Is deregulation a good idea? I would say that it is. There are far too many rules, laws, regulations, mandates, etc. intended to circumscribe the actions of every educator.
But there is a bright line between giving professionals the autonomy to do their job and complete abdication of public oversight and accountability for public money.
How else to explain the scandal of the American Indian Charter School, whose founder was allowed to do and say whatever he wished, with no accountability for his actions or his spending.
Please read Jersey Jazzman’s take. As usual, he is right on target.
If the states don’t establish meaningful control over public spending as well as the treatment of children by charters, we will see more scandals, more outrages, more segregation. Asking the charters to police their own ranks is wildly unrealistic. They must be accountable to the same laws as everyone else.
How many more such scandals will it take before elected officials stop the chicanery?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I believe these obvious cases are just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure there are many more charters that are responsible for nefarious “activities” that go undetected or reported.
One of the great, ongoing debates in this country is how much oversight is needed of people who control public dollars, and who work with children. I completely agree that we need to find better ways of supervising people.
Sadly, in both district & charter public schools there are examples of scandals and not enough supervision. Here are 4 recent alleged examples: alleged ongong sexual exploitation of students in an LA district public school, El Paso Texas district officials accused of pushing out some students because of low test scores, plus other scandals in Ohio and New Jersey.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/25/los-angeles-s-school-nightmare-another-sex-abuse-scandal.html
http://www.dispatch.com/content/topic/special-reports/2012/counting-kids-out.html
http://www.theledger.com/article/20130104/NEWS/130109770
To Joe Nathan,
The cheating scandals in DC, Atlanta, and El Paso are indicative of how high stakes testing corrupts education. End high stakes testing. Support the Garfield High teachers in Seattle. boycott the tests.
The theft of millions of dollars by unscrupulous charter operators is indicative of the need to regulate and audit spending by charter operators.
The executive compensation of charter operators should be capped at no more than that of district principals.
For-profit charters and for-profit charter management of charters should be prohibited by law.
That would at least clean out a portion of the Augean stables that charters have become.
Remember what deregulation did to our economy in 2008? That’s what deregulated charters run by incompetent or unscrupulous or greedy operators is doing now.
Excellent points Diane. I’m going to venture a wild guess that in a few years there might be a few blue-ribbon panels studying this fiasco and a charter school bailout. Just a guess.
Joe,
Why is it you always defend charters and highlight problems in public schools? It is never the other way around ever and you say you support both…at least here on this blog. You only seem to post if you feel charters are under attack. You defend their lies, tricks and deceit by highlighting a perceived injustice in the traditional public schools.
For example, as previously mentioned by a few readers, schools/districts wouldn’t have to charge fees for sports, uniforms etc if they were not inundated with unfunded state and federal mandates, which, by the why, will only get worse with the race to the trough.
Also, today is a snowy, sleety afternoon and we had an early
dismissal. My ride home was at least twice as long due to the weather conditions. Unless you also have a weather event, I will point
out that you have much more time to read and post during the school day than the front line worker, the lowly classroom teacher. Just saying.
The level of regulation and the amount of choice are related. Because the state requires students to attend a particular school, there is a heavy burden on the state to ensure that the school achieves whatever standards the state thinks are important. In addition, to the degree the state takes parental concerns into account, it must largely do so by regulation.
If parental concerns can be addressed by the choice of schools, the regulatory hand can be lighter. If parents believe a Montessori education is right for their student, they could enroll in a Montessori school instead of going before the school board and urging that their assigned school be required to make use of Montessori methods.
That’s a nice theory but unfortunately not how the people running “portfolio” districts operate. Even with choice, they feel the need be the very visible hand regulating what choices are available. In practice, it’s more like the way economies were managed in communist countries with test scores substituting for production quotas.
Joe,
My children and I have been educated in traditional geographically zoned districts, so I have no experience with a “portfolio” district. I still think that is the best hope for reduced regulation within the public system, but it may be that the regulatory powers of the board were not reduced when the portfolio was instituted. That would be a necessary step.
In a perfect world. The biggest issue here is in regards to greed and temptation. We know that humans need checks and balances. The charters lack the proper checks and balances and now they are money grabs. The DOE and states haven’t done due diligence. As a result, we have people lining their pockets full of tax money at our expense. We will always have scandals when dealing with humans. But, the non-regulated charters have turned into cash cows. Shameful
I agree that charter schools are not subject to enough regulation. I expect that will improve over time and with enough pressure.
Education Reform is a carnival culture that worships high test scores above all else…all means justify the ends. No excuses….no civility, no kindness, no dignity, no respect, no honesty and no transparency…but golleee gee, look at those scores! It is a travesty that this man has has received accolades since 2001…his festering mouth alone would bar him from ANY traditional public school. Isn’t verbal abuse of children still a crime?
In CA, there are no rules as to the make-up of a charter’s board. Therefore, the CEO can and often does make those decisions. Since the board is not elected or vetted, the opportunity for self-dealing is just too tempting with so much money floating around. There is also no requirement in the Ed Code for parental involvement either, only a description of how the charter will involve parents. It should be no surprise that often, there are no parents or teachers on the board of a charter. Take for example, Green Dot Charters. They have a corporate board that is self-selected. Parents and teachers only have advisory roles. Or, in many cases, parental involvement is defined by a mandated volunteer commitment.
In the now infamous case of Desert Trails in Adelanto, the parent trigger has now accomplished its goal. It has taken a public school and turned it into a charter with a pre-selected board of directors. Stated very clearly is the role of the two parents who will allowed to be on the board but can never represent a majority in a vote. So much for “Parent Empowerment”.
We will someday look back on this and realize that the charter industry has pulled of the classic “fox watching the henhouse” strategy.
It’s the con of all cons. I wonder if you guys could get a “parent takeback” law passed where the charter must be turned over to the public district. How much money do you think the parents who led the trigger got? I’m always skeptical that there was some type of payoff.
With such a lack of regulations with these charter schools shouldn’t we also be concerned about the actual people dealing with the children on a daily basis.
The politicians don’t care. They’ll let anyone run these schools if it suits their political motives or if they send campaign money their way.
You might take this as a reason to limit the influence of politicians over education.
An excellent idea.
Yet many posters here argue that public control is required for it to be a community school. I have found the schizophrenic nature of many posts here interesting: political control of education is essential for education yet political control is destroying education.
I don’t agree. For many years, we had democratically controlled school boards without having legislators and mayors claiming the right and power to decide what and how to teach. They knew where to draw the line and what to leave to the professionals. Now the politicians think they know how to evaluate teachers.
Political control is a great idea if the politicians agree with your point of view. If they don’t, it is much less attractive. Can you put the genie back in the bottle?
T.E., it’s not a question of politicians agreeing with our P.O.V., it’s the reality that politicians are NOT educational professionals, they are NOT in our classrooms and they do not possess the credentials and qualifications to evaluate teachers. In fact, very many elected officials are lawyers, and they could, indeed, be qualified to evaluate lawyers. However, there is that consideration that lawyers are professionals, so, no, of course they do not evaluate lawyers. There is no such consideration of the teaching profession.
I agree that politicians are not educators and do not necessarily have the best interest of children in mind when they make decisions about education. That is part of the reason that I argue in favor of a smaller role for politicians and a larger role for students and parents in the decision of where to educate their student. Most of the posters on this blog oppose my view, insisting that it is imperative that the government control every aspect of K-12 education despite the evidence that these polititions are making poor choices with the schools they are running.