A secret memo commissioned by the Walton Education Coalition sought to analyze why the well-funded charter advocates were beaten handily in a Massachusetts referendum in 2016 on expanding charter schools.
The memo says the opposition trusted teachers more than the governor. The opposition had a simple message: charters are funded at the expense of the local public schoools. The charter lobbyists thought they could threaten a referendum, and the legislature would cave and lift the charter cap to avoid a referendum. But the anti-charter forces refused to compromise and took it to the public.
Families for Excellent Schools, the hedge funders group, thought that the aggressive tactics they had used successfully in New York would work in Massachusetts. They didn’t, and FES was fined nearly half a million dollars for campaign finance violations (concealing the names of its donors) and banned from the Bay State for five years (FES disbanded soon afterwards).
What the analysis doesn’t acknowledge is that Massachusetts was a terrible choice to launch a charter campaign. On NAEP, it is the most successful state in the nation. It has a strong tradition of local control. Families are very attached to their town schools. Threaten the funding of the local public school, and you hit a hornets’ nest.
The pro-charter campaign was hurt too by the public recognition that it was fueled by out-of-state funding.
The opposition to charter expansion was well-organized and grassroots. The two national teachers unions spent millions, enough to stay competitive, but we’re outspent by the charter supporters by many more millions. Without their financial help (no dark money!), the charter industry would have owned the airwaves.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, led by Barbara Madeloni, organized teachers and collaborated with school committees to fight off the charter invasion. Almost every school committee in the state opposed Question 2.
Volunteers, parents, and activists turned out to defend public schools.
The only towns that voted to expand charters were affluent communities that expected they would never get a charter. Where charters already existed, the opposition ran strong because they knew there was less money for their town schools.
The defeat of Question 2 in Massachusetts was a very important milestone in the fight against privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Far be it from me to advise lobbyists, but they’re still blaming the big, bad evil labor unions and they ain’t the problem.
Ed reform doesn’t offer anything of value to families in existing public schools. They almost never even ADDRESS families in public schools other than to tell us our schools suck and we should switch to the charters and private schools they promote.
The problem they have is they have spent 20 years telling people public schools suck – that’s great when you’re promoting charters and vouchers but you run into trouble when you need voters, most of whom are IN the same public schools you’re attacking, weakening, and trying to eradicate.
They should have done some advocacy for public schools, if only because that’s where most families are. I’ve had kids in public schools in Ohio for 25 years and I cannot point to a single improvement I can credit to this lobby. I can, however, identify the damage they’ve done. Massachusets was smart to send them packing- take it from a public school parent in Ohio. They don’t add value to public schools. AT BEST they won’t do harm.
The Massachusets message was “we will not harm existing public schools”
Why would anyone in the public system vote for that? It’s an incredibly weak offer.
What are we supposed to say? “Thanks for not destroying our schools in pursuit of a privatized system- count me in!”
This was sold to the public as IMPROVING public education. No one ever mentioned that they meant “hoping not to do too much collateral damage while we set up our preferred privatized system”
Chiara,
Your comments made me laugh, because they are so TRUE.
“The report is an unsparing account of charters advocates’ missteps: taking support that would later evaporate for granted, pushing inconsistent messages, and failing to unite the charter community or gin up much grassroots support.”
Perhaps the actual reason for the defeat is that the people of Massachusetts are pleased with their public schools, and they came out to vote to defend them. Public schools are public assets that enhance property values. Charters are no such asset, and they are often operated by “fly by night amateurs.” Public schools belong to the community they serve. Charters are run by corporate raiders that put profit ahead of students. Public schools are transparent and democratic public institutions. Charters are privately run and are often mismanaged, and the “profit” leaves the local community. Public schools hire professional teachers. Charters often hire anyone they can get for the lowest price possible.
The real reason for the defeat is that the public has caught on to the fact and marketing does not a school make. Charters have snookered too many communities, and people are tired of the false claims and meager results. Massachusetts, get ready for another battle round. Like the terminator the corporate carpetbaggers “will be back” with their lies and oodles of dark money.
Charter advocates do something else that is really dishonest. They ignore working and middle class public schools. They always set it up as “wealthy suburban schools” protecting turf and funding. There are certainly “wealthy suburban schools” but the country does not consist entirely of lower income urban areas and wealthy suburbs. Heck, there are suburbs that ARE lower income.
If they damage public schools they will harm a lot of lower income kids too, because most of them still go to public schools.
In fact, there are vast areas of this country where lower income and higher income kids go to the SAME public school. My area is like that. It’s not a “suburb” of anywhere. It’s just a town.
Have the so-called reformers considered the fact that they’re lying #@*bags, and that the public might have finally caught on to that?
Unrelated to this article, one of many that Diane either authors or culls that is pertinent to the cause of building a school system that insures students a high quality education. I will no longer be posting to the site because my notes have to be approved before they are posted so, in effect, someone is determining whether or not what I say is good enough for the site by criteria of which I have no sense, I understand why screening is thought to be a good and necessary thing but I also understand that it is sometimes used to curtail discussion that may cause some to be made uncomfortable. In my case, I did receive a note from someone, I think it was Diane, warning me that I might be blocked if I said things about the owner of this site that were too critical of her. I had in my note mentioned
No Child Left Behind and the damage the Bush administration had done to public education with NCLB. Diane, of course, worked with and in the Bush administration to implement that disastrous policy. My referencing the NCLB mandate on this site and on others over the course of all of the years during the NCLB period and after came of a concern for as to how the direct instruction methods it supported harmed students and caused good and sensible teachers to find jobs in fields in which their intelligence was appreciated and rewarded, where they were not punished for being good and sensible. In a personal way, I too was harmed, my career as a professor nearly destroyed by NCLB as our college demanded that we teach the teachers in our teacher education program to do what NCLB demanded and, as NCLB became the law of the land and schools were doing everything they could to conform to its mandates, I, a progressive educator who could back up in every which way the goodness of what I taught, was punished for doing so because, for our college to be in the good graces of the Federal government, we had to teach the approved methodology of NCLB–which was authoritarian and for the sake of insuring a docile and ignorant citizenry that could be easily manipulated by those they were being told knew best.
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were, at the time, along with the president and his supporters, of course, terribly frustrated that there were so many in the population that did not listen to them, who had to be deceived in order that they would agree with what they knew to be terribly wrong.
So, at colleges of education, if Federal money on which they depended was to come their way, adherence to the dictums of NCLB, how ever absurd, how ever they might run contrary to the research that was being done before NCLB, had to be obeyed. The rules imposed under NCLB for grants for scholarship effectively beat down the best people in the field, the most thoughtful.
So, yes, I pose the threat of reminding people of the debacle that was NCLB and I continue to teach those who were damaged by it, that damage truly heartbreaking.
So, I can understand why someone who supported and participated in the creation and implimentation of NCLB would not love having a person like me speaking of such hurtful truths. I cannot help doing so because NCLB and those who were rewarded for doing what it forced educators to do constitute a good portion of the workforce involved in education. Mediate the posts as you wish. I do not know the rules but I came close to breaking one and I do not want to continue playing because the rules seem to me to be unfair, if fair is to mean that all important topics, even those that are essential but painful to discuss for some, get honest airing.
Lafered, I have harshly criticized NCLB on this site and in my books. You were not in moderation because of any reference to NCLB. You are welcome to comment here. And the first rule is to remember that this is my Blog and you don’t insult me. Say whatever you wish about NCLB, the Bushes, the Cheneys, Race to the Top, ESSA.
I see why you are in moderation. Some self righteous comment about my association with Checker Finn, which you did not approve. Go ad hominem on me and you leave the room.
“The memo says the opposition trusted teachers more than the governor.”
And the sun comes up in the east every morning!
But really then, I imagine their solution will be “We need to buy a new governor.”
That was only one battle. The arrogant, greedy autocrats behind the choice movement will return and return and return and return and return repeatedly trying one tactic after another to get their foot further in the door until there is no door.