I just got an email from an advertising firm offering me access to a charter founder in Tucson. The assumption is that since I blog, I’m looking for story material. It is a reasonable assumption. I am always looking for story material, but I have a hard and fast rule. I never do anything suggested by a paid agent for anything or anyone. I get requests from PR people all the time to write about whatever they are promoting. I delete at once. I get solicitations of that kind and this kind every day, often several times a day. Now that I have a daily blog, I get more and more. And I will never abuse my readers’ trust by promoting anything of the sort. If I review a book–and I do and will–it’s because I happen to like it, not because I want to sell it. If I mention my own book, I’ll tell you to go check it out of the library, if you still have one.
Reading this made me think about the money that charter schools spend on marketing and advertising, which public schools don’t have. And how public money intended for education should not be wasted on advertising and marketing and promotion to recruit students.
Here is the latest promotion. What is amusing is the bad grammar (“due to budget cuts being cut dramatically”) and the reference to “privately-funded charter schools,” she forgot to call it a public school!):
Hello,
With the closure of schools and cutting back of student programs due to budget cuts being cut dramatically, the popularity of privately-funded charter schools continues to grow. If you are working on any back-to-school pieces or anything on charter schools, I want to offer you an experienced third-party expert for any stories you might be working on.
Raena Janes, Director and Founder of La Paloma Academy, Heritage Elementary School and Liberty Traditional Charter School, is actually EXPANDING her school network and student programs. Through her charter schools, she’s providing Arizona, and the rest of the nation, a new model for education. She was recently featured in Family Circle Magazine for doing the impossible and raising millions of dollars to build her charter schools. Her curriculum focuses on much more than just education– she and her educators believe in making children great citizens with strong character traits. Miss Janes has invaluable educational insight that would be useful for a story.
I’m sure you’re aware of the Obama administration’s emphasis on charter schools and education secretary Arne Duncan’s Race to the Topinitiative. Miss Janes has invaluable educational insight. She is one of the dedicated individuals who believe she could transform public education and did. If interested, we could set Janes up with an interview for any upcoming editorials and she can, first-hand, tell you how her curriculum is changing the way children are being educated.
I encourage you to visit http://www.lpatucson.org/ or http://hesglendale.org/ to learn more. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to set up a time to talk to Raena.
Best,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, as my mother use to say, the devil comes in all shapes, sizes, colors and religions! Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
Your mom was right!!!
LikeLike
Snake oil. It seems, as a culture, it’s the one thing we do best.
LikeLike
In my area a new charter school is opening next week. There have been constant television and radio advertisements since last spring, airing every half-hour on the hour on all local cable channels, trolling for students in a very slick, professionally-produced minute touting limited openings, up-to-the-minute technology, and individual attention to students from teachers who really care, implying, of course, that public schools don’t provide the latest technology, individualized attention, or caring teachers.
My district finally produced an in-house 30-second ad themselves, showcasing some of our best schools and accomplished students. Not much competition going on, however, since the district ad airs only on local public television stations and a few times a week. No budget for PR, unlike the for-profit charter operator.
I have received students in my classroom from the other 2 charters run by this operator over the last few years (counseled out for low performance) and they invariably are far behind my own Title I students and have gone through several teachers a year.
I have met and talked with about a half dozen former charter teachers who couldn’t wait to get out of this charter operator’s schools and into the public school system. I believe that public schools are going to be forced to use money that would otherwise go to student needs and salaries for PR purposes, just like the charter operator seems to be doing. This is part of the death through starvation program implemented by our governor and Alec-parroting legislature.
Interesting that they have millions for PR and TV/radio ads and still they seek free publicity — just like a for-profit business. And the local newspaper and TV stations love them; they are profiled and interviewed in glowing paeans to their innovation. The CEO of this charter company takes home a salary that probably equals the entire payroll for all our district office employees combined. We simply can’t compete and that is another lie from the reformers — false choice due to hobbled public school budgets.
LikeLike
This will not go as they expected…
LikeLike
Two things struck me on first reading. First, I like how Family Circle Magazine is used as a plug. I didn’t realize that it was a magazine which is apparently a reliable source of education news and insight.
Second…”for doing the impossible and raising millions of dollars to build her charter schools.” Doing the impossible? How much have the Gates, Walton and Broad Foundations donated to build charters?
The best part was your comment, Diane…
“…public money intended for education should not be wasted on advertising and marketing and promotion to recruit students.”
Amen to that!
LikeLike
We are a country of “hustlers” and “hucksters.” Alexis de Tocqueville saw this in the early 1800s, and it turned him off about America. We shouldn’t be surprised that absolutely everything in America will be based on making a profit. We don’t listen to people with actual knowledge. We just listen to people who have a lot of money because that is America’s religion. Anything “free” and for the public good will be purchased and then sold for a profit. How long will libraries and public parks last?
LikeLike
Pathetic.
LikeLike
Makes you wonder if the writer was a product of charter schools.
LikeLike
Well, I’ll see what I can offer Ms. Monet – but of course, I’ll research her organization and will have to tell it like it is!!!!! Some of these people are very smart but in this “free market” there are also many who have no clue and this lady seems to be one of them.
LikeLike
I read this too early in the day not to have to purge.
LikeLike
When did a charter school become totally privately funded? Charter schools operate on the government dole. Private funding comes from donors, who WISH to give, not forced via taxation. Side Note: There is a very large spread in the August issue of Family Circle about this charter and her operations.
LikeLike
A spread in Family Circle? Just shows the power of marketing and P.R.
LikeLike
From Callahan:
“These criticisms, although the titles were barometric, were mild in comparison with those which appeared in the “Ladies Home Journal” in the summer of 1912. The attacks began with an editorial entitled “The Case of Seventeen Million Children–Is Our Public School System Proving an Utter Failure?”
LikeLike
Hey, Diane, you never know when you might need access to an “education expert.”
Sigh.
LikeLike
I call BS on your statement that public schools don’t have “money to spend on marketing and advertising.” Houston schools (to pick one random district) employs about 22 people across 3 communications departments with total budgets in excess of $2M.These departments aim to:
1. Develop effective, timely, two-way internal and external communication to engage staff members, parents, students, and community members.
2. Build capacity of schools to improve communication and marketing efforts.
3. Improve delivery of news and messages that accurately portray HISD.
4. Grow the use of social media as a tool to communicate with stakeholders and market the district.
(**Source: http://www.houstonisd.org/BudgetingFinancialPlanning/Home/District%20Budget%20Books/2011-2012_Departments_Section.pdf)
FWIW, the top communications official in Houston makes $185k — more than White House spokesman Jay Carney ($172,200).
Houston is not alone. All districts do this in some capacity. Why don’t you consider this $2M “money” that districts spend on marketing and advertising?
LikeLike
In the past, school districts never spent money on marketing and advertising.
Now they feel compelled to do it to meet the “competition” with charter schools.
What a waste of public tax dollars!
The New York City Department of Education had three people working in its public relations department, preparing reports and writing press releases (one was a secretary). Now it has between 20-24, wasting dollars that should go to the schools.
What the public schools spend pales in comparison to the charters. One of our leading charter chains, operating only in New York City, spends half a million each year to market itself and get thousands of people to sign up for its lottery.
All self-promotion.
All using money that should have been spent to help children learn, not to promote the wares of the districts or the charters.
And next time you “call BS,” I kick you off the site.
LikeLike
Well, let’s put it this way “They shouldn’t have to spend the money on marketing and advertising”. A total waste of money that could be better spent on more teachers, smaller class sizes, supplies, etc. . . .
LikeLike
Schools named Heritage and Liberty? Shibboleths.
LikeLike
They would love to ad a feather to their cap. So glad it is not your style. 🙂
LikeLike
Someone needs to do a civil and criminal background check on her… I’ve found interesting things about voucher school operators in Louisiana. I’m sure some charter school operators could have interesting pasts as well.
LikeLike
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/article_05bb15f1-f88d-5e01-8066-eda251faeff6.html
James makes some money!
LikeLike
I’m wondering what you think about public school districts hiring public relations personnel. The district From which I just retired recently added such a position at a salay of $138,000.
The superintendent of 9 yrs. is an MBA with very little actual teaching experience (his salary is over $300,000) who has completely bought in to NCLB/RTTT. There has been no significant gain in test scores. He fires and/or reassigns personnel all the time, especially if they are 40+. He has stated he wants to put a younger face on the district; as a result most schools are being run by people with little teaching experience. PR has many thinking doing a credible job. I think student progress should be his PR and that the funds being spent on a PR Director could be better spent.
LikeLike
First of all, way bloated salary! Your district could hire several teachers rather than 1 PR person!The school district I worked for hired a Communications Director, and we all thought the money could be better spent on something/someone (another Reading Specialist, perhaps?) who could directly help students.
LikeLike
Large districts have someone to write press releases about news
But it is ridiculous to hire someone to make news, spin news, spin data, as many districts are now doing
Waste of public money
LikeLike