vast class of people….”parents.” Many parents, both couples and singles, who love, nurture, and raise their children carefully, are certainly the crux of those most interested in the education of their children.
However,, realistically, many who nominally fall into the category of parents are far from the informed and interested people who should be involved in how to educate children.
All over America there are 14 year old children having children. There are crack addicts, street walkers, and others of the demi monde, having children. There are parents of all colors who never went past first or second grade having children. On and on, and the assessment of many, of not most, honest educational researchers, is that most of these “parents” have neither the education nor interest to make decisions which affect public school education. This is particularly true in instances of converting public schools to charters as with parent trigger laws. It is not a concrete statement, for many inner city parents are diligent and stay informed as possible (with a bombardment of lies foisted on them by charterizers/privatizers, and sometimes by local public school administrators.)
It is also of concern in poverty communities when some of the under-educated folks are elected to school boards. (In my opinion, the only valid reason for Common Core mandates is to insure that all children are at least exposed to some standards of education.) When I hear, as I do daily, from seemingly well educated people, that parents should make all the decisions on how to educate their children, I always ask the speaker when they were last in a classroom, and when they observed in inner city schools, and when they spoke to “parents” whose children live in poverty. The answer is always the same. NOT!
My public school system has 50% lower income children. The truth is there is a group of higher-income parents here who would like nothing better than a new school that excludes most of those children.
They would also like all of the “disruptive” students removed, unless their child is disruptive, in which case it is the schools fault.
Chiara…I have observed in exemplar schools in the Deep South, and even in Chicago, where the disrupters were white children from families where their mother was 13 when pregnant. I have had to interview people who live in shacks off dirt roads, and these are not inner city parents of color, and white parents actually are still fighting the Civil War. All this is/has been written into government reports by many researchers over many many years. We often wonder if anyone ever reads our data collection and reports. Certainly not during the last administrations since Reagan, it would seem.
So much is left out of the conversation.
The free market is only “free” to those who make profits at the expense of others.
I also hope there is a group of higher income parents at your school who chose to stay in the public schools who are passionate about their schools. I know that is the case in my child’s school.
I will also add that in my area there are also some lower income parents who want all the disruptive students removed and sometimes they choose charters that counsel out students.
Ellen Lubic: the ‘parents are the ones responsible for their children’s education’ argument is simply another way the self-styled “education reformers” outsource responsibility for their own failed words and deeds.
It’s a twofer: protect themselves against taking any responsibility for their predictable disasters like the iPad and MISIS catastrophes in LAUSD, and argue that everyone else but themselves is to blame for it.
Rheeally!
😱
In reality, of course, they make sure that everyone else is left out of the loop, especially when it comes to getting criticial information and to the actual making of decisions.
It’s also known as a sucker punch. And when we insist that they are responsible for their own actions and deeds and should pay the consequences, the answer is always the same—
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
But we knew she would say that, right?
😎
I think the key is “information and transparency”, which is sorely needed in education, both district and charter. I also think both sides have to recognize that people make decisions for their children based on a very wide variety of factors, so if people are expecting that free market choices in education lead to people picking the schools that score best on exams, they are missing almost all of the measures that parents use to make their decisions. That could lead someone with a narrow focus to decide that choice doesn’t work, but it would be a false conclusion.
The bizarrely-named Center for Reinventing Public Education, recently got the media to report their “research” into the various reasons for parental choice.
The topic, is the latest obfuscating tack, to distract from charter school failure.
As usual, media failed to identify CRPE funders and, to get a critic’s opinion. Funny, how if it is worker associations, compiling the research, they don’t get the same free pass.
“. . . the key is “information and transparency”, which is sorely needed in education, both district and charter.”
At least with community public schools one has at least a smither of a legal chance to see through and into what is going on, where as with private charter schools and private schools one doesn’t stand a any, legal or not, chance at uncovering any information that the “owners” don’t want uncovered. And if (since?) those private entities are receiving taxpayer monies I want to be able to know what is going on.
“That could lead someone with a narrow focus to decide that choice doesn’t work, but it would be a false conclusion.”
Nice attempt at a deflecting conclusion to lead the readers away from the very real problems in transparency for all, which is needed in that bogus concept of “free market”, to be able to make informed decisions. The privatizers only care about information for all which will help line their pockets.
If her research provides an epiphany for Dr.Raymond, she (a) is a slow processor (b) has a void spot, where other people have human values and, (c) is incapable of projecting outcomes.
I pick (d) all of the above.
“I think the policy environment really needs to focus on creating much more information and transparency about performance than we’ve had for the 20 years of the charter school movement. I think we need to have a greater degree of oversight of charter schools, but I also think we have to have some oversight of the overseers.”
Great! Let’s pour more public money into that. I get why the ed reform community wants to focus on “schools of choice” but I have to object to the idea that the huge group of people I’m paying in state government should also focus there. Whether they like it or not, they accepted these jobs with the understanding that they would work to improve public schools. Can they go work somewhere else if they don’t feel like doing that? I’m sure one of the 5000 privately-funded ed reform orgs are hiring.
Wonder if her perspective will transfer to her spouse, Eric Hanushek.
Stiles: wonder is an amazing thing, and hope springs eternal, but—
Don’t hold your breath.
😎
I can’t directly access Jamie Vollmer’s website for the original, so this is a posting by Valerie Strauss on her blog, 7-9-2013, re a book by Larry Cuban in which the “ice cream/blueberry” story is recounted. *The first paragraph, and the last two, are by Valerie Strauss. Also note that the link provided in the posting for this thread also accesses the blog of Valerie Strauss.*
[start posting]
In the introduction, Cuban introduces readers to Jamie Vollmer, a former ice cream company executive who became an education advocate and author of the book ” Schools Cannot Do It Alone.” He quotes Vollmer about “an epiphany” he had in the 1980s:
“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.
I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that had become famous in the middle 1980s when People magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”
I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!
In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced — equal parts ignorance and arrogance.
As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.
She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”
I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”
“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”
“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.
“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.
“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.
“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.
“I send them back.”
She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”
In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!”
And so began my long transformation.
Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.
None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
Vollmer includes this on his webpage, along with some comments from readers, some who liked the story, others who didn’t, and still others who questioned whether it really happened. Here are those comments.
The bottom line: Whatever you think of the blueberry story, Vollmer had it right: Schools aren’t businesses and shouldn’t be run as if they were.
[end posting]
(in the original posting, the sentence “Here are those comments” links viewers to the comments; go to original posting if you want to read them)
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/07/09/why-schools-arent-businesses-the-blueberry-story/
A gentle suggestion: perhaps Ms. Raymond would do well to read ANSWER SHEET, the blog of Valerie Strauss.
Just sayin’…
😎
“Transparency” is the new “regulation”. It’s what everyone who is ideologically committed to deregulation says, when privatization fails in completely predictable ways. “We just need smarter shoppers!” What I love about it is how it completely absolves politicians from any responsibility or duty.
No wonder politicians love privatization. The problem isn’t THEM. It’s those dopes in the public and their poor choices 🙂
Razor-point observation.
Linda: what you said.
😎
“Ellen Lubic
December 14, 2014 at 12:51 pm
Chiara…I have observed in exemplar schools in the Deep South, and even in Chicago, where the disrupters were white children from families where their mother was 13 when pregnant.”
Our school used to do “teams” in middle school. Everyone knew there was an A team and a B team, but we all pretended the teams were equal.
They actually changed it. I don’t know why, or who forced the change in policy. They spread the children out more evenly now, as to ability (which probably means as to test scores) The parents of the higher-performing kids were furious.
The fact that public schools have to try to be all things to all people (and they will ALWAYS fail at that, because it’s impossible to please everyone) is a “feature not a bug”. It’s one of the things that makes them “public”.
Macke is out of a job now lol. Not what the Waltons paid her to say.
Am I the only one who sees the spin in the last paragraphs of the WaPo article, where Raymond’s clarification comments from an email are provided? She effectively scapegoats public education as the cause of the problems she identified with free markets, as in “States and LEAs [local education agencies] act on behalf of students and parents, often with imperfect information, and supply is controlled by interests that have agendas other than free exchange.”
Don’t think for a minute she is talking about all the pro-charter school “reformers” who are leading public education, from the Secretary of Education on down, and that have been controlling information and making critical decisions. That includes everything from high-stakes testing policies, to greenlighting for-profit charter schools and all the not-so-non-profit charters, with their specious six-figure non-educator CEOs, which selectively screen out high-needs students, to not prosecuting charter school scammers who take millions in tax payer dollars for personal gain.
She says,
“That is not to say that a market orientation COULDN’T EVER work, I was just saying that the early period of the charter movement was a bit optimistic and premature to think that decades of controlled monopoly conduct would be influenced quickly by small numbers of consumers.”
Whenever a corporate education “reformer” maintains the economist’s supply and demand perspective and continues to see a public good as a “controlled monopoly,” then the aim remains to break up that alleged “monopoly.” I think she is effectively saying that it’s not enough for them to have so many infiltrators in public education; they want total control over it.
TEd,
The last four paragraphs of what Macke said caught my attention. See below.
Teacher Ed: good catch.
She’s just seems to be trying to put old wine in slightly shinier and newer bottles. But—
“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.” [Dorothy Parker]
😎
yes…. Whenever a corporate education “reformer” maintains the economist’s supply and demand perspective and continues to see a public good as a “controlled monopoly,” then the aim remains to break up that alleged “monopoly.” I think she is effectively saying that it’s not enough for them to have so many infiltrators in public education; they want total control over it.
People in Ohio should probably be aware that this “debate” is already over. They’re moving for the same One App system in Ohio they use everywhere:
“I”n a few years, some hope, we could have one large lottery for all schools in Cleveland – district schools and charter schools – which would be joined in a single enrollment process.
A “common enrollment” system is a major goal for school choice advocates across the country, particularly for districts like Cleveland that are moving toward the “portfolio” model for the district.”
If this sounds familiar it’s because it’s identical to what they did in Newark.
“The final step, she said, is a “heavy-duty” algorithm that can randomly put students in a priority order and match them to their top choice or, if full, their second or third choices.”
They’re really just discussing details at this point,. The privatization decision has already be made. They just got a big start-up grant from a billionaire for a One App system. Of course once the private grant money is gone they’ll shift the burden of paying for all this to citizens. Surprise!
Exactly. And as parents in Newark have attested, such a system effectively robs parents of any choice whatsoever, including the ability to enroll all of their children in their neighborhood public school, so some parents have had to take their kids to different assigned schools all over town:
“One Newark’ plan assigns 5 siblings in Tillman family to 5 schools ”
http://newjersey.news12.com/news/one-newark-plan-assigns-5-siblings-in-tillman-family-to-5-schools-1.9156723
One Newark is an unmitigated disaster for those of us on the low end of the spectrum.
The pro-charter school, Cleveland Transformation Alliance, which is part of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (new name for the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce), may, in the future, list the OneApp, on its “Contact Us” page, instead of the current, United Way listing? Hum…
This is a big fat duh…Children are not products, parents are not agents of “Quality Control”. Teachers are professionals whose experience and expertise need to be respected!
It is a perfect “teachable moment” on point of view or perspective. The “reformers” are trying to take a free market template and put in on education, and it doesn’t work. Teachers want to serve students, engage them, and meet their needs. The “market” doesn’t enter in the equation. Why should it? Students are not widgets!
When we are dealing with static goods, those that are pretty much the same as everything else of that nature and for those things we use repeatedly, we eventually develop a preference for one that works for us. We care only that our choice is available and predictable and cost effective. We don’t assume that we can make a better one; we don’t want to make a better one. If we don’t like it, we try a different one or grin and bear it. When it comes to fixing a car, planting a garden, or building a house, the number of variables that influences production of a good product increases. I know I can’t handle the tasks involved myself, so I call in someone who has the expertize to do it. I may actually add oil to my car every once in awhile or pick apples or hammer a loose nail, but that activity does not convince me that I am a mechanic, a farmer, or a carpenter. Anyone who has watched an apprentice painter knows that they need supervision. The finished product they will produce on their own in no way resembles that produced by a seasoned painter. I do some careful research into choosing someone capable of doing the job at a cost I can afford and then let them do it. There are some jobs, those things that we call a public good, that are so important to everyone that we don’t all take care of it on our own. We act as a unit and tax ourselves to provide the resources to provide those goods to everyone. We form police and fire departments, build roads and mass transit systems, and provide public schools. Our choices are then limited by the needs of the public as a whole. We rely on people who have been trained to do a job to produce a product that can be used by everyone as needed. When we privatize these public functions, we sell our right to a say in the product. The owner is interested in the bottom line. He doesn’t care if everyone can use/afford the service; just that he can make a profit. Perhaps he wants to provide a good product, but it doesn’t have to be good enough for everyone. After all, you can’t please everybody. We still can vote with our feet, but whose “roads” are we going to use instead? Will they take us where we need to go? The corporate model of education doesn’t care if everyone can learn. It just wants to identify those who can learn (what it needs them to learn) in the way it wants them to learn it at a cost that makes them money. Those who don’t “fit the mold,” for whatever reason, are discarded.
¡MBE!
TAGO!
From the end of the article:
“In other industries, real markets [AND WHAT MAY BE THOSE UNREAL MARKETS OR THE FALSE MARKETS?] are able to develop and function because suppliers and consumers get to meet each other in an unfettered set of offers and demands for goods or services [ONLY IN AN ECONOMIST’S FANTASY WORLD]. There are no intermediary agents [AND TO WHO MAY SHE BE REFERRING? TEACHERS & THEIR OH SO BIG AND POWERFUL UNIONS AND THE “BOSS TWITS” IN ADMINISTRATIONS!?!?!] who guard access to supply or who aggregate demand and thus sway the free exchange of supply and demand. Part of that free exchange relies on complete transparency about the attributes of the goods on offer and their prices [TRY GETTING THAT INFORMATION OUT OF A PRIVATE CHARTER OR A PRIVATE SCHOOL THAT TAKES VOUCHERS], and the transactions are “known” by the participants in an open and complete way {THE ONLY PLACE THAT CAN TAKE PLACE IS IN THE COMMUNITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS BECAUSE BY LAW THEY HAVE TO OPEN THEIR BOOKS, ACTIVITIES, DECISIONS TO ALL WHO REQUEST].
I think you can see that as currently organized, public K-12 education does not meet those conditions [EXACTLY!! BECAUSE NOT ALL GOVERNMENTAL SERVICE MEET THAT ECONOMIST’S FANTASY WORLD OF OPERATING IN A “FREE MARKET”. WHY AIN’T SHE BITCHING ABOUT THE COMPLETELY INTRANSPARENT MONOPOLY CALLED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR, OOPS I MEAN THE DEPARTMENT OF supposed DEFENSE WHO HAVE NEVER COMPLETED A MANDATED BY LAW YEARLY AUDIT?]. States and LEAs [local education agencies] act on behalf of students and parents, often with imperfect information [HEY, MS ECONOMIST/POLICY ANALYST THEIR IS NEVER EVER PERFECT INFORMATION], and supply is controlled by interests [BIG BAD UNION THUGS AGAIN AND THE DISTRICT ADTWITS, OOPS I MEAN ADMINS that have agendas other than free exchange [LIKE AN EFFIN CAPITALIST ADORINGLY LOVES A “FREE EXCHANGE”. REALLY JUST HOW IGNORANT IS THIS GAL.]
The remark today was about “early adopter” charter states that built charter laws on the faith that a little bit of competition from charter schools would a) function entirely on parental choice (free and transparent information about the range of options and their “prices”) and b) a rapid response from the rest of the suppliers in reaction to expressed demand for “something different.” [WHICH REMARK???? YOU MADE QUITE A FEW. CAN YOU BE ANY MORE OBTUSE?]
That is not to say that a market orientation COULDN’T EVER work [GO TALK TO THE CHILEAN STUDENTS/CITIZENS ABOUT THAT ONE.], I was just saying that the early period of the charter movement was a bit optimistic and premature to think [THEY CAN THINK??, OTHER THAN “HOW DO I GET MORE $$$???] that decades of controlled monopoly conduct would be influenced quickly by small numbers of consumers [AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS THE “REST OF THE STORY”–IF THAT WAS THEIR DESIRE THEN THEY’RE A LOT FURTHER OUT PAST LEFT FIELD THAN WAVELAND AVENUE THAN I HAD EVER IMAGINED.]
Data in New York seems to contradict this. http://www.wsj.com/articles/eva-moskowitz-the-charter-school-windfall-for-public-schools-1417215279
An opinion piece by Eva Moskowitz in the Wall Street Journal is not “data.” Always consider the source. Try reading about what the PR spinmistress omitted: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/09/horace-meister-corrects-eva-moskowitz/
Parents have been consumers in an educational marketplace for decades and decades.
There are independent private schools and the many types of religious schools, of course. For public schools, parents don’t simply throw a dart at a map. They agonize and determine with great precision where they can obtain what they believe is the best school for their housing dollar. Even within a particular town or district, they’ll ascertain which school is better (or, more to the point, has “better” student demographics and outcomes) and choose that school over the others.
I don’t recall hearing that American parents don’t have the stuff to decide whether it is best for their children to attend a private school, or whether they should live in Lake Forest vs. Winnetka, or whether they should move into the catchment zone of the traditional school or the school that has more of an arts focus. It’s even okay for parents to submit their kids to stressful high-stakes admissions tests and gut-churning lotteries for oversubscribed unzoned district schools.
But we’re supposed to believe that adding charters to this huge and varied menu reduces parents to blubbering incompetents who can’t possibly be trusted to know what they’re doing?
I’m guessing that the parents who can afford to live in Winnetka or Lake Forest (wealthy towns in Illinois) are not the parents in question. Not that parents in these communities know that much more about what makes a good school. Most likely, they went to good schools, so they look for the outward indicators of success. Their real estate agents point to high test scores, graduation rates, and the % going on to college (and the % going on to top tier schools). We already know that students in high socioeconomic communities are going to fare well in this numbers game. The parents tend to be more demanding and have higher expectations. They are used to success and their schools are well resourced. Parents in lower socioeconomic communities want their children to be successful, too, but they come to the table with fewer resources to help make that come true. Their schools are generally less well funded and their children on average are going to face the challenges more frequently associated with low income households. If you have ever sat across the conference table from a father and son, the son translating for his father, you know the dreams of that father for his son are not unimportant. They do not give their children a pass. They expect their children to work hard. Their dreams for their children are powerful, but they have little power to make those dreams reality. They know that education gives their children a chance at a better life. Yeah, there are bad parents, but socioeconomic status certainly does not determine the quality of parenting.
Parents at virtually every point on the socioeconomic spectrum make the same kind of analysis and market decisions as the parents who are choosing whether to live in Winnetka or Lake Forest. That was just an example, not an implication that wealthy parents are better parents.
Because of ongoing housing discrimination and outright racism, yes, black and Latino parents generally have far fewer options to choose from, with many communities and neighborhoods essentially being off-limits. I can’t speak to what goes on in most other states, but in New York, charters mainly serve the families with the least mobility and fewest options. I used to oppose charters until I saw that these parents, who have the same hopes and dreams for their kids as anyone else, were thrilled to be able to choose a different educational option–the same kind of choice that most of us take for granted.
Chicago is not a poster child for successful charters, and they generally stay away from wealthier communities. It is a little harder to force them on communities that have the political power to fight although I guess Rahm with all his 1% support is not a shoe-in for reelection. He angered too many people with his school mismanagement.
On Bill Moyers this week, John MacArthur, president of Harper’s Magazine, described how neoliberal Democrats were birthed in the Clinton administration and promoted by the union busting Daley brothers, in Chicago & DC, a legacy further pushed by Obama and Rahm:
“Democrats Bow Down to Wall Street”
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-democrats-bow-wall-street/
I just discovered how “affordable” ObamaCare is for working class people. I signed up for the cheapest comprehensive plan in my area and, with government assistance due to my low income, for the privilege of paying only $1300 per year in premiums (which I still can’t afford), I get to pay a $5000 deductible before I can get any services.
That is NOT affordable for working people making unlivable wages like me, who have never had $5k in disposable income. And I really do need medical care so I can get a prescription to control a debilitating disorder.
The ACA is a total bust for me, but what a boon for insurance companies. Really makes you wonder what kinds of deals those companies made with neoliberal Democrats like Obama et al.
Are you sure? Usually, the deductible is not all paid upfront. A percentage of a doctor’s visit may be your responsibility but not the whole thing, and prescriptions may not have a deductible. Routine checkups could be free. Please check it out to be sure. It still is not a great deal, but it might be better than it appears on the surface. Back in the days before business got their claws into the hospitals, I paid a bill off a month at a time. The amount was far lower than it would be today, but the hospital worked with me. My insurance also was a high deductible plan, and in that case my bill was high enough that I had to pay the deductible, but as I said, I did it a month at a time. It took me over a year to pay it back. Good luck.
2old2teach, This is exactly what the plan says, “You must pay all the costs up to the deductible amount before this plan begins to pay for covered services you use.”
That s**ks! Still, If you get a chance sit down with someone in the know face to face and check. Drs. offices seem to get pretty good at that. If you are right, you would almost be better off paying a penalty and not enrolling. I did spot an article in the paper this morning saying that people were not getting the savings that were supposed to be generated although insurance companies are raking it in. They are now trying to blame the rise in cost on the pharmaceutical industry. While drug prices are going up ( again for what I think are bogus reasons), it doesn’t explain the rise in healthcare costs.
2old2teach, I worked in the insurance industry years ago, so I think I have a handle on how it works. My guess is that the ACA resulted in new policies that are based on actuarial calculations with projections that inflate consumer usage. That’s because when everyone is required to buy insurance, it means a lot of healthy folks who didn’t previously purchase it are included, who may not use it much, if ever. I was one of those people myself, for decades, when I received health insurance through my work, because I rarely had the need to use it then. My car insurance company has long benefited from me as well, due to my good driving record and never filing claims. Folks like me are the bread and butter of insurance companies.
I think you are right that the pharmaceutical industry is contributing to these costs. The co-pay for meds is one of the services which does not kick in until I first meet the $5K deductible. I recently read a comment on an ACA page by a man from Australia, where they have socialized medicine. He was visiting the states and had to get a puffer for his asthma while he was here, which first required a subscription and then cost him $100. He said that the same puffer with his medication was sold over the counter in Australia and cost only 99¢ there.
Yes, I have been considering just not paying and taking the penalty, because I really can’t afford this. In two years, my Medicare will be kicking in, so I think I’m going to try to wait it out ’til then, even though I have a chronic disease and a serious need for a prescription to control it, because over the counter meds aren’t enough. I bet they have something stronger and cheaper over the counter in Australia. Meanwhile, my over the counter meds cost me a fortune, provide very limited relief (and no prevention), and they are not tax deductible.
Industry is proving itself unable to provide medical care at a reasonable cost. It is time for a single payer system. There is something wrong with a system that values profits over human life; it is time for the United States to grow up.
I most definitely agree. With over 19,000 members of Physicians for a National Health Program http://www.pnhp.org/about/about-pnhp calling for a single payer system, I think it’s evident that the resistance is not coming primarily from doctors.
We are living in a nation governed by greedy, self-serving people who have no concern for humanity and who have sold their souls to the highest bidders. It’s really disgusting how many of them claim to be religious, too, when you know that their religious teachings do not condone such attitudes and actions against humankind. What a sick country.
I don’t see reason for hope and excitement here. I see further attacks on unionization, and a call more government intervention and support for privatization.
“I think it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance throughout the state. I think there are other supports that are needed.”
What I read here is, “We need the government to give more support to charters.”
“Frankly parents have not been really well educated in the mechanisms of choice.…”
I read, “So we need the government to educate them about how to choose charters.” (And, presumably, to choose the most corporate, run by the largest donors.)
So Ms Raymond becomes another in a long line of educated people who won’t be listened to because she figured out the Reformist Experiment is not working.
Here’s a social scientist’s perception of the Reformist Experiment.
Question: International Test Scores and Standardized Tests show that every child (100%) after 10 years of observation is not “proficient in Math or English. Therefore the Teachers are bad because they don’t teach to the test they don’t get to develop.
Hypothesis: Better tests and remove teachers who don’t teach to the test (that they don’t get to develop). Public schools will be the control group (except that legislators keep interfering with the petri dishes) and Charter Schools will implement the new test system with inexperienced teachers (who don’t get to develop the test.)
Prediction: Public schools will turn into Charter Schools and everybody irregardless of socio-economic background or ethnicity or gender will become proficient in a short period of time.
Testing/Observation: So far the prediction is not realized, in fact after lots of money changing hands, the evidence is trending regressive progress. Although there is a growing number of cheap, inexperienced teachers in a growing number of marginally effective charter schools.
Analysis: In spite of the facts, politicians are allocating more money to educational corporations who are continuing the experiment. Even more money is being transferred to the management of these corporate enterprises (charters) and even more rigorous and frequent testing routines while keeping labor and operating costs at a minimum (unless it involves new construction projects help struggling contractors in business.)